Peter Kent - you suck

(photo cbc.ca)

This is Peter Kent. You probably don't recognize him, because he's the worst. The Canadian Environment Minister doesn't care about the environment. It's sad and dangerous.

Two days ago when pressured about whether Canada would be pulling out of the Kyoto agreement, Kent mutter something undecipherable then went on to say that Kyoto is the past and 'Copenhagen and Cancun are the future'. This was in reference to the climate summits that happened last year and the previous year, when we needed the world leaders to come to an agreement on what would be done to save the planet and stop climate change before it's too late. They did not come to a binding agreement, so when this fool says that 'the future' is 2 summits that
a) happened in the past, and
b) amounted to very little in terms of what countries must do to save the planet

I really wonder what future he's talking about. It is not one that I as a Canadian am willing to wait to see unfold. It's a terrifying future.

Get the conservatives and their money grubbing, Albertan tar sands out of here. Bring on Elizabeth May and her green party (read her take on the distortions Kent is spewing on the Kyoto agreement here). Bring on renewable energy, environment related jobs, and forcing people, companies and gov'ts to actually DO something about climate change right now.

Yes, China, India and Brazil need to do it too, but Canada be a leader for once. 

lament o to do list

Not having a job is a strange predicament. While working, even at a job that I loved every minute of, I dreamt of months of vacation time to do everything that everyone wants to do: travel the world, write a book, sell a screenplay, become a really good photographer, learn to speak Spanish and French well, learn to salsa, samba and crump, learn to play the guitar, learn most of the world's history, volunteer my time wisely and with a lot to show for it.

(photo whoisbolaji.com)

So far, in my free time I have spent a lot of time applying for jobs, surfing the net and watching movies (I'm currently watching HP6 and Dumbledore has just met Draco on the top of the clock tower. uhoh). 

With my to do list, this is where I've gotten:

• travel the world - well I'm in Montreal at the moment, so that's pretty much done. can't be everywhere at once can you?
• write a book - I'm writing this blog, essentially the same
• sell a screenplay - i've decided the screenplay I wrote 6 years ago sucks massively and needs to go back to the drawing board. on hold.
• become a really good photographer - some dirty thief thieved my camera after being back 3 weeks, having already taken some really wicked photos of Toronto but not putting them on my computer. boo to thievery. 
• learn to speak Spanish and French well - I found my high school spanish text books and read the first 4 chapters of one. boligrapho, lapiz, cuaderno, escuela. doing well. as for French, i'm in Montreal, so pretty much solved.
• learn to salsa, samba and crump - my mom has a pilates, fitness combo video that's basically doing level 1 ballet. did it yesterday. i would write what we did, but i can't spell any of those french ballet words. all dancing starts with ballet, i'm sure of it.
• learn most of the world's history - this is pretty difficult, but i'm reading about recent american history in my book (well current affairs will soon be recent history), and i've got the history of Hogwarts downpat.
• volunteer my time - i haven't heard back from the charity i offered my volunteer services to. hmm. and have also been helping write the strategy for a social enterprise a friend is starting.

so ya, tick tick tick on those, and yet not having a job does make me feel quite contributionless. my main goal for this time off was to some how find half a million bucks to put an artificial turf down in Georgetown, Guyana. If anyone has any ideas on that, please please let me know. 

In the meantime, I know that once I start a job I'm not going to have much time to do all of these things, so I really need to get cracking. This video has inspired me to know that now me is the only me (ie stop procrastinating).

Alright, gotta bounce! Lots to do, time to figure out what's on tv now that Dumbledore is dead. :( still heartbreaking

dURBAN fashion

(photo polyvore.com)

I'm sorry world. I really should know better. But they were $30 (which is about 20 quid), fit perfectly and I can't be expected to never buy clothes right? Yes, I know what you're thinking: buy good clothing that will last so I don't need to buy them again. That's the way to reduce your personal carbon footprint. Fine. You win. That's exactly right, and I fell culprit to the cheap form fitting blackest black of jeans. Then I put them on and my hands turned black. Hmm. I guessed there was some excess die on these jeans. No wait, after washing them in the white bathtub (of a rented apartment) for half an hour and turning the bathtub blue, in turns out the jeans were entirely dye. I've never seen so much dye come out of anything. When they get out of the dryer (they continue to soak in the kitchen sink 12 hours later) I'm sure my blackest black jeans will be blue defeating the purpose of buying them and adding not only the energy used in creating them, but also the sick amount of water and energy used to get the dye off of them, the white bathtub and my hands. Well screw you Latitude, and screw you button that says 'LA premium wax jeans' (wax jeans? i really should read labels) and screw you inside label that says 'seductions FD' you have certainly seduced me into buying your rubbish, waste of energy, time and money jeans. I am making a vow here and now to read labels, and not be seduced by stretchy, goodness-my-ass-looks-great-in-these garments ever again.

What makes it even worse is I've done this on the eve of the Durban climate talks, where I want a binding, fair (not bullying the little countries into letting the big dogs off easy) agreement to reduce emissions drastically. If you don't know what's happening with the climate talks, here's a quick 5 things to know about Durban Climate Talks to get you in the know.


Also, if you're of the mind that the climate needs to be saved after the global economy is saved, you haven't -and MUST - read this by George Monbiot who is very clever yet easy to read. Actually, it doesn't matter who you are, read that article right this moment. And then, leave me a comment. 


Feel free to make fun of me constantly if you ever see me in black jeans to really make it sink in. I can handle it. 

to all yall suckers that don't know

check it out: in Montreal for the week. Who ever said that quick travel to another culture was for Europe only?
Ha!
I laugh in the face of those people. Hon hon hon!
Montreal may look like Toronto to outsiders (sans la Tour CN) but it has an entirely different feel. The language, the food, the people, the nightlife, the art, everything has a twist of European culture, and it seems to me generally the best of both worlds.
The last two days here has made me very happy that
Canada has such a rich mix of cultures within it's
gigantic borders. Sensacionelle! It also makes me sad that schooling in French was so poor in Ontario.
(photo terrafolia.ca)

If you don't understand the Occupy movement

or don't agree with it (or even if you do) read this book.
It was given to me by my amazing old boss, thank you Ben! I'm not even a quarter of the way through and I'm angry. It is really deepening my understanding of why everyone, a la Occupy around the world, is and should be so very angry; because a few people run EVERYTHING and those people do not want what is best for the rest of us (or not primarily at least), they want to fill their giant mansions with loot and jump into an Olympic sized swimming pool of money. Do not be mistaken, these people are not stupid, they're clever. But they're evil.

Read this book then comment.

Here's a quick excerpt.

'A more accurate term for a system that erases the boundaries between Big Government and Big Business is not liberal, conservative or capitalist but corporatist. Its main characteristics are huge transfers of public wealth to private hands, often accompanied by exploding debt, an ever-widening chasm between the dazzling rich and the disposable poor and an aggressive nationalist that justifies bottomless spending on security. For those inside the bubble of extreme wealth created by such an arrangement, there can be no more profitable a way to organize a society.'

Get the book. 

things I didn't know I didn't know 1

there's a rasta llama relative called a Vicuna, chilling in Peru
(photo delargy.com)

Drive

Wowee. Mr. Gosling, you've certainly come along way since Breaker High and I like it. A lot. Except when you're violently smashing someone's face in. In all Drive is an excellent movie, but not for the softies among us. It's fiercely violent, and not the kind of violence that's not shown or so exaggerated but the kind of violence that is exactly real and all the more terrifying for it.
Drive is beautifully shot, and both the soundtrack and sound recording are amazing. The whole film is extremely well acted by the main characters; both Gosling and Carey Mulligan are fantastic, especially considering how few lines are spoken. The only change I would wish for would be a bit more background to Gosling's character. There are lots of clues to Mulligan's, but I just couldn't get a feel of how this guy ends up being where he is - I get the whole nothing to live for makes you fearless in the driving bit, but still felt there was something missing.
Drive is definitely worth watching, but would warn the pure of heart to shut eyes and ears during the violent scenes. Oh, I also love his jacket. Somehow it really makes it for me.