Float On

Parliament resumed today and the budget for the year 2009-10 comes out tomorrow. I am really interested to see what kind of "stimulus" Harper will offer for our ailing economy. I'm also really interested to see how the opposition will respond to it.

We already know that the NDP and Bloc aren't going to support it. Now it's up to Ignatieff.

I sense that he won't vote it down. It might be the best thing for the party, and in my opinion for the Canadian public since it would give us some stability. I think he has higher ambitions than that, and he'd wait it out until the end of the year for an election, which we really can't afford, but without a coalition it is really inevitable. His chances of winning an election would be better then.

I understand fully that a recession is going on, and it's tough times in Canada right now. But what I don't understand is all of the talk about protecting the poor and flooding jobs into the economy.

Shouldn't that be the priority all of the time? Poor people without employment are going to be poor, recession or not. I know that education is a provincial responsibility, but it was Harper that just cut millions in scholarship funding and hasn't said how the money will be redistributed yet. You can't have a better economy and workforce without educated people, and people can't be educated if it's not within their financial reach.

We watched a film in Criminology class today called "No Place Called Home". It was brilliant. The film focused on one family in Ontario with 6 children. Neither of the parents have stable jobs because of their lack of education, and therefore they are in extreme poverty. They're all stuck in the cycle of poverty, with no hope of emerging anytime soon.

It was an amazing film, and I might buy the DVD off of the NFB website. I think everyone should see it. It's shocking, but it shouldn't be. People live like that. The people in the film have particularly bad luck and they're in a really bad situation, but I think people need to see that.

And the whole problem with the cycle of poverty anyway is the stigma. If we can erase that and treat people in poverty like they're human, then we'll be getting somewhere. Before people assume that anyone in poverty is lazy, actually go talk to them. And then go ahead and judge them.

I think people would be surprised.

"And we'll all float on, alright."

I'll Bring the Sun

I'm pretty much the biggest procrastinator in the world right now. It's not so much that I don't want to do the work or even that I can't concentrate. I'm still at the point where the new classes I am taking are pretty interesting and can keep my super short attention span.

No, it's not that. I'm just bloody lazy.

I pretty much have no motivation to do things. I'm glad once I've done them but I'm basically jonesing for a nap like 24/7. Which is pretty bad less than two weeks into a new term.

Going to sleep earlier could definitely solve it, but I've made it a New Year's resolution nearly every year to get more sleep and thus far, I've never kept it.

I think part of it is that it's winter and I never want to do as much in winter because it's so cold. I stand by my statement that it should be spring all year round. Fall is equally awesome, but you know that winter is around the corner, which makes it less awesome.

I really am going to go to the gym. I hear that gives you energy, which I need a serious boost of right now. And quite a few of my friends have started going lately or want to go, so I could definitely find a gym buddy.

But you actually need energy and motivation to go to the gym.

Damn.

On another note, I am getting pretty excited about journalism stuff. I'm really looking forward to next year, to be in a class with people equally passionate about journalism. That is, if I get into the program. We shall see.

On yet another note, this is one of the best written and most moving pieces I have read in the Telegraph-Journal in a really long time.

I'll Bring the Sun - Jason Collett

Don't Look Back in Anger

If you've turned on the news at all in the last week or so, you've probably noticed that Israel is bombing the frick out of Palestine.

The whole Israel-Palestine conflict is certainly nothing new for anyone who has been following the news for the last few decades. The whole thing is over a strip of land that really doesn't hold any benefit to the beholder...at least not anymore. Not with all of the people displaced.

So this piece of land is war torn, the people are broken, and yet, they're still fighting over it.

I was assigned a Globe & Mail commentary on the topic for my Journalism intro class. I think it has taken the best approach to the Gaza conflict that I have seen in a while, if not the best approach to the whole Middle Eastern situation in general.

The article, found here, gives me some hope that Obama can make a dent in the crisis.

The Middle East is Obama's biggest international relations challenge heading into the White House, and I don't expect him to fix it all. Not in 4 years, that's for sure. It will take decades to fix what they have broken over time.

But the best point that MacKinnon makes in that commentary is that Obama has his work cut out for him, and the best thing that anyone can do right now is not take sides. He's right when he says that he can't shut out Hamas. You can't shut out one side in peace talks and then expect peace.

And then I read this commentary, which I thought had one good point. It will take more than just American intervention to fix this, if it can be fixed.

I also think it will take more than the UN. Standing by idly won't work but I don't think offensive fighting against Hamas will either. Attacking Hamas is only going to make it worse. Just as invading Iraq only made it worse for the US in the Middle East.

I went to go make a comment on Mackenzie's commentary only to find that the story is closed to comments. Well, isn't that just great.

I love The Globe & Mail because it's generally very balanced. Both of those commentaries take different approaches, almost opposite, and both were published. I like that. But I don't like closing sections to comments. It's a controversial topic but the job of the news media is to foster discussion, not shut it down.

Communication might just be the biggest tool we can use to fix this situation, or at least aid it, and getting journalists back into Gaza is the first thing we need to do. And then, maybe, instead of trying to fix the rest of the world's issues, Obama can try to fix the problems that his own administration made.

If we can get to the point where we're working on the future more than we're criticizing the past, which is the biggest issue in the Gaza crisis over this old land, then we'll be getting somewhere.

Or maybe it will never be fixed. But I can hope.

Edit: The editors at the Globe & Mail have opened up a moderated forum for people to discuss the Gaza situation, so I take back what I said. Actually, I guess it's been common practice for quite some time now for the Globe & Mail to disallow comments on stories relating to Middle Eastern conflict. I guess I need to read the comemnts section of articles more often.

Don't Look Back in Anger - Oasis