AN EMAIL EXCHANGE or, shaking hands with monday morning

THE NAMES OF THE INNOCENT, OF DEPERATE ACTS, OF BODY PARTS AND SUCH, HAVE BEEN OMITTED OR REPLACED BY xxxx.


ME:
i had a heavenly weekend, because it was kicked off by depravation and repression. once i was liberated from my captors, i was free to bounce back and overindulge in everything i wanted, mostly food and beer and fishing and xxxxx. actually, ONLY food and beer and fishing and xxxxx.

i don't remember much from friday, as the drugs i was on create amnesia, xxxxxx.

i had some interesting thoughts while lying in a hospital cot waiting for the procedure. i realized very very clearly that this is where we all end up. we are all headed for a hospital cot in the middle of some non-descript hospital, waiting to die. it was bone chilling.

my father died in a place like that. i will die in a place like that. an unknown entity, a piece of meat, a distraction to those who are there to earn their paycheque. it was so so cold. but you cannot pay people to actually care, which is the beauty of love - and why it is the loneliest colony.

i discovered a fear of death i had never known before. i have never feared death, because i never saw how it would come. i assumed the best, you know, as people are wont to do - it would be in my sleep in my bed, it would be in the blink of an eye somehow, somewhere far far away. but the truth is, it will feel just like i felt lying there: unimportant. unnecessary. that terrified me. what is this life for? i kept asking myself and never got a concrete answer. my faith in my own beliefs was shaken.

yes, it fades quickly today, the concerns of work, of energy, of friends, of basketball, of duty and responsibility, drowning out the big question. I had no religious epiphany or yearning for god, lying there. i just had the sense that, even if i write the next pedantic novel that changes people's minds for 250 years, even if i have children who learn to fly, even if i make a zillion dollars and cure poverty, i would lie there and wonder the same questions, i would lie there and feel the same way.

so how do i prevent it? temper it? obliterate it? what can i do now to prevent me lying there feeling unnecessary? the world will not stop when i leave it. the world will not be made much different by anything i do to it. the only thing i can do in this life that is of any real value is to love... i think.

i'm on shaky ground. it is uncomfortable to have your foundations rocked. mine are still wobbling. thoughts?


YOU:
some thoughts+
I am chilled by the imagery and thoughts you explore.

When I was 5, i realized that I would one day take the long sleep in the ground and that the world would continue without me... I wept in my mother's lap saying "I don't want to die, I don't want to die". I have been the same person since that day, it's one of the great watershed moments of my development.

That is probably when I grew up, and ever since I've been struggling to unknow that feeling of dread... true that your life's greatest value is to you. the living of it is infinitely greater than the results of it...those who change the world forever still feel pain and die as an individual... life is a gift to the person who is living it... and Love is the essence of feeling, which is the essence of living.

You are such a lover already, too much thought about the inevitable isn't good for anyone. You'll die one day, I'll die one day... a fate that is not negotiable. it feels like it should be, because the details of our lives become SO important to us...but such is the nature of being human.

This life is for living. that's why I hate TV. that's why I love my bicycle... Saturday afternoon I played on my bike at the CNE grounds for an hour... drifting in slow circles around some cement flower beds and flag poles, making a little obstacle course for myself... I was 8 years old, or whenever it was that I could have fun and no worries... I only started doing art when I was 25, so that never makes me feel young, it makes me feel good, but it makes me feel older... the bicycle makes me feel young. I am also wobbly today... "xxxxxxxxxxxxher arms xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx far awayxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"


END

how wonderful to have friends who want to shield you from the world.

"Friend, we are lost in a storm of our own creation! "
"farn, you're standing on my roof, it's february, and you're wearing my robe"
"then what are you wearing?"
"a tea cosy"
"oh, how nice, let's have some tea"
"that's what i said"
"i thought you said jump"
"i did, i said 'jump in the shower if you're cold'"
"so what are we doing up here"
"i am protecting you from yourself"
"am i dreaming?"
"i am flattered, but no"
"good"
"good"

END 2

the curse

i need money for school

my job is making me more miserable than i can imagine

i need money for debts

my job is making me spend money to manage my miserableness

i need money for a house

my job doesn't pay me enough to comfortably shack up in the city

lesson? i need money. i hate my job. welcome to the rat race.

i'm so tired, so depressed when i get home, that i have no energy to do anything other than think about what i would rather be doing if i had the energy.

my new job just expanded my hours, from 7-5.

so far i have worked from 7-6:15, and from 7-5. who knows what tomorrow holds!

forget about making plans! because you'll never know when you'll be done!

forget about having nerd monday with your friends! mondays will generally have me leaving work at 8, as I found out today i'm in charge of the metals and mining weekly (a report that goes to print every monday)!

forget about playing basketball, i can barely think, let alone play a sport for 3 hours.

forget about doing anything during the week, because i've become a moron: i have no wit left, no energy for kindness, no energy for compassion, i'm dead. i have to be in bed by 10:30 at the latest, to repeat the cycle. come friday night, i'm dead, so i get saturday. come sunday, i'm already thinking about monday. one 'free' day.

what kind of life is this...
how have we locked ourselves into this?

i saw a homeless man sleeping in the park after work and saw only freedom.

fuck this

So I have been given a raise. I accepted it, along with heaps of praise, because to not accept it would arouse suspicions. While I fully believe in arousal, I prefer my suspicions to be had before and after work, much like bowel movements.

As much as editing business material can be dull, I did have a rather interesting discussion with a man I believe I would be correct in calling a genius.

We’ll call him Peter. Peter is a legend in the financial world for writing engaging, thought provoking pieces on global events and how these events are interrelated, their ramifications, and how to predict various fallouts and benefits to be had by tracking them. Then he deciphers their meaning. He is a serious man, but engaging and pleasant, a very strong twinkle in his ‘glad to be alive’ eyes. The kind of man you want to have at your salon (no, I don’t cut hair or do nails).

He wrote a piece on how ‘the Princess Bride’ was really a treatise on the benefits of the gold standard. It was incredibly convincing and I do not doubt for a moment that the fairy tale (condensed in the film version) was indeed about money.

Peter is an artist with a gift for making money, or making others money by predicting changes and trends in world markets. And he makes a lot of people a lot of money by doing what he does.

Some of the junior Peter’s in my office were reading Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’, a large treatise on the benefits of godless capitalism, or individualism. This book is standard reading at my office. Not only is it read by all, but the philosophy established by Rand in this book (objectivism) is their religion, and I don’t use that term lightly. They are objectivists to the same degree that there are Christians.

As an example, one of the discussions to evolve from the book was the idea that people in wheelchairs who do not-much and watch television are worthless. (I countered that, without them, the creative people that are making television for wheelchair-bound watchers aren’t able to make a living, but the objectivists were not to be deterred, so I countered with, what if you send the non-creative, non-contributing members of society to a place where they are left to fend for themselves, or to labour camps (it’s a slippery slope), and then one of them has an idea that will forever alter our world for the good, but the opportunity is gone? – they, again, were not to be deterred from their belief that selfishness is the way to cure mankind’s ills).

So we were discussing this book (read: me arguing with them), and I was saying that, in our society, as in most on earth, we value human life above all other rights (I will not enter an abortion debate here, however). So, if that is the case, and we live in a free market economy, why do doctors make less than your standard CEO? Do we value doctors less?

This is where Peter walked into the conversation. He said, ‘I have always wondered why doctors make less than investment advisors. Is it simply a matter of time before the market corrects itself?’.

To paraphrase some more, Peter felt that money is pure, that it has no bias, that it finds its own level, and that therefore, either doctors will end up getting paid more eventually, or the market IS accurate, and investment advisors are worth more.

I suggested that, perhaps because investment advisors help to create wealth, they also save lives indirectly, ie – a family comes to Canada, invests their savings, and sends their children off to university, and they have families, and they invest, and they raise their family lineage out of poverty and into comfort and health, via wealth (the correlation between the standard of living and quality of life, life expectancy, and infant mortality rates is irrefutable, but refute if you feel like it).

Perhaps the investment advisors along the way have saved the lives of generations of this family. Perhaps this is why they are rewarded more than doctors. Peter thought that this was a fair assessment and probably explains the discrepancy between salaries.

Upon reflection, I’m sure that there are examples of investment advisors who err, who make mistakes, who cost lives indirectly… but I couldn’t shake Peter’s notion that money is pure – it does not play favourites.

The doctor makes less than the advisor because the large scale effects of their efforts are different. No, not on an individual basis if a doctor has saved you or a family member’s life, but on a macro view (and money is both macro and micro, although we’re dealing with its aggregate cumulative effect and resulting compensation/valuation) advisors do more good than doctors.

I did, however, come across a glitch that Peter didn’t mention: perhaps money isn’t pure, but it carries with it the bias of those who agree to trade it.

Perhaps we value our collective amount of money more than we value our collective of people, and that is why the advisor earns more than a doctor, a teacher earns less than a street car driver, a marketer more than an airline pilot. I can't get, save, spend, earn your life, but i can get, save, spend, and earn your money. the person affects the outcome.

Meaning: money ends up valuing money. That is the inherent bias. Money is alive, possessing the same self-replicating desires as humans, the evolutionary process completed by humans in its quest to make more of itself. it is alive because it does not die without you, it has a symbiotic relationship with you, it needs you like you need it. in the collective pysche, it will be kept alive. you cannot stop it.

In this sense, Money acts as a virus.

And so a human infected by money ends up valuing money more than humans because the money, as a concept, is a commonly understood means of survival - the seflish human needs the pure money. the selfish human needs to help money replicate. those who help money replicate are worth more than other people because they keep me alive longer.

money is the doctor to my time on earth.

A stretch?

Perhaps. But it would explain why we pay Peter C$1,700,000 every 12 months, whereas we pay a heart surgeon less than 1/3 of that amount to literally take your life in her hands in a way that Peter never ever ever will.

I’m not sure either way. Both argument are compelling, and I’m sure there are more. But as it stands right now, it seems that our society views individual wealth creation more than anything else because it keeps us alive

And Ayn Rand, the destroyer, the selfish, is laughing all the way to her godless rotting hell.

there are songs that move me to tears.

many of them reflect what i believe about myself to be romantic and tragic and courageous and heroic and doomed. i view myself as a tragically misunderstood genius. i cry at a part in a song that says: "yeah there's an undertow, but it ain't got me" because i feel that's me—precariously, dangerously dancing on the edge of my demise. bouyed by nothing but courage and destiny and lies and tears.

and when others don't agree, don't see this truth, it just makes me believe even more in my tragic genius-trapped-in-a-world-that-doesn't-understand persona. it's a win-win situation for me. i get to feel like a genius, no matter what is thrown my way. no matter how many times i prove my stupidity, i fumble for words, i don't remember the root of a word, or the name of a play, or the line from a film, or what 12 plus 89 is, i will always know that it is simply that i am misunderstood.

today, when talking to a guy at work, basically begging him to get his boss to open his door to sign an edited ready-to-go piece, i said "help us obi-wan-kenobi, you're our only hope". there were two ladies in the room at the time, my office mate, and my boss. they both laughed outrageously. later, my boss commented on how funny it was that obi-wan's name is ben, and the guy i was asking for the favour's name was ben. they had assumed i did this on purpose. i had no idea. but i shortly realized that, of course, it was my inner secret genius operating through my often stupid outer-facing consciousness. that sneaky genius in there! slipping out when i least expect it.

i'm not this way all the time. i'm not smug. i can be arrogant. i'm generally not. i would rather laugh than insult. would rather laugh than many things. am not generally concerned with genius. am more concerned with eating. with playing basketball and not smoking and not blowing up like a blimp, and finding a place to call home, to call my own, to have a family or a dog or a beer. wine works better, but is harder to drink on patios in the summer.

courage.

is it courageous to do what must be done?
to sing out loud on your bike on the way to work?
to have a tube seeking cancer shoved up your rectum until you want to throw up?
to have a tube seeking cancer shoved down your throat until you throw up?

i have considered these things.
it's courageous to do what must be done. to not admit that survival is an act of courage is to discredit all those who fight so hard to stay alive, so that others might be blessed with their presence, comforted by their voices, made happy by their laughter.

life is fleeting, and we don't sing enough, but we sing when we can, where we're comfortable. we sing to make ourselves happy, to make the world a better place, to make our friends giggle, our lovers love, our fighters fight.

i sing on my way to work because i'm happy to be biking, to see the CN tower, to have the wind in my face, to not smoke, to have love at home sleeping, to make a little money to survive another day, to make my friends proud, my family, to see my mom, to go to newfoundland again, to eat delicious food.

i sing because i'm a cheeky little misunderstood genius whose greatest gift is that i can't stop smiling.

yes, i'm impetuous and a nuisance, and arrogant and immature. and so are we all! this big rambling ball of shit is our playground. let's play. by brave. sing.

Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news. Some of the fake news segments talked up success in the war in Iraq, or promoted the companies' products.

Investigators from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are seeking information about stations across the country after a report produced by a campaign group detailed the extraordinary extent of the use of such items.

The report, by the non-profit group Centre for Media and Democracy, found that over a 10-month period at least 77 television stations were making use of the faux news broadcasts, known as Video News Releases (VNRs). Not one told viewers who had produced the items.

"We know we only had partial access to these VNRs and yet we found 77 stations using them," said Diana Farsetta, one of the group's researchers. "I would say it's pretty extraordinary. The picture we found was much worse than we expected going into the investigation in terms of just how widely these get played and how frequently these pre-packaged segments are put on the air."

Ms Farsetta said the public relations companies commissioned to produce these segments by corporations had become increasingly sophisticated in their techniques in order to get the VNRs broadcast. "They have got very good at mimicking what a real, independently produced television report would look like," she said.

The FCC has declined to comment on the investigation but investigators from the commission's enforcement unit recently approached Ms Farsetta for a copy of her group's report.

The range of VNR is wide. Among items provided by the Bush administration to news stations was one in which an Iraqi-American in Kansas City was seen saying "Thank you Bush. Thank you USA" in response to the 2003 fall of Baghdad. The footage was actually produced by the State Department, one of 20 federal agencies that have produced and distributed such items.

Many of the corporate reports, produced by drugs manufacturers such as Pfizer, focus on health issues and promote the manufacturer's product. One example cited by the report was a Hallowe'en segment produced by the confectionery giant Mars, which featured Snickers, M&Ms and other company brands. While the original VNR disclosed that it was produced by Mars, such information was removed when it was broadcast by the television channel - in this case a Fox-owned station in St Louis, Missouri.

Bloomberg news service said that other companies that sponsored the promotions included General Motors, the world's largest car maker, and Intel, the biggest maker of semi-conductors. All of the companies said they included full disclosure of their involvement in the VNRs. "We in no way attempt to hide that we are providing the video," said Chuck Mulloy, a spokesman for Intel. "In fact, we bend over backward to make this disclosure."

HAHAHA!!! sure you do, buddy! because you want the world to know it's an advertisement! and that's why, when you saw how your 'work' wasn't being 'properly credited', you contacted the stations immediately.

to stand up and lie like that, while everyone knows you're lying, but also knows that you're supposed to be lying because it's your job, is a sign of a tragic and complicit society.

mish-mash of bittersweet nothings

my laptop screen keeps dying. Granted, my laptop is 4 years old (and i bought it used off of ebay), but it's not that slow, considering laptop processor speeds in stores (mine is a 1.2 Ghz. average speed in a Future Shop is 1.7 Ghz). So i keep the old girl around. We've been through a lot. but there's a problem, and i figured out how to be a laptop mechanic and repair it every time it breaks down. i just take the latptop apart. (i have all the tools. i bought a kit. i hate paying for things i don't have to.)

problem is, this is the 4th time the part has been replaced. I could tell it was going, as the screen would flicker, so i bought the part on ebay for $30 but it has yet to arrive, and i realize that i'm not going to be buying a new computer any time soon. (i'm going to wait for windows vista to be released in january).

so to circumvent paying $30 every few months for a piece that will ultimately blow, i bought a real purrrrdy flat screen LCD monitor yesterday. 17 inches of bright space-saving beauty.

because of how excited i am about this product, i'm going to be turning this blog into a shopping blog! yay! all about the wonderful new products you can buy! just kidding, of course.

here are my purchases, in months:

computer: 46 months ago.
mp3 device/ipod: 16 months
dvd player: 22 months
cell phone: 17 months
printer: 26 months
car: 21 months

the only gadget i bought within the past year was my digital camera, which i bought just after christmas, i think.

i'm not a big shopper. i bought new shoes for basketball, and new shoes for walking around. the bball shoes i had previously stink so bad that touching them makes your hand smell for 2 hours. (is there a cure for this? can i wash leather?? help a brutha out). and my walking around shoes replaced my old vans that had rips all over them. i got both pairs of brand new shoes on ebay for $100, shipping included. in ebay terms, i'm walmart.

other than that, i don't buy anything. because i don't watch television, i don't know what products exist. because i don't spend my time walking around queen street, i don't know what labels the cool kids are wearing, and therefore don't feel out of step with the world in any way. when i bike past muchmusic on my way home, wearing my business clothes, i know that i'm the counterpoint to those who have mohawks, to those with beards and ripped jeans, and super-preppies in escalades. i'm not that. i'm invisible. i don't exist. IT'S BRILLIANT.

last night, driving home from stratford with stacey and sarah, we were talking about the anonymity one gets from a big city. it's so liberating. wear what you want. no one knows who you are. what you think. you don't always have to be 'being you', or 'being who they think you are'. dress up! dress down! i wear my 3 stripe adidas pants a lot when i go anywhere because they're my pyjamas and i feel comfortable in them. but i'm sure i look like a goombah, or a jock wannabe, or a dork. that's the beauty of anonymity. for a guy who considers himself a psuedo-everything rebel/thinker/whiner/liberal/bastard, that doesn't conform to my track pants.

i'm at work. i'm going to go for lunch. this post is a dead end anyway. not really going anywhere.

the quitter

i have quit the writer's guild (www.writersguildofcanada.ca). in the latest issue of 'canadian screenwriter', there are a bunch of articles and advertisment-type announcements boldly proclaiming how much good they have done for writer's. well, not this writer.

quitting doesn't cost me too much. i lose a bit of a drug and dental plan. worth it. i hope they pass it around their office and laugh, but on the inside, secretly cry. bitter? you betcha! the SAP fund was supposed to be a potential for me while i was in school next year. I seemed to write pretty damned good scripts (or ones Telefilm seemed to like) and had my scripts selected 4 times for funding. seems they didn't like that.


HERE'S THE LETTER:
I am tendering my resignation from the WGC for your suddenly-apparent elitist principles and the resulting alienating of a portion of your members, of which I once proudly included myself. By helping to up the minimum requirement for writers who could apply to Telefilm’s “Writer’s First” program (formerly SAP) to two hours from one of produced writing, you have cut us lowly ‘one hours’ out. Congratulations. You have helped save Canadian film! You have provided “even better opportunities for professional screenwriters!”. I’m sure the WGC members with 60 minutes of produced writing are ecstatic to know that their union dues have gone towards the fight AGAINST them, and have been used to help put our “A-listers’” scripts on top of the pile. I’m sure they needed the help.

Rebecca Schechter wants to ‘increase the quality of scripts’ to “save Canadian film”. If that was the WGC’s mandate, why trim the talent pool for SAP? Shouldn’t the best script be given the green light, not just the script written by the writer with an extra 60 minutes on their resume? Don’t let those pesky better scripts get in the way of your BMW! At the WGC, we help eliminate the competition so your fragile ego won’t be bruised if your script is rejected by one of your contemporaries on the basis of it being inferior!

All at the expense of a writer like me, who has optioned two feature films, sold a documentary script, written two half hour episodes for a show that fell apart and wasn’t supposed to be produced (but later was, after I had signed a WGC contract in arbitration saying I waive all ownership rights) and has only 60 minutes of produced drama. I have been a part of two writers rooms, spending the past seven years plying my trade. But this, it seems, is not ‘professional’ enough for the WGC, despite accepting my membership dues every year.

Were the one hour writers dominating the SAP funding? Is that why we were cut out of the mix? Our scripts were better? Because maybe you have it all wrong, Jessica. Maybe A-list writers of television aren’t getting their movies made because their movie scripts aren’t good… maybe they have been writing them and have been turned down. An A-list tv writer is no more deserving of SAP funding than a writer of 60 minutes. The script is the product, not the writer’s credits. And the difference in produced hours doesn’t mean the script will ‘save Canadian cinema’. It doesn’t mean anything, really. Or didn’t. I suppose it does now: it means the WGC wants the A-listers to move to the front of the line, A-SAP.

I have been SAP funded in the past. One reason my film “One Eyed Bluff” has yet to been made is because the WGC wouldn’t budge when a producer wanted to option it for two years to bring it through the Greenburg funding process. So the WGC is lamenting the lack of Canadian films being watched, blaming that on the lack of screens, and the fact that the A-list tv writers aren’t writing films, and yet, when a company wanted to make my first feature film, there was no creative solution open to them through the WGC. According to Rebecca, WGC members don’t really write films anyway (or at least, not the A-listers). Perhaps the WGC should rename itself the TV-WGC. Or perhaps learn to bend in an effort to have new writers get their films produced in the first place. Instead of playing suck-up to the A-list, how about cultivating other writers within your own membership? If you want to save Canadian film, help promote the best scripts through avenues like SAP. Because, as Rebecca said: “Our writing pool is too small to indulge in such arrogance and snobbery.” I couldn’t agree with you more.

fc

little voices carry big ideas.

people seem to hold a lot of convictions, without the ability to blend their conviction to their actions. This leads to the mastering of the ability to decieve themselves just enough to believe that they are both moral and good, and that others are not. I am not including myself in that category. i have all kinds of convictions that i do not uphold in practise, i am sure. i am as flawed as you.

any time i see people taking risks, putting themselves at a loss, be it financial, personal or otherwise, i admire their ability, their courage, their principles.

the middle class ethos on principles seems to be the idea that: principles are something other people should have. like a lot of christians in the news in america in recent years, it seems that the best way to prove ones righteousness and moral authority is to point out all the flaws in other people. people who stand behind their views are so rare that a hungry and confused people turn to hollywood to give us heroes who are bold enough to take life-changing risks, to engage the devil within and the devil without, and to overcome.

for today, our society trusts no politician, and celebrities are morally bankrupt as a whole. who commands a large stage that is left to lead by example? who commands the attention of a nation? none. no one steals the spotlight to be heroic. death, murder, crime, income gap, corruption, lies, lies petty lies fill the television and newspapers...

...and then, a bright light. rare enough that i copy and paste it here (below, after my rant). may it inspire someone to do something. anything real.

whether or not you agree with the sentiment, with the politics, with the forum, is irrelevent.

let the cynics say that he was probably going to quit anyway, that he was moving away and thought he would make himself the hero by writing the letter. let them say it. enjoy your poison, cynics. may you choke and die a thousand deaths for attempting to smother the hope, idealism and dreams in others, that you have long ago smothered in yourself. (yes, i too fall prey to cynicism. but i'm talking in big dreamy language now and i can't be held back.)

cynicism is a type of intellictual cowardice, of fear and self loathing, thrown back at those who would make them aware of their lack of substance, whether real or imagined.

you've witnessed it in action, seen it suck the life out of a room, out of a friend, out of hope. cynicism is poison. it is not the same as criticism, which is important in strengthening ideas. cynicism is a type of blanket death that someone throws over top of you, hoping to snuff you out. but some people survive. overcome: we call them heroes. cynics call them names. let us not be cynics.

oh yes, the heroes are eventually repackaged, subverted, their ideas sold back to the public in a digestable, comfortable form. witness the "Che" craze, still ongoing. Le Chateau selling shirts to spoiled hipsters, Che's handsome mug emblazoned on the front, the hipster only knowing that Che was a rebel, a dude, a cool motherfucker, someone they think they would like, maybe even like to be like. the co-opting, of course, is that the wearer of the shirt is 'rebellious', that he is 'taking a stance' when in fact, he's not even close to being a rebel, he's merely a consumer, a place on a bar graph in an office that some guy he's never met has pegged as a "che shirt buyer". This company is also considering Mao shirts for those even more rebellious. the above picture another wrinkle in the same old cloth.

che would probably have slapped them all upside the head, the maker of the shirt, and the buyer of the shirt. no matter. it's le chateau who wins. the ideals and ideas of a movement co-opted and rebranded for sale on shirts made in sweatshops in china to be sold in a political system that Che would have gladly torn to the ground. and no one bats an eye. and even if they did, who notices a good eye-batting these days, anyway?

perhaps the act of a resignation is an eye-batting. perhaps the idea of a resignation is. again, i do not care if the man had an alternative reason. i only care that he has presented me, and now you, with an alternative response to things we fundamentally disagree with. an outlet. may we all be so bold as to live by our princples.

Condoleezza Rice at Boston College? I quit
By Steve Almond May 12, 2006

An open letter to William P. Leahy, SJ, president of Boston College.

DEAR Father Leahy,
I am writing to resign my post as an adjunct professor of English at Boston College.
I am doing so -- after five years at BC, and with tremendous regret -- as a direct result of your decision to invite Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to be the commencement speaker at this year's graduation.

Many members of the faculty and student body already have voiced their objection to the invitation, arguing that Rice's actions as secretary of state are inconsistent with the broader humanistic values of the university and the Catholic and Jesuit traditions from which those values derive.

But I am not writing this letter simply because of an objection to the war against Iraq. My concern is more fundamental. Simply put, Rice is a liar.

She has lied to the American people knowingly, repeatedly, often extravagantly over the past five years, in an effort to justify a pathologically misguided foreign policy.

The public record of her deceits is extensive. During the ramp-up to the Iraq war, she made 29 false or misleading public statements concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda, according to a congressional investigation by the House Committee on Government Reform.

To cite one example:
In an effort to build the case for war, then-National Security Adviser Rice repeatedly asserted that Iraq was pursuing a nuclear weapon, and specifically seeking uranium in Africa.
In July of 2003, after these claims were disproved, Rice said: ''Now if there were doubts about the underlying intelligence . . . those doubts were not communicated to the president, the vice president, or to me."

Rice's own deputy, Stephen Hadley, later admitted that the CIA had sent her a memo eight months earlier warning against the use of this claim.

In the three years since the war began, Rice has continued to misrepresent or simply ignore the truth about our deadly adventure in Iraq.

Like the president whom she serves so faithfully, she refuses to recognize her errors or the tragic consequences of those errors to the young soldiers and civilians dying in Iraq. She is a diplomat whose central allegiance is not to the democratic cause of this nation, but absolute power.

This is the woman to whom you will be bestowing an honorary degree, along with the privilege of addressing the graduating class of 2006.

It is this last notion I find most reprehensible: that Boston College would entrust to Rice the role of moral exemplar.

To be clear: I am not questioning her intellectual gifts or academic accomplishments. Nor her potentially inspiring role as a powerful woman of color.

But these are not the factors by which a commencement speaker should be judged. It is the content of one's character that matters here -- the reverence for truth and knowledge that Boston College purports to champion.

Rice does not personify these values; she repudiates them. Whatever inspiring rhetoric she might present to the graduating class, her actions as a citizen and politician tell a different story.
Honestly, Father Leahy, what lessons do you expect her to impart to impressionable seniors?
That hard work in the corporate sector might gain them a spot on the board of Chevron? That they, too, might someday have an oil tanker named after them? That it is acceptable to lie to the American people for political gain?

Given the widespread objection to inviting Rice, I would like to think you will rescind the offer. But that is clearly not going to happen.

Like the administration in Washington, you appear too proud to admit to your mistake. Instead, you will mouth a bunch of platitudes, all of which boil down to: You don't want to lose face.
In this sense, you leave me no choice.

I cannot, in good conscience, exhort my students to pursue truth and knowledge, then collect a paycheck from an institution that displays such flagrant disregard for both.

I would like to apologize to my students and prospective students. I would also urge them to investigate the words and actions of Rice, and to exercise their own First Amendment rights at her speech.

somewhere, someone is doing something

German 'Robin Hoods' give poor a taste of the high life
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=692762006

A GANG of anarchist Robin Hood-style thieves, who dress as superheroes and steal expensive food from exclusive restaurants and delicatessens to give to the poor, are being hunted by police in the German city of Hamburg.

The gang members seemingly take delight in injecting humour into their raids, which rely on sheer numbers and the confusion caused by their presence. After they plundered Kobe beef fillets, champagne and smoked salmon from a gourmet store on the exclusive Elbastrasse, they presented the cashier with a bouquet of flowers before making their getaway.

The latest robbery is part of a pattern over the past several months, suggesting that the thieves deliberately set out to highlight what they perceive as the inequality inherent in German society.

However, the authorities do not agree. Bodo Franz, a police spokesman, said: "They get off feeling they are just like Robin Hood. There are about 30 in the group. But whatever their motives, they are thieves, plain and simple."

Carsten Sievers, the manager of a luxury supermarket in the wealthy Blankenese area of Hamburg, recently watched the robbers run off with trolleys full of expensive foodstuffs, including Kobe beef which, at more than £100 a pound, is always on their illicit shopping list.
In another recent swoop, the gang emptied a groaning buffet table in a top restaurant into sacks, while one of their number held up a sign saying. "The fat years are over" - the title of a hit film currently doing the rounds in Germany.

In internet statements, the gang have made a point of saying their booty is distributed to Hartz IV recipients - the poorest of Germany's long-term unemployed. The benefit is named after the disgraced Volkswagen personnel director Peter Hartz who, before he lost his job with the car-maker in a prostitutes-and-bribes scandal, devised the new means-testing which is loathed and derided by society's most economically challenged.

When the gang robbed the gourmet store in April - triggering a massive police investigation that cost £20,000 in taxpayers' money without an arrest being made - they left a note behind saying: "Without the abilities of the superheroes to help them, it would be impossible for ordinary people to survive in the city of the millionaires."

Police say they are concentrating their investigation on a loose collective of anarchists and malcontents called "Hamburg in Vain", to which they believe the superheroes belong. But they admit there is a certain panache and skill about their robberies.

The gang are also behind black market cinema tickets which they distribute free to the poor, and they have printed leaflets telling passengers how to dodge ticket inspectors on the city's underground and buses.

Mr Franz said: "They try to make crime fun but are politically motivated."

ohhh, another response, this time from someone who is taking the heat

Dear Mr. hidden-to-protect-my-vanity:

The Minister Responsible for Statistics Canada, the Honourable Maxime Bernier, has asked me to respond to your email of May 6, 2006.

I would like to assure you that Statistics Canada has taken a number of important safeguards to protect the privacy and confidentiality of your Census responses. These safeguards have been independently assessed by IT security specialists and the entire assessment process overseen by a Task Force headed by the former Auditor General of Canada, Mr. Denis Desautels. The task force was clear in their conclusion: "Canadians can trust that the information gathered during the 2006 Census will be secure." The entire report is available at www.census2006.ca. I would also like to expand on some of the security safeguards in place for the 2006 Census.
Statistics Canada is completely responsible for every phase of conducting the 2006 Census. The contract with Lockheed Martin Canada, IBM Canada and Transcontinental Printing Canada is strictly for the provision of hardware, software and printing services. No contractor ever has access to or is in possession of Census responses.

Census information is, at all times, under the complete care and full control of Statistics Canada employees. In fact, all census databases, facilities and networks containing confidential data are physically isolated from any networks outside Statistics Canada. Therefore, even if a request were ever to be made by an external authority to any contractor for confidential data, it would be physically impossible for a contractor to comply, given that they are never in possession of census responses.

Public Works and Government Services Canada awarded the contract through an open, transparent, and stringent competitive bidding process following all the laws and regulations pertaining to procurement. Statistics Canada has relied on the private sector in the past to provide equipment and services to conduct a Census in a cost effective manner, without compromising confidentiality, and the 2006 Census is no exception.

Census data are a vital source of information for decisions by governments and private citizens and businesses that affect the daily lives of Canadians. The data must be complete and accurate for these purposes. We have put so much emphasis on security and confidentiality measures regarding contractor provided systems to ensure that Canadians can complete their Census questionnaires in full confidence of these measures. It is critical that we all be part of the Canadian family portrait that is the Census. I urge you to be part of that portrait.

Thank you for your interest in the census.

BACK TO ME TALKING: i don't buy it. the idea that a company (in this case, Lockheed Martin) could print the document on their hardware (printer) means that that company has a copy of a digital file on their computers, and those files, the minute they're there, can be accessed by the US government via the Homeland Security provisions, and we'd never know about it. are the files erased by an accredited data wiping technology? and why are american companies involved in this process in the first place?

anybody with an iota of economics knowledge knows how important it is to keep money IN the economy. in this instance, profits flow south. this type of thinking helps banana republics to keep selling bananas. it also costs Canada jobs in the long term. it's flawed thinking. and it makes me ill. the long term repurcussions of this are that it doesn't save money, it costs Canada money.

write your MPS. let people know.

also, i got some more love from the links yesterday. you can check it out HERE: it's pretty funny, but not my most intellectual work. (link is now working, thanks lou)

MY Member of Parliament responds: have at 'er, Ms Chow

Dear Fergus

I appreciate knowing of your concern about this very serious matter that raises privacy issues such as confidential data being in the hands of unaccountable private corporations.

It's an outrage that an American munitions company was handed a contract to handle Canadian census data. Many Canadians like you have told me that they don’t trust Lockheed Martin with their private information and they don’t want an arms company doing the next census. We need to protect that privacy and reassure Canadians that when they participate in the census, their personal information won’t end up in some corporate database. Along with the federal NDP Caucus, I have challenged the federal government to tear up the contract with Lockheed Martin, saying the costs of a redoing a boycotted census will be less than getting out of the deal. For more information on our efforts in this matter, please visit: http://www.ndp.ca/page/997.

Please be assured that the NDP will continue to seek a positive resolution to this issue.

Sincerely,
Olivia Chow, MPTrinity-Spadina

oh christ... must read for canadians

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=FOG20060410&articleId=2242


As a result of the North American Task Force comprised of the leading CEO's of the most powerful corporations in North America, businessmen, officials and academics, the prerogative right of the 21st century "kings" is becoming entrenched.

As a result of NAFTA, the creation of the hardware and software for the Canadian census is contracted to the Canadian subsidiary of the US armament company Lockheed Martin. (Lockheed Martin (Canada) inherits technology from the US Parent, Lockheed Martin, who first developed census software for the 2000 U.S. Census.)

As a result of the USA Patriot Act and the USA Homeland Security Act, all US companies and their subsidiaries wherever they are located are required on demand (on pain of heavy penalty for refusal), to release to the US Homeland Security all data held. No foreign law (i.e., Canadian) overrides the application of the USA statutes in the USA.

The long arm of the USA reaches into Canada to rule US companies and subsidiaries under their Patriot Act, just as that arm did/does under the U.S. Helms Burton law. Helms Burton law severely penalizes any US company or subsidiary dealing with CUBA, as well as any foreign company dealing with CUBA who wishes to deal with the USA.

The US Patriot Act requires that the company shall not disclose that the demand and the release of information has occurred. So you will never know whether or not your personal data has gone to Uncle Sam's Homeland Security.

Stats Canada insists that the U.S. Patriot Act will not affect our data saying that the Lockheed Martin subsidiary only has the contract to create the software and hardware. Anyone with some computer technical skills will confirm that any designer of software or hardware can create the system in such a way that Stats Can using the software and hardware would not even know the data was being harvested.

The issue here is not who is right about whether or not the USA will be able to harvest our data. The issue is why are we in such a pickle at all!
The reasons are multiple:

1. NAFTA which forbids preferential treatment to truly Canadian companies or Canadian workers.

2. The Smart Border Plan between the USA and Canada signed by John Manley December 2001 as Deputy Prime Minister of Canada and Tom Ridge, the U.S. Homeland Security Director which requires the sharing of citizen data, meaning the US Homeland Security gets what it wants to know about Canadians. The terms of this agreement are being implemented incrementally but quickly without the knowledge or consent of Canadians. It is not just covert sharing that is to happen, but overt as well. Start with the stealth and then whammy with the fait accompli.(John Manley currently is a leading light in the North American Task Force of CEO's commanding the creation of the North American Union.) Our census data will be shared one way or the other so long as this agenda is permitted.

3. The Security and Prosperity Partnership Agreement signed by Martin (Canada), Bush (US) and Fox (Mexico) in March 2005 confirmed by Harper, Bush, and Fox in March 2006.By this agreement the three leaders agreed to implement the grand design of the most influential corporations of North America to create a common unit of North America sharing data and merging the three countries into one union without an overall democratically accountable representative political structure. They agreed to expand the Smart Border Plan melding the three countries into one corporate/ military union, focusing initially on Canada /US unity. This means changing Canadian laws and legal structures to mimic those created by the US Congress removing civil liberties (like the security of our census information.)

The integration is proceeding in Canada by subtle but massive bureaucratic restructuring of our skin and skeleton, fleshed out by the dismantling of our constitutional rights without due process and by deceit. David Emerson has crossed to the Conservatives to continue that restructuring that he was spearheading under the Liberals. Take note of recently changed names of government agencies that reflect this transformation.

4. The overweaning power and influence of the giant corporations located in North America.

5. The overweaning power of the Prime Minister, his office and his bureaucracy which runs the government, is implementing this transformation, and is stealing from us our country, our prosperity and our security.

6. The excessive number of elected and unelected officials whose first loyalty is to the interests of their own giant corporations.

7. The will, determination, and/ or acquiescence of the politicians of all parties in leadership roles in our Canadian Parliament to facilitate the creation of a North American Union rather than to serve and protect Canadians.

8. The total failure of the Canadian Parliamentary system to be able to serve the will and needs and security of its citizens or to protect and preserve Canadian sovereignty.
The scenario is depressing. Each of us can easily feel totally powerless. But we are not.

Confronting this census is a something that each of us can do.And it matters. And it can even be old fashioned Canadian fun. See http://www.countmeout.ca/

This text is an abridged version of a Memo from Connie Fogal, leader, Canadian Action Party

got some love

(this photo borrowed from http://www.flickr.com/photos/justbadpot/)



"the links" is an offshoot blog of SLAM magazine. I read 'the links' religiously throughout the year. it's a joy for basketball fans everywhere. Louis did the logo at the top. I wrote and got my 'letter' published. always fun to rant on a bigger forum than my blog could ever hope to have.

if you scroll down on the site, you'll see "fergus from the t-dot writes". I didn't say that i was from 'the t-dot'. i said toronto. but hip hop is big on the manipulation and amputation of the language, so you get 't.dot'.

http://slamonline.com/links/05012006/index2.html

not much to report.

have set a soft date of June 9th as my quitting day. not sure if it'll stick. they may move to make me permanent, which i may not want. it could mean a lower salary and longer hours, or just longer hours. it would mean a bonus though, which i won't be getting this month, like all the others. generally, the bonus is in the '000's. as i said before, the year end bonus for the editors was $7500... i am not a permanent worker, so i, despite working here, don't get the bonus. these types of intentional oversights are not 'oversighted' by me. they make the cleaving easier.

i've been depressed of late. perhaps evidenced in some of my posts. my job is okay, but going to bed early, without my gal, without talking on the phone to my friends, without being able to play basketball until 10, having to cut short my tuesday and thursday runs at 9, and being exhausted all day, every day, is taking a weird toll.

i am emotionally numb. it's like trying to see through a fog, i have trouble thinking clearly. it affects everything i do. for the worse. except rant and rave and rail. i'd prefer to love and cheer and cherish.

what makes me happy is thinking of the end. it has sustained me all week.

look for a webpage coming soon that will be designed to generate revenue for me. i've got an idea. we'll see.

i am disappointed in our culture. corporations are winning.

everything is commodified, even laughter—something you do to show you're having a better time than the person at the table next to you, who promptly orders champagne to prove that he's having a better time than you, so you promptly order cognac, and then you go home broke and alone and weep, and so does he, and the makers of cognac and sellers of hugo boss suits laugh all the way to the bank...

except when they get to the bank they stop laughing, because for the upper crust, laughter is a commodity that is lowly valued, control is desired. anything but is a sign of poor breeding. so everyone stands in line at the bank, and no one speaks, except the one black lady who may be a bit nuts, and she's talking away to anyone who will look her way, and you love her, not because of who she is, but because of what she isn't. she is defined by what she is not, and is more beautiful because she is not aware of the conventions, or does not care to know.

but then, you don't engage in any type of dialogue with her... you look away when she comes by, trying to avoid looking, hating yourself for not screaming out the words to your favorite song, or swearing at the top of your lungs.

this is how to drown yourself on land.

soon, you'll come to expect the maybe-crazy black lady in line at the bank.

shortly thereafter, you'll come to hate her.

day after day, taunting you with her freedoms. she mocks your inability to scream at the top of your lungs. she pops the bubble you wear around yourself.

so now you have two choices.

1. continue to stand in line at the bank for your money, or
2. find a new bank!


a bank is a metaphor
a line is a metaphor
a black woman is a metaphor
screaming is a metaphor
a suit is a metaphor
you are a metaphor


the "!" at the end of 'bank' was intended to be funny, a bail out from the doom and gloom scenario, as if to say "ha ha! wasn't this fun! phew! we made it out with a chuckle!". it may just work. think of how different the end would have been had i just written 'find a new bank'. fairly dreary.

perhaps the "!" denotes an insult, a scream at the reader. that works too. i had intended humour as the bail out, but a scream sends the note back in to itself, looking for irony.

that's all for today.

my only tidbit of news is about how i was reading about this big timber/wood company in quebec that supplies this type of prefab board for housing in the US, and how the company prospects are looking really good because this years hurricane season in the US is supposed to be even better/worse than last year! yippee! death and destruction = money.

this was similar to a report i edited about a cancer research company that was really excited about the increase in breast cancer patients, ie - the increase in its target market! yes!

a perfectly logical man builds a perfectly logical system. the problem is, logic isn't perfect, nor is being logical an ideal. logic is a tool by which person A can manipulate person B by using person B's own line of thinking. no coercion necessary. no violence, no aggression. you will eventually convince yourself! (this "!" is intended as a poor attempt at being facetious).

hit 'em hard

I have posted one of this guy's blogs before. he's pulling no punches. His legal disclaimer at the end is great, because he knows the big pharma lawyers are watching, waiting, and any defamation will quickly land him in court. this guy is asking for a revolution. remember, remember...

the link to the original is HERE.

The New Robber Barons

READ MORE: New York Times, George W. Bush

The U.S. Department of Labor claims we have an unemployment rate of 4.9% According to "the Economist," however, the true unemployment rate in the U.S. is over 8%, or 12.6 million Americans. The difference is due to the fact that the U.S. Government doesn't count people as unemployed after six months without a job
I recently joined the ranks of our many unemployed citizens. The termination of my employment as a Vice President at Pfizer was subject to intense media interest, partly due to the fact that Pfizer notified the press before they informed me.

Contrary to press reports, however, I have received no severance payments and for the first time in my life I am eligible for unemployment benefits; $13,078. At this annual income level my family of four would actually fall below the federal poverty level,quite a difference from a year ago when my salary was over half a million.

I'm also uninsured for the first time in my life and I have to pay the full price for drugs, just like 67 million other uninsured Americans. Contrary to many others, however, I do have a choice. In accordance with federal COBRA law, I was offered the opportunity to continue my health care coverage for 18 months. There was only one hitch; I had to pay $15,269 per year to receive this benefit. I decided that with an income of $13,078 that didn't make sense.

Clearly the system we have today isn't just broke. The system is utterly and completely sick and our weakest citizens are paying the price, every day. And while I have belatedly been forced to share some of the experiences of our poor, uninsured, and unemployed, my situation doesn't even start to compare with people with no resources, no voice, nowhere to go and no one who listens to them. For those citizens we have something that's called the Government; a government that is supposed to look out for the people who can't look out for themselves, but instead focuses on "pay to play money."

Today's system is built on greed. Greed is defined as an excessive desire to acquire or possess more than someone needs or deserves. Greed is not a corporate executive who builds an organization such as Microsoft, creates a lot of jobs, and happens to get rich. Greed is to become CEO for a drug company such as Pfizer, be responsible for a stock price drop of 40% over his five year tenure, twice as much as the AMEX Pharmaceutical Index, secure a $80 million retirement package while firing 16,385 Pharmacia and Pfizer employees, and get a 72% pay increase to $16.6 million as his reward.

According to the New York Times average worker pay has remained flat since 1990 at around $27,000, after adjusting for inflation, while CEO compensation has quadrupled, from $2.82 million to $11.8 million. Our CEO's are in a position in which they can basically use public companies as personal piggy banks. And this is perfectly legal as long as they get someone else to sign their check. Meanwhile, the federal minimum wage has remained at $5.15 an hour since September 1, 1997. In fact, after adjusting for inflation, the value of the minimum wage is at its second lowest level since 1955.

At the same time, the pharmaceutical industry spends over $100 million on lobbying activities to stop lower drug prices, according to the Center for Public Integrity. There are 1,274 registered pharmaceutical lobbyists in Washington, D.C. and during the 2004 election cycle, the drug industry contributed $1 million to President Bush. For an industry that makes $500 billion on a global basis, spending one million on a president or $100 million on lobbying is pocket change.

This money was well spent. It stopped legalized import of cheaper drugs and instead we got a new Medicare drug program. This $720 billion law includes $139 billion in profits to drug manufactures and $46 billion in subsidies to HMOs and private insurance plans. The program has been such a disaster for our poor that at least twenty-four states have enacted emergency measures to ensure access to medications in the last couple of weeks . That's what a million dollars buys in Washington.

So how could this happen? The answer is simple. The American democracy has been stolen by our new class of Robber Barons--the CEO's of our big corporations. A political system dependent on charity from rich men in hand-tailored suits with $100 million retirement packages is no democracy. It is a kleptocracy. It is not what our founding fathers envisioned.

But we have the power to change this; to free our corporations from sticky-fingered CEO's, to free our elected representatives from "pay to play money" and to free our people from all these tyrants. We have the power to be free, at last.

Can we change this? Can we build a new future? I believe that we can. I believe this because we live in a country that could rid itself of slavery, a country that finally allowed women to vote; a country that has come a long way in the short time since the civil rights movement began. But early on, each of those incredible changes was fiercely opposed by those in power, and none took place without great sacrifice. To free our corporations from sticky-fingered CEOs, to free our elected representatives from "pay to play money," and to free our people from these tyrants is going to take sacrifice and time. Perhaps a long, long time. In short, it will require a second American revolution. And I believe that one day it will happen.

IMPORTANT LEGAL DISCLAIMER HERE

genesis

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fergusdecker/

i have also set this up. not many pics yet. i have to digitize them first.
it looks like fergusdecker is sticking as an alias.

i should rename this site that too, but i'm too lazy, and have such a wonderful readership (170 last week, thanks people).

and of course, i have www.myspace.com/fergusdecker. my cousin recently set up shop and dropped in - shout out to josh.

so i'm reaching out. i have a need to communicate something, anything, to anyone. to prove that i exist? to feel like i exist? i'm not sure. i'll stop posting when i find out. promise.

work is still for suckers. but summer makes it so much easier. i can see the sun.

driving to work is stupid if you own a bike (if you work at the bottom of a hill, and live at the top of a hill, as i do). and if you don't own a bike, and live in toronto, you're also stupid. sorry, it's that simple.

loans tie you into the grid.

i want black and white answers to a world i know is shaded grey.

the more i learn, the less i know.

start small

imagine if our streets were covered in this (click it, it's a collection of various japanese manhole covers, of which the above picture is a part).

the world would, however incrementally, be a better place. because attention to detail shows care, and care is a form of love, and love is brilliant and inspiring and a fountain from which springs life itself.

perhaps i'm being simply an aesthete, but aesthetics has a place, a large place, in the world i want to see, shape, restore, and create (all in one day, yes, i'm a bit busy now, but i'll squeeze it in between basketball and potato chip eating)

eating... hmmm... that reminds me of my sunday afternoon: Doc, an older doctor that we play ball with, nudged me and said i was putting on a few 'ounces'... ever the gentleman. I told him i converted to metric ages ago, and preferred milligrams as a measurement of the progression of the 'more ferg' movement that is currently very big at companies such as Mars, and Lays.

testing this out

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

interesting. was just testing that. was hoping it would update automatically. perhaps not. it's html code, but it's the same poor comic as it was 20 minutes ago. will see if i can get the code to update.

i've got some funny comics from that site though. they have a funny ratio of about 1 for every 20. someone surfed their catalogue for me, so i'll post those culled below. click the image to make them bigger.

hey, a blog can't always be about me. sometimes you gotta share the love.

i will say this, and i've been saying it for years: buy a bike. instant happiness. on my way to work, at 6:50 am, i am happy, despite all indicators that would make me think i should be otherwise (chiefly, that's it's 6:50am, and i am not returning home from a momentous and glorious event, nor am i waking up early to get a jump on doing something incredible, nore am i flying away, flying home, flying into the sun, no... i am on my way to stare at a computer screen for 8 hours and make jokes with people that really mean "we're middle class! hahahahahah! and we do this stupid shit and get paid!! hahahahah!").

the sun rising over the city, the world waking up to dream again (or, in the case of my much-hated button-pushing post of not-long-ago, waking up to dream in grey).

and i wrote this to hinto and liked it, so i'll post it here:


> Biked through U of T campus today. The young are alive and happy and
> free!
> No wonder our culture caters to them! They're beautiful! And oh how
> we try
> to ruin them! Shameful! We're shameful, with our creams and our
> tonics and
> our mouthwashes!
>
>
> Beauty, happy, laugh, dream, hope, wish, see, learn, bum bum, giggle
> giggle,
> oh what fun, it is to ride!

well said, me, well said.

i like it here better, actually

this photo you see as metaphor for things falling apart, falling away, falling to pieces, drowning, death, destruction, deliverance... oh happy villain! i actually see it as righting the ship. the countdown to the end of baystreet has begun, ladies and gentlemen. the tunnel has sprung a light!

ALSO:
i'm going to keep blogging here. less advertisements. myspace is a bombardment, and i don't think my mom can download it quick enough.

some day i'll have something good to say, and the time to say it.

ALTHOUGH: i DID get in to teacher's college.

that's exciting. for me, anyway.

AND CHECK THIS. (You may want to click the link, as i'm not going to format this. but this is really interesting)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-rost/is-the-drug-industry-evil_b_18827.html

I just watched the movie "The Constant Gardener," and I was disappointed. Don't get me wrong, the acting is great, the art direction marvelous and it is a movie filled with deep emotions. But the basic concept is that pharmaceutical companies would rather murder their patients than develop safe drugs, and to cover this up they will then happily hire crude killers who literally crucify and bludgeon the opposition to death with blunt weapons.
The premise is simply too unsophisticated and brutish to make the industry justice.
And to make matters worse, all this takes place in Africa; a region which no pharmaceutical company worries about, since it accounts for less than one percent of sales, which certainly doesn't make it worth risking murder of a diplomat's wife. I realize that John Le Carré is one of our finest authors, but there's no question that this kind of one-dimensional story line is pretty outdated.
The truth is that the pharmaceutical industry has saved millions of lives, yet it is also an industry which has caused a lot of grief and pain when it hasn't handled its new drugs appropriately or when it has covered up fatal side-effects. Merck is the latest villain, and David Graham from the FDA claims that Vioxx has killed about 60,000 patients, or as many people, as died in the Vietnam War. Among those who disagree with Dr. Graham are his bosses at the FDA, however, unfortunately for them, American jurors appear to agree with Dr. Graham and Merck is now getting killed in our courtrooms because of the company's alleged misdeeds.
A thriller needs killings but in real life the men who run the drug industry know that cutting off someone's genitalia and putting them into the victim's mouth while he's still alive (the way this is done in the movie), is counterproductive. After all, they might get caught. So they employ more sophisticated methods.
One of the most important methods the industry uses is to discredit anyone who doesn't agree with them. For instance, when Pfizer terminated my employment, they thought this was such big news that they called the New York Times and other major newspapers; they even left a message with "60 Minutes," about their strategic corporate decision to fire Peter Rost. I guess Pfizer really, really wanted to make sure that everyone knew that I was fired, just to assist me in my job search. (Disclosure for Pfizer lawyers; I'm using sarcasm.)
A few weeks later I found myself named "Whiny Whistleblower of the Year" by the American Council on Science and Health. In his nomination, Gilbert Ross, M.D., Executive and Medical Director of the ACSH stated that the biggest "Whiny Whistleblower" for 2005 was "the person who most outrageously defied his or her employer, regardless of loyalty, science, or even common sense." Dr. Ross concluded "I vote for ex-Pfizer V.P. Dr. Peter Rost, an inept exec but a pretty good whistleblower. He provoked a federal investigation of his own company in 2003, alleging that Pfizer was responsible for the improper marketing of the synthetic growth hormone Genotropin."
It didn't take long for me to find out that one of the donors to ACSH was the employer that had just fired me--Pfizer. But perhaps that was just a coincidence.
And it took even less time to learn that Dr. Ross "spent all of 1996 at a federal prison camp in Schuylkill, Pennsylvania, having being sentenced to 46 months in prison for his participation in a scheme that ultimately defrauded New York's Medicaid program of approximately $8 million." I guess that part reminds me of the brutes in the movie, so perhaps the film isn't entirely off base . . .
So am I nervous?
My wife tells me I should be. After I did my first press conference in U.S. Congress in support of lower drug prices and reimportation (you can view the press conference here with Realplayer), she told me to make sure no one had loosened the wheel nuts or done anything else to my car before I drove off.
But I just don't see something like that as realistic. Few planned murders are committed by really smart people because the risk/reward ratio simply isn't there. And if there's anything pharmaceutical executives are good at, it is to evaluate those ratios and come out ahead.
And because they are so good at this, when pharmaceutical companies break the law, they usually end up winning. Reality is that civil and criminal fines rarely make even a dent in the earnings a drug has brought in. Take Pfizer's Neurontin, for example. According to the New York Times, Neurontin had "become one of the biggest-selling drugs in the world, with sales last year of $2.7 billion. Nearly 90 percent of the drug's sales continue to be for ailments for which the drug is not an approved treatment, according to recent surveys." Pfizer ended up paying $430 million criminal and civil fine. That sounds like a lot of money until you realize this is how much money they made off this drug in just two months of sales.
With such profits, and such fines, of course the drug industry doesn't have much to worry about.
To show just how out of touch our legal system is when it comes to dealing with cheating corporations the Office of the Inspector General also forced Pfizer to sign a Corporate Integrity Agreement. Since the government can't put a corporation in jail, they make them sign an agreement in which the company promises to never again commit the same crime. Now here's the interesting part, guess how much Pfizer has to pay if they fail to comply with this agreement?
$1,000 per day.
If I was one of the Pfizer lawyers who signed that agreement I would have been laughing my head off as soon as the OIG lawyers left the room with that "agreement." (Please note Pfizer makes $50 billion per year). If you don't believe me, check out the agreement here.
So here's the situation. Imagine you could rob a bank and drive off with a million dollars a year, each year for ten years, then you have to pay a fine of $50,000 and you have to promise never to do it again, and if you don't comply, you'll pay another fine of $10 per day. Everybody would be robbing banks if those were the rules for ordinary citizens!
OK, before all the Pfizer lawyers read this and have heart attacks and blame me for their ailments; I'm being facetious.
So now I'll be fair and balanced. Of course I'm not implying that selling Neurontin for off-label use is the same as robbing a bank, nor that it is Pfizer's fault that most of the prescriptions for Neurontin were for off-label purposes. They obviously knew nothing; they had no idea what was going on and if they did it wasn't their fault anyway. And by the way, Pfizer already blamed the crooked executives at Warner-Lambert who put the honest Pfizer executives in a position in which they had to pay that fine; Warner-Lambert was the company from whom they got the drug. But Pfizer sure as heck made a lot of money off those unfortunate circumstances. I should probably also state that the evil Justice Department probably just blackmailed Pfizer to pay that big, big fine, anyway. That's the position Forbes took in a recent cover article.
In conclusion, there's far too much money to be made in the drug industry without killing a single critic.
But then again, I could be wrong. If so, feel free to make these lines part of my eulogy.
I'll end with a quote from one of my readers: Here is what Thomas Jefferson said about corporations. "I hope we shall . . . crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of their country." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Logan. November 12, 1816.

i will eventually be moving

but i haven't yet.

as for now...

www.myspace.com/fergusdecker