Aloha Indeed

Just got back from a long day on the plane... a day made somewhat longer whilst in the care of a four month old. All in all I had a wonderful time with my family in Hawaii. We were sad to elave but we do look forward to making it back someday.

Just a few quick highlights as I should be off to bed and not blogging (priorities, right?).

The Olympics were by and large a success for Canada. We should be proud of our athletes. What's up with the men's hockey team though? Not easy to follow winter activities in a land of perpetual non-winterness so I'll have to see if I can find some explanations/defenses/excuses.

Looks like politics is heating up a bit. Now that the Tories are starting to get a handle on how things work hopefully we can start seeing them implement their promises and work with all parties to make this country even better. I do have some catching up to do though so forgive me if it takes while to get back into the groove.

Lastly, Canada needs a warm winter escape. I've heard rumblings about the Turks and Caicos down in the Carribean (I hope my geopgraphy is right on that one)... I say go for it! Waste no more time simply talking a commissioning studies and what have you. Millions of Canadians suffer needlessly during the totality of the harsh winter. Where's our paradise?

Now, to bed.

Almost There

Small post for now as I'm finishing up a take home exam for Canadian History. I've long since reached the point of exam saturation where I stop caring much about the substance of the test and simply want to end my suffering and get it over with. Maybe not the best attitude for a student but ask yourself how many students you know who actually like taking exams.

Yesterday was freezing. I think it was somewhere around -30 degrees with the wind chill. It sure made the walk to campus enjoyable. I really liked going to my first class... a temperature difference of almost 50 degrees in the space of a few seconds. Only in Canada, right?

I suppose I should get back to the books. I will soon be free and then the posts will likely disappear for a while as I am heading to the beaches of Hawaii tomorrow morning.

Aloha, indeed.

Maybe Winter's Coming After All

As balmy as Edmonton has been for the past little while, it looks like we are about to wake up to the hard reality that is a Canadian winter. Temperatures looks like they're dropping faster than Liberal support during the last election (sorry, had to try to be funny). Am I bothered? Not really, and for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, this is the time in any student's life where any concept of reality is skewed by mid-term examinations. I myself have 4 mid-terms and another test to deal with in the next 48 hours. Anyone who has gone through the process before understands fully well what the effect can be when you try to remember (i.e. cram) as much as you possibly can in a very short space of time.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel though. When all is said and done I will escape the dominion of the U of A, and an incoming winter's chill, for the island of Oahu. My folks had their 25th Anniversary last year and have kindly offered to fly the whole family off to Hawaii for a much needed reading week. Altogether there will be nine of us: my parents, my sister and her husband, my two younger brothers still at home, and rounding it off is my own little family of three.

In that way, I really don't mind if it gets terribly cold here in the Great White North. I know it's pretty evil for me to think that way, but I can't help it. I been to the island a few times already and I love it!

I'll try (cough, cough) to think of everyone I know at home. Maybe if you're lucky, I'll have some pineapple on your behalf.

Will We Ever Learn?

Without getting into too much of a repeat of one of my last posts, let me say that I for one support the decision made by the Western Standard to publish the Prophet Cartoons. I think that choice of the mainstream media to continue to treat us as individuals incapable of forming our own opinions is a huge mistake.

As I said before I do not advocate the position that individuals can go around saying and doing whatsoever they choose. With our cherished rights comes a degree of responsibility. Too many of us are unwilling to accept responsibility for that which we do. Each of these individuals are lazy and completely ignorant of how the world works. In my view, a majority of the ills of society could be avoided if we stopped pointing fingers so much.

In regards to the cartoons, I don't think that the powers that be should decide what I can and cannot see. This is the twenty-first century people, not the Dark Ages! Quit boasting about how advanced we are as a civilization only to turn around and take a babysitter approach towards citizens.

Naturally, the publication of these cartoons is going to make a lot of people angry. I say good... go ahead and get as mad as you want. It's your right and you no one can stop you. Then when you're done, maybe we can start having intelligent and meaningful debate and discussion about the issues involved. Maybe then we can talk about how we should respect and revere our religious figures. Maybe then we can realize just how stupid this whole thing has become and move on with our lives.

I have met many different people from all different walks and colours of life. I consider myself a very tolerant person and I try my best to keep an open mind when confronted with these sorts of touchy issues. If there is disagreement, there's no problem: we can easily agree to disagree and that's that.

Academic Sheep

My time in university has largely been a very positive experience. The U of A is one of the finest institutions in the country but I am often taken aback at just how dumb some people are. It's mindboggling that in an age that encourages independent thought there are still so many people who must be told exactly what to do.

Yesterday, I attended what was very likely the worst lecture I have ever had in my academic career, through no fault of the instructors. We spent over half of the time fielding questions about an upcoming midterm (multiple choice) and hardly even touched on any relevant material. My annoyance is aimed squarely at a large portion of the students.

The course, dealing with urban planning, has no text book but we are provided with relevant readings (2 so far this semester) and have watched a few videos. And yet many in the class have no idea what they should be studying. Despite several attempts by the instructor to explain that we should look at the readings, our notes, and remember general concepts in the videos, hands were still raised demanding to know exactly what they should know.

To these students all that matters is the grade. They have to know that they are doing better than everyone else and they have to know exactly how to get there so that they can regurgitate the required information. When presented with a slightly less structured approach to teaching, they panic like the Apocalypse is at hand.

Maybe it's just me but I happen to feel that if you've managed to make it to university, you should be capable of using what most would call common sense. This feigned gratitude and appreciation for independence collapses at the mere mention that they might just have to do some of these things on their own.

You're not kids anymore! Mom and Dad aren't around to make sure you do your homework and help you when you have questions. Everyone has questions and shouldn't be blamed if they don't understand an important concept. But for crying out loud, this is a university! It's time to take some responsibility.

What's Up With Those Cartoons?

Not a day has gone by in recent memory without at least some sort of reference to the whole Muhammed caricature fiasco. To be frank, I consider much of the response to be complete and utter insanity. Here's my take.

Firstly, I have never been a fan in any way of political correctness. I can't stand it. In fact, I hate it with a passion. I find it absolutely ridiculous that there are some people who will stop at nothing to take offense at any word, phrase, or inclination so spoken or written by individuals and the public at large. Quite honestly I see nothing wrong with saying, "Oh, look... here comes the garbageman" or anything else to that effect. If someone wants to say I'm being gender exclusive, as an example, I don't really care. No harm is meant and none should be taken.

Of course, I'm not advocating or even suggesting that we can say or do whatever we want about other people. I think that a good majority of people on this planet have enough intelligence to be able to at least have some sort of respect for the differences around them. Free speech is a wonderful privilege and I try to make it a point not to go around calling people bad names. It's simply a common courtesy. We're all entitled to opinions and I would hope that most of us are mature and responsible enough to handle and appreciate open discussion when differences arise. To those who can't, really, you should try it sometime.

I find this whole issue involving these caricatures (which I haven't seen and have only read a few brief descriptions) is developing into something it should never have become. Being a religious person myself, I naturally hold my beliefs to be very important. They are the principles that guide my life and by and large, most people I run across respect who I am and the choices that I make. If I run into someone who says something negative about me or my faith, rest assured I won't be running off smashing any windows or burning embassies to the ground. I've learned to shrug it off and I try not to take it personally. I'm entitled to believe and feel what I so choose. Every living person around me is also entitled to the same privilege.

Those who are engaging in this reckless behavior we see on the news are following their passions and they are doing nothing to promote the kind of message they claim to be defending. It's plain and simple hypocrisy and shows an unwillingness to accept others around them. It was a cartoon, people! No one was brutally murdered in the streets, the rainforests weren't suddenly burned to the ground, and all cute kittens around the world were not tragically posioned. You wanna voice your discontent? Write a letter to the newspaper. Have a peaceful protest to voice your concerns. I really don't care what you do. Violence really isn't helping anything at all and only seems to be having the effect of further entrenching people in their already existing opinions.

Hopefully things will calm down over the next little while. If not, I will continue to shake my head... and no one can stop me.

Mix-Up

Just to clarify. My last post was originally intended to be on another subject on another day (Feb 5, 2006). Instead of finishing it, I simply put in a new one. The dates look odd, but you'll just have to live with it.

New Cabinet

The moment many of us were waiting for came with a few more surprises than I think any of us had intended. There's a lot of talk in the news and on blogs about what happened. Here's my take.

I think that overall Prime Minister Harper chose a well-balanced and very talented group of people who will take a central role in leading this country. Look who he has on his team... Solberg, Ambrose, Cannon, McKay, Strahl, Hearn, etc. Many of them, I believe, will do a fine job.

I was jsut as surprised as anyone else at the appointment of David Emerson, a former Liberal. Naturally, this move has been very controversial and I'm torn between two reactions: the desire to laugh ot loud at theLibs (how do you like it, huh?) and an acceptance that this does look somewhat contradictory to what had been promised by the Conservatives.

There have been lots of reasons given as to why this might have happened. I tend to think that there's something more to the picture that I don't really understand. I don't believe for a second that Stephen Harper would be so stupid as to go ahead and do something that runs completely contrary to what he promised to do. The same can be said about Fortier and his new position.

My own gut feeling is that Harper and other top dogs recognized that there was a need for representation from these major urban centres (Vancouver and Montreal). Couple that with his desire to get right to work and you have what we saw yesterday. It's not an excuse and I don't think I'm buying into the alleged lies of the Tory camp as other bloggers might suggest. I think there is a strategy to this... I just don't know what it means yet.

I admit that it would be much better for both of these appointments to be put to the ballot. My only nagging thought on that is that two new elections will cost money and take time... time that I don't think the Tories want to take at this time. They want to get on with governing and I respect that. I also want the CPC and our new PM to put in place thoe measures of clean and meaningful government that he promised to deliver.

For now, I'm going to wait on this and see what happens. If the anger continues, obviously there is going to have to be some explaining to do. My own hope is that we'll soon see the wisdom of these decisions.

All Moved

Spent all day yesterday and most of today making the transition into our new apartment. It isn't very far from oour last place which made th whole process a lot easier. We like the new digs very, very much and I'm sure it will work out for our growing family.

I told myself that I needed to take it easy while in move-recovery. I reached that critical point where arms and legs become absolutely useless in terms of any sort of lifting. Typing a quick note on the blog is relatively painless so I should be okay.