As the child of African immigrants and being born and raised in Canada, I am rather bored of this place. That is why I don't find it surprising that many Canadians stated that we don't think very highly of ourselves. Yes, this place is pretty awesome -- if you're an outsider. I understand why my parents and the parents of my friend's immigrated here when they did -- there is more freedom here, the laws are slack but not so slack that murderers can run around wild here (or can they?), the economy is quite strong (not too long ago, the Canadian dollar was worth more than the American dollar) and it is quite multicultural here.
But there are many countries that fit that description, which in my opinion, is why I always wonder, why come here? Since the days of Princess Diana, I have had this fascination with everything and anything British. Since then, I have always wanted to go to England because it's so similar to Canada but I have always loved the way everything is so "old" or antique there. I have always been something of a history buff and I feel Canada is too young/boring for me to stay here forever.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Airport Taser Death
Even though as a university student on campus I am frequently isolated from the rest of the world, causing me to miss out on important events that are reported in the news, one of the biggest stories in this half of the year or possibly the whole year was the death-by-taser of a Polish man named Robert Dziekanski. It is quite possible that deaths by this sort of means is common in many parts of the world but what made this story so devestating is that the man was calm (after throwing chairs and equpment around, however) and despite this, the police at the airport still used their tasers on him.
What I find very shocking is the fact that the video was even released. Of course there will be skeptics who believe that the whole deal is fake or planned, but the majority of people I have talked to believe what happened and didnt even think of it being planned. By communicating this video of Mr. Dziekanski's death, we are not only violating his family's privacy, but really, who needs to see this?
What I find very shocking is the fact that the video was even released. Of course there will be skeptics who believe that the whole deal is fake or planned, but the majority of people I have talked to believe what happened and didnt even think of it being planned. By communicating this video of Mr. Dziekanski's death, we are not only violating his family's privacy, but really, who needs to see this?
The Tabs: No Men Allowed
By isolating myself in either Hedden Hall, my residence or one of the many classroom and library locations on campus at McMaster University, I find myself constantly not being in the-know about the latest celebrity gossip. Though I was never big on celebrity gossip (you wouldnt find me looking through Star magazine and such trying to find out the latest gossip), the trend that Jamie Weinman, the author of this article, pointed out is somethng that I have been noticing over the years.
I believe that the gossip world is like this for many reasons, but in my opinion, the number one is because, despite how modernized and more "understanding" we all are of people's cultures, other races and even the opposite sex, when theres a chance to put down a woman, society, whether they are men or women, take this oppurtunity and laugh. Magazines don't judge the latest hairstyles or clothing styles of Brad Pitt, George Clooney or Leo DiCaprio, but they will do the same for Salma Hayek, Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton. Why? Because society in the past, and most likely still in the present, still sees women as lower then men.
An editor at Star, a very popular gossip magazine, stated the reason why they don't "pick on" male stars is because there isnt "a big male star who's going to have crossover appeal to both sexes." Since when do men read tabloids, honestly? My own boyfriend has no idea what is going on with anyone. He didn't even know who Jude Law was, which is sad, considering my boyfriend himself is from England. Ha.
In conclusion, I think tabloids are communicating a bad message to people, even if they don't realise it. It really isnt that hard to find dirt on actors, singers or anyone relatively famous.
I believe that the gossip world is like this for many reasons, but in my opinion, the number one is because, despite how modernized and more "understanding" we all are of people's cultures, other races and even the opposite sex, when theres a chance to put down a woman, society, whether they are men or women, take this oppurtunity and laugh. Magazines don't judge the latest hairstyles or clothing styles of Brad Pitt, George Clooney or Leo DiCaprio, but they will do the same for Salma Hayek, Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton. Why? Because society in the past, and most likely still in the present, still sees women as lower then men.
An editor at Star, a very popular gossip magazine, stated the reason why they don't "pick on" male stars is because there isnt "a big male star who's going to have crossover appeal to both sexes." Since when do men read tabloids, honestly? My own boyfriend has no idea what is going on with anyone. He didn't even know who Jude Law was, which is sad, considering my boyfriend himself is from England. Ha.
In conclusion, I think tabloids are communicating a bad message to people, even if they don't realise it. It really isnt that hard to find dirt on actors, singers or anyone relatively famous.
In Defence of Herouxville
The article "In Defence of Herouxville" speaks about Herouxville, Quebec, a small town that is startign to have a large impact on the Canadian landscape, especially in terms of immigration laws and how exactly the government "handles" immigrants. The residents of this town believe in "monoculturalism", the idea that everyone is part of the same culture, despite their background.
I have done projects in the past on Quebec and their constant battle to seperate from the rest of Canada, so really, for a town in Quebec to be doing this, I am not surprised. But at the same time, how can Herouxville promote monoculturalism when there are vibrant cities like Toronto, Vancouver and Quebec's own, Montreal, having several cultures in them and still doing extreamely well economically, socially and politically.
In conclusion, the article finished with a very insightful question: "How do you intellectually defend a doctrine that preaches "tolerance" toward imported cultures that, themselves, are fundamentally intolerant toward women, gays, heretics and infidels?". In a sense when we let these cultures integerate into our own Canadaian culture, we are practically kissing their feet, telling them to come, telling them that we (or at least the majority of us) will not be racist or have a prejudice against them, but at the same time, why are we accepting them when their cultures could promote such activities like Honour Killing and Female Infaniticides?
I have done projects in the past on Quebec and their constant battle to seperate from the rest of Canada, so really, for a town in Quebec to be doing this, I am not surprised. But at the same time, how can Herouxville promote monoculturalism when there are vibrant cities like Toronto, Vancouver and Quebec's own, Montreal, having several cultures in them and still doing extreamely well economically, socially and politically.
In conclusion, the article finished with a very insightful question: "How do you intellectually defend a doctrine that preaches "tolerance" toward imported cultures that, themselves, are fundamentally intolerant toward women, gays, heretics and infidels?". In a sense when we let these cultures integerate into our own Canadaian culture, we are practically kissing their feet, telling them to come, telling them that we (or at least the majority of us) will not be racist or have a prejudice against them, but at the same time, why are we accepting them when their cultures could promote such activities like Honour Killing and Female Infaniticides?
Sunday, October 28, 2007
China and Africa: Best Friends Forever?
As if countries like Canada and the United States weren't already scared of China's capaibilities and plans for the future already, it has come to the attention of many superpowers that China is starting to become more friendly with many nations in Africa.
So why exactly are countries going to be crapping themselves because of this? China is a country known for it's brutal human rights, which despite many countries protesting against the way they treat their own citizens. Many countries in Africa have had human rights issues (Genocide in Rwanda for example) and if China helps these African countries out with their national debts and gets to their natural resources and helps these countries becme more efficient, not only will China become even more powerful than ever, but African, quite possibly the poorest continent in the world can become a superpower as well.
So why exactly are countries going to be crapping themselves because of this? China is a country known for it's brutal human rights, which despite many countries protesting against the way they treat their own citizens. Many countries in Africa have had human rights issues (Genocide in Rwanda for example) and if China helps these African countries out with their national debts and gets to their natural resources and helps these countries becme more efficient, not only will China become even more powerful than ever, but African, quite possibly the poorest continent in the world can become a superpower as well.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Human + Robot = Marriage?
That is probably one of the most ridiculous concepts I have ever heard of, but apparently a scientist in The Netherlands believes that in a little less than 50 years, this could be a plausible concept. According to this scientist, he believes that if one person were to, for example, post an article in a magazine such as Cosmo, stating that they had incredible sex with a robot and that everyone else should do it too, that everyone truly would do it as well.
At first I found this hard to believe. Who on earth would want to get married to a robot? How would the robot have children? How would you be able to combine your DNA together to make a child? Not surprisingly, since I had my Urban Economic Geography midterm last week, the thought of how birth rates in countries like Canada are already extremely low, to the point that deaths will eventually overtake births came into my mind. By 2050, will we still be having children? Will be having limited amounts of children?
Back onto the topic, I thought about how exactly such an idea would spread. Through word of mouth? This seems hard to believe as this would take forever and the phenomena of having sex with robots wouldn't spread as quickly as the scientist would have thought. Clearly some sort of Mass or Public Communication technique would allow this to spread easily.
If posted in a magazine such as Cosmo, People or even Time, the articles could be written extremely eloquently, to the point where people are automatically convinced, especially weak minded or naive people, not to say that the latter three magazines are read by not-so-bright people but you never know.
For example, take this infomercial parody of Facebook, an extremely popular site where you could basically find old classmates, currently classmates, chat up on someones wall, join groups, find the latest events in your area and more. If I didn't know what Facebook was, I would have been easily moved by this infomercial and would have been like "Wow, I'm going to go find my friends right now!" but instead, being a heavy Facebook user myself, I found this to be a hilarious interpretation of Facebook. Through the right communication techniques, the smartest person in the world can be convinced to believe the most outrageous things.
At first I found this hard to believe. Who on earth would want to get married to a robot? How would the robot have children? How would you be able to combine your DNA together to make a child? Not surprisingly, since I had my Urban Economic Geography midterm last week, the thought of how birth rates in countries like Canada are already extremely low, to the point that deaths will eventually overtake births came into my mind. By 2050, will we still be having children? Will be having limited amounts of children?
Back onto the topic, I thought about how exactly such an idea would spread. Through word of mouth? This seems hard to believe as this would take forever and the phenomena of having sex with robots wouldn't spread as quickly as the scientist would have thought. Clearly some sort of Mass or Public Communication technique would allow this to spread easily.
If posted in a magazine such as Cosmo, People or even Time, the articles could be written extremely eloquently, to the point where people are automatically convinced, especially weak minded or naive people, not to say that the latter three magazines are read by not-so-bright people but you never know.
For example, take this infomercial parody of Facebook, an extremely popular site where you could basically find old classmates, currently classmates, chat up on someones wall, join groups, find the latest events in your area and more. If I didn't know what Facebook was, I would have been easily moved by this infomercial and would have been like "Wow, I'm going to go find my friends right now!" but instead, being a heavy Facebook user myself, I found this to be a hilarious interpretation of Facebook. Through the right communication techniques, the smartest person in the world can be convinced to believe the most outrageous things.
Are We Ready To Vote?
Though I am not very involved in Canadian politics, I do hear about the occasional important election in Ontario or even Canada. Since I can remember, my parents been supportive of the Liberal Party, with the earliest person I know that they supported being Jean Chretien.
These past elections didn't really affect me in the same sense that they affected my parents. When these elections came around, parents were likely thinking about which party would lower taxes, lower tuition rates (since now that I'm in my first year of university, tuition rates actually matter to my parents) and possibly better health care. On other hand for myself and my friends, some of us were actually thinking about voting, since many of us, not including myself, were turning 18, the legal voting age to vote here.
To adults, the generation associated with my age group is likely known to be very tech-savvy and extremely lazy. We spend most of our time on our butts instant messaging friends, going to the movies and other otherwise pointless activities. But because we're such a large group of people, and in the case of the election, we're such a large group of potential voters, they need to find a way to motivate us to vote. This is where several different forms of communication, such as public or mass come into play.
I went on Youtube and simply searched for Liberal Party of Canada Advertisements. I came up with this simple 30 second one: http://youtube.com/watch?v=zFdeO7bE70E. In my opinion, it was to the point and was basically just a few people stating why they were voting for the Liberal party. What was the problem with this ad? It was boring, at least to someone my age. It is important to make advertisements that can be targeted at different age groups, including teenagers. Quite frankly, we do not care about having taxes cut, because the majority of us don't realise how much of an impact taxes have on us. Why not have advertisements that talk about having tuition fees cut or maybe a new math curriculum?
A few weeks ago a politician representing the area that McMaster inhabits of Hamilton came into our communications class, either to convince us to vote, to convince us to vote for him or possibly both. This is when my friends and I asked ourselves this question: Are we ready to vote? I think at our age, we're still quite naive, and if someone much older and experienced than us, especially a politician, tells us to vote for them for such and such reasons, I think we would do it.
In conclusion, I truly know nothing about politics and until I feel I reach the point where I mature quite a bit, I don't plan on caring too much.
These past elections didn't really affect me in the same sense that they affected my parents. When these elections came around, parents were likely thinking about which party would lower taxes, lower tuition rates (since now that I'm in my first year of university, tuition rates actually matter to my parents) and possibly better health care. On other hand for myself and my friends, some of us were actually thinking about voting, since many of us, not including myself, were turning 18, the legal voting age to vote here.
To adults, the generation associated with my age group is likely known to be very tech-savvy and extremely lazy. We spend most of our time on our butts instant messaging friends, going to the movies and other otherwise pointless activities. But because we're such a large group of people, and in the case of the election, we're such a large group of potential voters, they need to find a way to motivate us to vote. This is where several different forms of communication, such as public or mass come into play.
I went on Youtube and simply searched for Liberal Party of Canada Advertisements. I came up with this simple 30 second one: http://youtube.com/watch?v=zFdeO7bE70E. In my opinion, it was to the point and was basically just a few people stating why they were voting for the Liberal party. What was the problem with this ad? It was boring, at least to someone my age. It is important to make advertisements that can be targeted at different age groups, including teenagers. Quite frankly, we do not care about having taxes cut, because the majority of us don't realise how much of an impact taxes have on us. Why not have advertisements that talk about having tuition fees cut or maybe a new math curriculum?
A few weeks ago a politician representing the area that McMaster inhabits of Hamilton came into our communications class, either to convince us to vote, to convince us to vote for him or possibly both. This is when my friends and I asked ourselves this question: Are we ready to vote? I think at our age, we're still quite naive, and if someone much older and experienced than us, especially a politician, tells us to vote for them for such and such reasons, I think we would do it.
In conclusion, I truly know nothing about politics and until I feel I reach the point where I mature quite a bit, I don't plan on caring too much.
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