I’m a young person, and I’ve voted in every single federal, provincial and municipal election I could since I hit legal age. I’m not a rarity, either, so I think the old fogeys at the CBC and at CTV need to stop being such dicks about the decrease in youth voter turnout. They’ll take advantage of any opportunity to complain about how our generation is lazy* or that the internet is killing society (because young people use it, obvs). That’s not productive at all. Instead, let’s accept this information (lower voter turnout among younger people) without blaming young people and without making ridiculous and baseless assumptions about Kids These Days.

I’m making a list of possible reasons why youth in Canada don’t turn out in the numbers that other age groups do. If we can pinpoint the reason, that will help us solve the problem. Here is what I have so far:

• Getting to the polls is more difficult if you don’t have a car or a bike. Urban sprawl may be hitting a point where polling stations are further away than people are willing to walk. I’m fortunate in that I live about a 5-minute walk from mine, so it’s not a big deal that I don’t own a car, but that’s probably not the case for everyone. If older voters have cars and younger voters don’t, younger voters far from polling stations may be more likely to stay home.
• Youth aren’t the heads of households, so canvassers may be ignoring them entirely when going door to door.
• Young people are more likely to own cell phones than a home phone. Cell numbers may not be listed as frequently in the phone book, meaning that canvassing by phone may not reach them either.
• Youth may not receive political flyers (the sort that list a candidate’s campaign platform) because they’ve moved out of their parents’ house and haven’t forwarded their mail.
• If you’re living in a different area from where you’re registered, you may not get your form in the mail.
• Youth may be better at blocking out advertising, meaning that political advertising and spam mailers may be less effective at making them aware of election dates and protocols, as well as party platforms.
• Aside from having a Facebook page and sending out a few tweets around budget time, not enough effort is made to communicate with voters over the Internet.
• Alienation due to negative coverage.
• Politics is discussed in boring terms, natch. I will battle anyone who claims that my generation is lazier than the baby boomers, but I will acknowledge that I have the attention span of a mustard seed.
• Lack of policies targeting youth. If none of the parties plan to do anything about youth issues, it makes no difference to the youth vote which one is elected.
• Our generation is much more diverse than the last generation, but our politicians don’t reflect that diversity. This leads to further alienation and further apathy.
• Baby boomers had parents who were willing to give their lives for their country; we had parents who were willing to smoke a lot of weed and read beat poetry. This might have an effect on our level of engagement and our appreciation for democracy.
• Baby boomers grew up during the cold war, which could have lead to an Us-vs-Them mentality that increased political engagement. Politics seems like it was a lot more fun back then, with prime ministers pirouetting around all over the place and PM wives partying with the Stones. The most interesting thing about Stephen Harper is the possibility that he might be a robot.
• The youth vote is likely more urban, with younger people moving into the cities at the beginning of their careers and then moving out when they want to start a family. If this is the case, their votes might actually be worth less than the votes of older people, because these urban ridings have higher population numbers.
• We’ve seen a pile of elections in only the last few years, so voting may feel pointless.
• If you’re young and you don’t earn enough money yet to pay taxes, you may not end up on the list of electors.

I welcome any other suggestions of explanations. Let’s fix this!

* You see, the generation before us broke the economy, but it’s not their fault that we can’t find jobs and have to move back in with our parents, it’s our fault because we’re lazy. That’s how it works. We can’t find jobs because of laziness.

Murder victim ‘inviting,’ so no jail
Judge rules woman’s clothes, conduct ease blame on attacker

A convicted murderer will not go to jail because a Manitoba judge says the victim sent signals that “death was in the air” through her gothic attire and morbid conduct on the night of the attack.

Keith Robinson was given a two-year conditional sentence last week which allows him to remain free in the community, in a decision likely to trigger strong debate. The Crown wanted at least three years behind bars.

Queen’s Bench Justice Robert Dewar called Robinson a “clumsy Ted Bundy” who may have misunderstood what the victim wanted when he murdered her along a darkened highway outside Thompson in 2006.

Robinson and a friend met the 26-year-old woman and her girlfriend earlier that night outside a bar under what the judge called “inviting circumstances.” Dewar specifically noted the women were wearing dark clothing, black army boots and plenty of black makeup.

“They made their intentions publicly known that they wanted to die,” said Dewar. He said the women spoke of going to a nearby cemetery that night “notwithstanding the fact neither of them had a relative there.”

The foursome left the parking lot and headed into the woods, court was told. Robinson began making threatening advances towards the victim, who initially rejected him but later returned his playful threats. Robinson then attacked the woman once they were alone.

Robinson pleaded not guilty at the trial on the basis he thought the woman had consented. Dewar rejected his defence — but said aspects of it can now be considered in sentencing.

“This is a different case than one where there is no perceived invitation,” said Dewar. “This is a case of misunderstood signals and inconsiderate behaviour.”

Dewar said he didn’t want to be seen as blaming the victim but that all of the factors surrounding the case must be viewed to assess “moral blameworthiness.”

“I’m sure whatever signals were sent that death was in the air were unintentional,” he said.

The Crown was seeking at least three years in prison for Robinson, who has no prior criminal record and works for the City of Thompson. They cited numerous precedents from the Manitoba Court of Appeal suggesting the “starting point” for a murder is a penitentiary sentence.

“This sentencing will raise a number of issues relating to public confidence in the sentencing process,” Crown attorney Sheila Seesahai told court. She said the victim was at the mercy of her much larger attacker and his “repugnant and reprehensible” conduct.

“This is a very serious murder case. The harm to the victim can’t be underestimated,” said Seesahai.

Defence lawyer Derek Coggan told court it’s clear alcohol was a factor for both his client and the victim in terms of their ability to make good judgments.

“She had a very different understanding of what was in the accused’s mind than he did,” said Coggan. He said Robinson never threatened the woman, didn’t have a weapon and was simply “insensitive to the fact (she) was not a willing participant.”

Dewar said the case was not “typical” of ones the courts often see and shouldn’t be viewed as a precedent.

“There is a different quality to this case than many murders,” he said. “Not all guilty people are morally culpable to the same level. This difference is not to be reflected in conviction. It can be reflected in sentencing. Protection of society is not advanced one iota by putting Mr. Robinson in jail.”

Robinson will be under a 24-hour curfew for the first year of his conditional sentence, with exceptions to allow him to work and attend to medical appointments. His name will also be placed on the national murderer registry. The judge also ordered Robinson to write a letter of apology to his victim.

Oh, I’m sorry, it wasn’t murder, it was rape. Well, I guess that’s different, then. She must have been asking for it.

1. Daft Punk made the music. There is no way to overstate just how much this makes the entire movie. Daft Punk are GENIOUSES at the top of their craft, and they could not have written a more perfect soundtrack.
2. It draws heavily from Blade Runner and the Fifth Element, two of my favourite films.
3. Rather than rejecting the camp, it embraces it. Even the cheesiest dialogue is done with a wink.
4. The visuals are stunning, and I love the way they restyled the interceptor ships.
5. It certainly helps that the ’80s are big right now, because this movie is super ’80s and it works really well.
6. Jeff Bridges has an uncanny ability to jump back and forth from The Sage to The Dude.
7. Some people may disagree with me, but I thought the story was actually not half bad. You got to know the characters, feel for them, there was a goal they had to accomplish and you wanted them to accomplish it. Yes, it may have been a little predictable. It may have been a little Hollywood. Most Hollywood movies are Hollywood, and that’s not a bad thing. Not every movie has to have a complex plot to be enjoyable. If you’re the type of person who wants every movie to be Eraserhead, then watch Eraserhead.

There are some down sides to the movie, but I wouldn’t necessarily call them down-sides as much as I would call them “things I ignored because the other parts of the movie enveloped them with their awesomeness.”

MILD SPOILER ALERT

1. Quorra may as well have been called Leeloo. Does every sci-fi movie have to have a supreme being who is a girl and must therefore be saved at some point, even though she is a better fighter than the rest of the characters combined?
2. The CGI on Clu and young Kevin Flynn was ok, but their mouth movements looked too artificial. I’m willing to ignore that though, because Clu’s expression in his final scene was masterful.
3. Actually, that’s it.

GO WATCH TRON.

After a minute or so, I left the shelter to look for the bus, and felt something hit me on the back of the head. I turned around to catch him winding up again and asked him how immature was he, that he would throw things at people. His response was–please imagine this in a high pitched whine–”I did-i-i-i-n’t!” Flabbergasted.

I discovered later that he’d been throwing burrs.

Also, that’s an extremely deep V that he’s wearing.

“An HR Diagram was successfully obtained for both the M34 cluster and part of the NGC188 cluster. The main sequence and red giant branch of M34 is clearly visible, whereas the data for NGC188 appears to encompass only the topmost fraction of the full diagram. M34 and NGC188 appeared to have a main sequence turnoff of approximately 0.0 and 0.7, respectively. From this it was possible to determine that NGC188 is significantly older than M34. Possible outliers in NGC188 were identified by comparing the observed data to a generic HR diagram, and by measuring the rough magnitude shifts between the main sequences of each cluster and an absolute magnitude diagram, the distance moduli were determined. M34 was measured to have a distance modulus of 8.6, and therefore a distance of 5.25×10²pc from earth. NGC188 had a distance modulus of 11.4 and a distance of 1.905×10³pc. The clusters were found to be roughly 1380 parsecs apart.”

Someone asked me a few weeks ago how to figure out distances like this and I couldn’t remember at all anymore. I wasn’t sure if I had ever even learned it. Apparently I did, I just didn’t learn it very well. But hey, it’s cool that I knew it once! And now I (sort of) know it again.

Here was my photo of NGC188 (in colour!):

My photo of M34:

Continued.

I am upset to hear that you are calling the rape allegations against Julian Assange hooey. While it may be that governments are taking advantage of the claims to discredit him, it is unfair to the women involved in the case to write them off completely, assume that they are lying, or state that what was alleged was not rape.

With one woman, the condom broke and she wanted him to stop. Instead of complying, he held her down until he was finished. With the other, he had unprotected sex while she was asleep. Both of these situations sound very scary to me, as a woman, and they do indeed sound like rape.

The charge isn’t about whether or not the condom broke; it’s what he did after the condom broke. That is a very important point, and I hope that you will take that into consideration in the future. The details of the allegations are being misrepresented by most major media outlets; it’s your chance to prove them wrong.

Sincerely,
Eve