Voice of Grant

Links for 2010-03-09 [del.icio.us]

2010-03-10T00:00:00-08:00

LRB · Judith Butler · No, it’s not anti-semitic

Links for 2010-03-06 [del.icio.us]

2010-03-07T00:00:00-08:00

Canada wanted Afghan prisoners tortured: lawyer | CBC News
Federal government documents on Afghan detainees suggest that Canadian officials intended some prisoners to be tortured in order to gather intelligence, according to a legal expert.

Calgary’s Mayoral Race 2010: What I don’t want to see

2010-03-02T15:55:00.003-07:00

As everyone who pays any attention whatsoever to politics in this city will already be aware, Calgary’s 3-term mayor, Dave Bronconnier, announced last week that he will not be running for re-election this fall. This makes for the first “open” mayoral election here since 2001.

With candidates just starting to announce their intentions, I don’t have anything resembling a preference yet. I do have some notions of what I don’t want to see, though.

Misrepresentation in the media

In 2001, somewhere between a dozen and twenty candidates were on the ballot for mayor (I really cant remember the actual number and couldn’t easily find a reference online). You wouldn’t have known that, though, if your only source of info on the election was the mainstream (primarily corporate) media. They decided that there were only four “legitimate” candidates who merited any substantive coverage. The media gave effectively no attention to any of the other candidates.

I consider that to be viciously anti-democratic. All citizens should have an equal opportunity to learn about every candidate, regardless of how “serious” or “fringe” they may be considered to be by those in power (which includes the media who are currently very much part of the structures of power in our society).

Power = Opportunity = Responsibility.

The current dominant media have lots of power (although that does seem to be diminishing a little), therefore lots of opportunity. That creates significant responsibility — responsibility they are failing terribly.

In deliberately excluding the majority of candidates from the dialogue, the media denied the core principles of democracy. I hope we can avoid, or at least reduce, the same problem this time around by making all candidates part of the dialogue with fairness and openness.

Oppositional Politics

Ever since Ald. McIver decided, over a year ago, that he wanted to become mayor of Calgary, he seems to have been taking every opportunity to move us toward intensely divisive oppositional politics. He has manufactured “controversy” to create the very false impression of a war between two sides on council. He and his supporters have engaged in attacks on other members of council in an apparent strategy aimed at eliminating the possibility of anyone else being able to take a successful run at the mayor’s seat.

This is self-centred political ugliness that in no way serves the interest of our city and communities.

We don’t need elected representatives who are bent on tearing down their colleagues on council, who move the dialogue from looking at the complexities of the issues our city faces to unrealistic simplifications of “us vs. them.”

I do, actually, believe that all voices, including those I vehemently disagree with, should be at the democratic table — except for one. I see no place for those who want to destroy the opportunities we have for dialogue in favour of their own selfish political games.

With that, I truly hope that McIver and his ilk will be removed from council and replaced with people who can bring those “right-wing” perspectives McIver appears to represent to our city without diminishing the quality of the democratic dialogue.

“Your Worship”

I’m sure I’m not the only one who’d like to see whomever gets elected as our next mayor take action to end the practice of referring to that office holder as “your worship.” (ick!) I’m not counting on it, but I can dream, can’t I?

New local political blog

This post is the first of mine that will be cross-posted to a new political blog going by the tongue-in-cheek name of “The Best Political Team in the Blogosphere™”. The blog aggregates a few, not especially representative (so far), local political bloggers with some very divergent viewpoints. I totally disagree with some of the stuff posted there so far, but that’s all to the good in democratic dialogue.

Calgary, mayor, election, city council, YYC CC, YYC.

Solidarity Rally! Venezuelan Bolivarian Democracy vs. Harper Hypocrisy [Flickr]

2010-03-02T11:44:42-08:00

Grant Neufeld posted a photo:

A solidarity rally was held in Calgary on February 25, 2010.

“Conservative Minister for the Americas Peter Kent has publicly criticized Venezuela as ‘undemocratic’ for applying its laws to TV and radio broadcasters. Kent and his fellow Harper Conservatives shouldn't speak about democracy when it has closed parliament for months to avoid being investigated for complicity in handing over detainees to torture in Afghanistan.”

“People in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, Vancouver and Caracas, Venezuela will be demonstrating in support of the democratic people's movement in Venezuela and exposing the hypocrisy of the Harper Conservatives who wage war in Afghanistan while avoiding public accountability at home.”

Solidarity Rally! Venezuelan Bolivarian Democracy vs. Harper Hypocrisy [Flickr]

2010-03-02T11:44:07-08:00

Grant Neufeld posted a photo:

Links for 2010-03-01 [del.icio.us]

2010-03-02T00:00:00-08:00

Creekside: The Cons - All Israel all the time

Links for 2010-02-24 [del.icio.us]

2010-02-25T00:00:00-08:00

How would we respond to an equal threat that wasn't called climate change?
“If you have lived in Alberta and worked on environmental issues as long as I have, you get pretty used to being asked, "Anthropogenic climate change is not real — how can you still believe in it?" Because that myth seems to be getting so much traction lately — and because of what's at stake if those who spread misinformation about climate change convince our governments that inaction and indifference are acceptable — I want to share how I approach such conversations.”

Links for 2010-02-22 [del.icio.us]

2010-02-23T00:00:00-08:00

A midday nap markedly boosts the brain's learning capacity
"If you see a student dozing in the library or a co-worker catching 40 winks in her cubicle, don't roll your eyes. New research from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that an hour's nap can dramatically boost and restore your brain power. Indeed, the findings suggest that a biphasic sleep schedule not only refreshes the mind, but can make you smarter."

Links for 2010-02-16 [del.icio.us]

2010-02-17T00:00:00-08:00

Chris Anderson: The Art of the TED Talk - Business Resources & Advice
TED curator Chris Anderson explains the secret sauce of a great TED Talk — and how aspiring presenters can pull off the same magic themselves.

Freedom of speech is not a simple issue

2010-02-03T11:37:00.006-07:00

A couple of Calgary city councillors have posted on Twitter that they are “fighting” for freedom of speech/expression (Mar, McIver). This is a polarizing over-simplification of the issue before the committee at City Hall today (a bylaw proposal that would put some restrictions on the use of the public space around City Hall).

Statements like that speak as if this were a world of absolutes — as the extremists on all sides would have us believe — rather than the complex and complicated reality we actually live in.

Freedom of speech is an essential part of democracy, but, as with everything, there are necessary limits. It comes down to the old saying that “the rights of my fist end where the rights of your nose begin.” This is the reason why we have laws prohibiting “hate speech.”

Our “fighting” city councillors seem to be portraying the issue of a policy to govern the use of the public plaza at Calgary City Hall as a polarized one of either being completely for freedom of speech, or being on the slippery slope to totalitarianism. To me, that simplistic polarization is a shameful degradation of, and barrier to, a meaningful democratic dialogue.

Because there is speech that does harm (with recent concrete examples in the rallying of white supremacists on the steps of City Hall), we need to find ways as a society to prevent those harms.

It is impossible to have total freedom of speech because there are some forms of speech that end up impairing the freedom of speech of others. Hate speech is the most obvious of these in that it threatens the freedom of speech of those it seeks to victimize.

So, the main question that I think needs to be addressed is not the falsely polarizing “are you for or against freedom of speech?” but, rather: How can we maximize the broadest opportunities for freedom of speech for all in our society, while protecting each other from harm?

I have heard concerns raised questioning “who gets to decide what is unacceptable speech?” There isn’t a simple answer to that, either. I do think we have a pretty clear way to figure it out in each situation: Speech promoting harm of others. In Canadian law, we have the entrenched principle of speech advocating harm to a group of people on the basis of ethnicity, gender, religion, etc.

Yes, the line is often fuzzy. Remember, this is not a world of absolutes. Sometimes we’ll just have to put in the hard work of meaningful and deep questioning and dialogue to figure these things out as we go. We won’t always get it right. But, if we stay away from absolutism, and remain open to questioning and dialogue, we stand what seems to be the best chance of learning and doing things better.

Absolutism is for the lazy — democracy is hard work (and totally worth it).

freedom of speech, hate speech, democracy, rights, Calgary, Calgary City Hall, polarization, YYC, YYC CC.

Links for 2010-01-26 [del.icio.us]

2010-01-27T00:00:00-08:00

The Nietzsche Family Circus
The Nietzsche Family Circus pairs a randomized Family Circus cartoon with a randomized Friedrich Nietzsche quote.

Calgary Election 2010 - Gathering Data

2010-01-26T14:19:00.005-07:00

I’m trying to get an early start to gathering candidate information for the Calgary municipal election coming up in October this year. If you are planning to run, or have information about anyone who is going to run, please share. You can use the comments here, or contact me directly.

In particular, I’m looking for any public contact information (phone, email, office) and web-links (campaign website, Twitter, Facebook, videos, etc.).

All of this is to be compiled and made freely available online through the next iteration of the Calgary Democracy Project.

Candidate Videos

I’m also open to starting on the candidate videos, if any candidates would like to have one done. The format is pretty straight-forward. The candidate sits in front of the camera, standard interview style, and is asked 3 questions:

Why are you running?
What do you consider to be key issues and how do you propose to address those issues?
Why should people vote for you?

The videos are kept to under 10 minutes (arbitrary YouTube time limit, but also the typical limit for how long people can attentively listen to one person talking).

The only editing done is to cut out the interviewer’s comments and asking of the questions (unless the candidate’s responses total more than 10 minutes, then the focus is on cutting it down to fit minimizing any impact to the content of what the candidate says).

These videos are an attempt to bypass the superficial and generally content-free view of candidates we get in the corporate media, hopefully making the candidates a bit more accessible to the public. By providing more than just a 30-second, out-of-context, sound-byte, the videos can hopefully help contribute to a better informed electorate.

Calgary Democracy, Calgary, election, candidate, municipal election, YYC CC, YYC.

A parent’s perspective on the disability funding cuts

2009-12-24T14:31:00.002-07:00

In this video from the “Not a Bake Sale” rally, the parent of an adult with a developmental disability speaks out on the devastating impacts the cuts to funding for people with disabilities would have on his son and himself.

Please join Albertans Who Care, across this province, in taking action to oppose the Conservative cuts.

PDD, Alberta, disability, disabilities, developmental disability, Conservatives, Conservative Party, Conservative Party of Alberta, funding, cutbacks, Calgary, rally, video, Closed Captioned.

Fighting Disability Cuts - Now Closed-Captioned

2009-12-23T13:43:00.003-07:00

I’ve posted Another video from the “Not a Bake Sale” rally opposing the life-wrecking funding cuts to people with developmental disabilities in Alberta. This time, specific calls to action that all Albertans can participate in to oppose the cuts.

Please join Albertans Who Care, across this province, in taking action to oppose the Conservative cuts.

Closed-Captioning for the hearing-impaired

YouTube has made it pretty simple to add captions or multi-lingual subtitles to videos. They’ve posted a guide on how to create and add captions to videos you have posted on their site.

While adding captions makes your videos more accessible to the hearing-impaired (or people with non-functioning audio on their computers), it also makes your videos more “findable” by providing more text that can be searched.

You can also use this mechanism to add subtitles in different languages.

PDD, Alberta, disability, disabilities, developmental disability, Conservatives, Conservative Party, Conservative Party of Alberta, funding, cutbacks, Calgary, rally, video, Closed Captioned.

Ryan Geake from the “Not a Bake Sale” rally

2009-12-22T13:11:00.003-07:00

Another video from the “Not a Bake Sale” rally opposing the dastardly funding cuts to people with developmental disabilities in Alberta. This time, Ryan Geake introduces the million-dollar bake sale items.

Please join Albertans Who Care, across this province, in taking action to oppose the Conservative cuts.

PDD, Alberta, disability, disabilities, developmental disability, Conservatives, Conservative Party, Conservative Party of Alberta, funding, cutbacks, Calgary, rally.

Alberta’s Conservative government threatens the well-being of people with disabilities

2009-12-21T17:41:00.005-07:00

The Conservative government of Alberta is trying to take back money they had committed to provide needed supports for people with disabilities in our province ($12 million in the last part of the year for People with Developmental Disabilities across Alberta). The Conservatives are endangering the welfare of some of our most vulnerable citizens at the same time they are giving billions of dollars to private oil and gas companies — the wealthiest industry in our province.

Please join Albertans Who Care, across this province, in taking action to oppose the Conservative cuts.

In Calgary, there was a public rally held on December 18, 2009, to oppose the vicious funding cuts. Called the “Not a Bake Sale”, the rally featured such items as a million-dollar cupcake (which, oddly enough, no one bought).

In this video from the rally, Elaine Yost, Executive Director of Options, speaks to the impacts the funding cuts would have on the programs and services provided by agencies that provide support to people with disabilities.

PDD, Alberta, disability, disabilities, developmental disability, Conservatives, Conservative Party, Conservative Party of Alberta, funding, cutbacks, Calgary, rally.

The immorality of most personal motor vehicles

2009-09-04T10:47:00.005-06:00

In terms of individual human activities, private motor vehicles have one of the highest — if not the highest — rates of killing people who are not in the vehicle causing the accident (such as pedestrians, cyclists and people in other vehicles).

From a moral standpoint, using a private motor vehicle — when there is a safer alternative available — means valuing personal convenience over the lives of others.

To be clear: Given that most travel and transport could be done with safer alternatives, the vast majority of drivers and their passengers are effectively saying that they are willing to endanger the lives of other people for their own, selfish, convenience.

That’s without even getting into the awful environmental, social and economic impacts of a society that supports personal motor vehicles when there could be viable alternatives.

Please note that I am careful to not make this a value judgement against every single driver or personal motorized vehicle. There are situations where there aren’t viable alternatives (such as for many emergency vehicles, some rural usage and some transportation of the physically impaired). There are also situations where it is a community or society as a whole that is responsible for failing to support alternatives. In those cases, the individual who does not have a viable alternative may not be acting immorally in driving a personal vehicle, but they do hold the moral responsibility to do everything they can to push their society to change for the better.

I am also very specifically referring to personal motor vehicles, such as cars and trucks. Mass-transit, while often using motor-vehicles, has a much lower rate of injury and death than private motor vehicles.

car, truck, suv, motorvehicle, immoral, unethical, morals, morality, killing, convenience, driving, transportation.

Why I’m quitting the critical mass bike rides

2009-08-27T17:15:00.002-06:00

For me, the fundamental goal of the critical mass rides is pretty straight forward, and can be summed up with a frequent chant from the rides here:

More bikes; less cars!

We’ve been coming together as a bunch of cyclists in Calgary every month since the late 1990’s to try to show that bikes belong on the road, to encourage people to get out of their cars and onto bikes, and to encourage cyclists to feel confident about riding streets suitable for commuting.

What has become clear to me is that some of the people who show up to the critical mass rides don’t share that goal. Their goal is to express their anger at cars. This results in some riders trying to block traffic by spreading out to take up all lanes (even when there’s just a few of us in the ride), riding aggravatingly slow specifically to annoy the drivers behind them, and even shouting obscenities at drivers.

Last month, my tolerance for this abusive behaviour and willingness to expend effort to try to mitigate it — after almost a decade participating in the Calgary rides — finally ended.

Hostility isn’t helpful

Being abusive toward drivers may be a “release” for the individuals who do it, but it harms the cause. Drivers who are angered by the harassment are not going to be inspired to drive more safely around bikes, they are not going to see cycling as a positive mode of transportation, they are not going to be inclined to ride a bike instead. Rather, they will dig in their heals and become more aggressive in their driving.

I have seen very direct and immediate results of this with the few occasions where angered drivers have hit critical mass riders from behind (thankfully, these attacks have so far been not enough to knock the bike over or cause injury, but that can be put down to luck that is sure to eventually run out). There was even at least one case where an angered driver threw a non-empty plastic water bottle at a rider.

Even if folks don’t care about angering the drivers and pushing them away from cycling, the harassment of drivers that some individuals take it upon themselves to do during the critical mass rides puts their fellow riders in immediate danger.

My activism centres around reducing (ideally, eliminating) harm in the world. Anyone who is adding harm is not an ally.

I believe the first priority of anyone in the rides needs to be the safety of the other riders. Anything that compromises that is not appropriate.

Another cost: Fewer participants

Another big area of impact from the hostility of some individual riders is that it keeps a lot of potential riders away. In the countless discussions I’ve had with people at and away from the rides, it’s clear that the hostility is probably the biggest factor in keeping the participant numbers down (Calgary has among the smallest critical mass rides of any of the cities participating — quite possibly the smallest per-capita).

Being in a hostile situation is not most people’s idea of a good time.

Critical mass can’t be “fixed”

All that said, critical mass is a “happening,” not an organization. No one has any authority, there is no decision making body or way to set down rules. That’s all well and good when all the riders share a constructive intention but, when some individuals who don’t care about others’ well-being infiltrate the ride, it can end up doing more damage than good.

I and no one else is in any position to exclude the damaging behaviours from the critical mass ride. I’ve tried for years now to use “moral persuasion” and leading by example, but that has proven to be unable to stop the un-compassionate individualistic mindset.

So, I decided part-way through last months ride, when I again saw a few individuals take it upon themselves to endanger their fellow riders, that that was my very last critical mass ride.

After almost a decade in the rides, you could say I’m more than a little disappointed.

An alternative?

At the same time I decided to quit critical mass, I also decided to pursue an alternative for advancing cycling. I want some other form of mass ride that overcomes the harms associated with critical mass.

Here are the things I want to see in a ride:

Safety as the clear top priority for everyone.
Showing that cycling is fun.
Taking the old slogan to heart in our practice: “We’re not blocking traffic; we are traffic!”

I want a ride where parents look forward to bringing their kids, where seniors feel welcome and embraced, where the types of cyclists who are nowhere to be seen at critical mass show up in droves because they know to expect a safe, fun and constructive event.

I want a ride where cyclists we pass, pedestrians and people in cars will end up thinking “that looks like fun — I wish I was riding a bike.”

Interestingly enough, within a week of my decision to quit critical mass, I came across the similarly motivated Critical Manners movement. There are some ideas from those rides that might apply to a new ride here.

Dealing with disruptions

One of the key differences from critical mass would be in the approach to anyone engaging in hostility during a ride. I think we need to have a clear set of rules, and a clear set of responses to violations.

For example, if an individual or a few decide to try to block traffic by taking all the lanes (or the like), the group of riders could first ask them to stop that. Failing that, the ride could pull over to the side, stop, and wait for the hostile riders to leave. Not so much fun, but the hostiles would hopefully soon learn that they don’t have the right to impose their individual will on the rest of the riders.

Where to from here?

My intention now is to try to get a first ride happening in September — not on critical mass night. I am also actively discouraging people from participating in the critical mass rides. I’m hoping, sadly, that it will die out here so that it won’t continue to create more harm for cyclists.

I encourage folks to chat me up on this in person. You can also post comments here or on the Calgary Critical Mass discussion board.

What are your ideas for making a successful ride that will engage a wide range of cyclists and promote cycling in our city?

critical mass, critical manners, cycling, bicycle, activism.

Introducing Calgary MediaCamp

2009-08-07T17:10:00.003-06:00

With all the video production I’ve been doing lately, my recent experiences at CivicCamp and TransitCamp, and with the reminder that Media Democracy Day is coming up in October, I’ve been thinking about what we could do in Calgary to advance local media.

Over the past week, I’ve talked with a number of folks who work on their own projects or with local organizations producing media. The idea of holding a “MediaCamp” unconference is starting to come together.

MediaCamp would be an opportunity for people to share existing and new media projects, build new collaborations, and advance the state of media democracy in our city. It would bring together people in the city who are working on — or wanting to work on — media, especially (but not exclusively) independent and non-commercial.

This is to have a pretty broad scope, welcoming people with all manner of media involvement: Advocates, arts, bloggers, books, commentators, documentaries, editors, hosts, journalists, podcasts, print, publishers, radio, reporters, television, videographers, web, etc.

I’m starting to pull together planning meetings this month. If you have ideas for this and want to get involved, please check out the Calgary MediaCamp group I’ve set up for the organizing.

Calgary, MediaCamp, YYC media, yyc, media, media democracy, Media Democracy Day.

Bow River Flow Press Conference: Clean Calgary [Flickr]

2009-08-01T19:24:14-07:00

Grant Neufeld posted a photo:

Natalie Odd, of the Clean Calgary Association, spoke at the press conference for the Bow River Flow. The event will be held on Sunday, August 23, 2009, from 10am to 4pm.

Bow River Flow Press Conference: HSCA [Flickr]

2009-08-01T19:23:18-07:00

Grant Neufeld posted a photo:

Kerry Treherne, of the Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Association, spoke at the press conference for the Bow River Flow. The event will be held on Sunday, August 23, 2009, from 10am to 4pm.

Connecting with urban agriculture in Calgary

2009-07-24T23:58:00.002-06:00

Blog: Calgary Urban Agriculture is a blog I contribute to. Links to articles, guides, videos, commentary and other resources, as well as notices of events and local actions.

Email: Calgary Urban Agriculture Google Group is an email list of announcements, planning and discussion for people wanting to work on and advance urban agriculture in Calgary.

Facebook: Urban Agriculture Calgary is for connecting people who are on Facebook.

Meetup: Calgary Community Gardens Meetup Group.

urban agriculture, food security, agriculture, Calgary, yyc, communitygarden, gardening.

The many shortcomings of the City of Calgary’s website

2009-07-23T23:56:00.001-06:00

With the push toward open data at Calgary City Hall, and complaints about some members of council setting up their own, individual, websites to communicate with their constituents, the many limitations of the calgary.ca website are coming to the fore.

From slow update times, difficult navigation and the lack of a lot of information people might actually reasonably want from the city, to the use of proprietary content formats (such as Microsoft’s painful Windows Media Player format for city council streaming webcasts) and unintelligible and difficult to share URLs like:

http://www.calgary.ca/portal/server.pt/ gateway/PTARGS_0_0_771_200_0_43/ http%3B/content.calgary.ca/CCA/ City+Hall/Municipal+Government/ Office+of+the+Aldermen/ Office+of+the+Aldermen.htm

There is, as they say, lots of room for improvement.

Some commentators have been complaining about the websites set up by individual council members, portraying them as just self-promotion for those politicians. While there may be some of that at play, the question that really concerns me in this is: Why did those councillors feel the calgary.ca website wasn’t adequate?

I’ve had my own speculations for a while now; primarily around bureaucracy and difficulty of use. Today, however, I got the chance to ask some of the council members directly. There were some points that stood out in those discussions. The administration of the existing site has very restrictive content policies, limiting what can be posted; the councillors do not have the ability to just post information for their constituents. There can be considerable delays in content going through the required channels before appearing on the site, greatly limiting the capacity for the timely sharing of the information that is allowed. The site is awkward for end users meaning that even if the information is somewhere on it, many users won’t be able to find it.

There are, however, some cracks in the tower of the City’s web infrastructure. The existence of the individual council websites is one part of that, putting pressure for change by embarrassing the main site. The new “Calgary City News Blog” produced by some staff at the City and the City of Calgary’s Twitter feed are providing avenues that are opening up the City’s flow of information a bit, but which also end up highlighting inadequacies of the calgary.ca site.

I think we may, finally, be hitting the point where the City may be ready to begin replacing the old, inaccessible and restrictive, calgary.ca website with internet access for citizens that opens things up not just to rapid information flow and access, but also to citizen input in the vein of so-called “Government 2.0”.

This is looking to be quite exciting, and could potentially contribute to a real advance for local democracy. Colour me actually hopeful.

This could be an amazing project to be a part of. I actually envy those folks at the city who will get to be a part of designing and building the new systems. (Now, who do I have to talk to to get them to hire me as a project lead on designing this new web infrastructure? [he said with a sigh…] )

Calgary City Hall, Calgary, city hall, yyc, yyc cc, government 2.0, calgary.ca.

Essential reading on why rape jokes perpetuate harm

2009-07-22T15:53:00.003-06:00

For people who are not survivors of rape, get ready for some seriously valuable learning about rape in our society. This is such essential reading in my view, that the only people who I think can reasonably skip it are rape survivors (given that it has lots of trigger potential) — although many survivors may still find it very worth reading.

“A woman walks into a rape, uh, bar” is an excellent exploration of the way the use of “humour” (in quotes because it’s not really funny) is used to reinforce the acceptance of rape in our culture. I don’t really have anything to add to it, so I’ll just say: Please read the article now.

rape, humour, joke, sexism, oppression, sexual violence, must read, feminist.

Brian Pincott discusses the coming election year for Calgary City Council

2009-07-21T07:13:00.003-06:00

Here’s news that’s sure to shock all of… nobody. Brian Pincott, city councillor for Calgary Ward 11, “revealed” to me in an interview yesterday that he intends to run for re-election in the next municipal election (October, 2010).

Not much of a scoop, I know, but it’s my first. I had to agree not to take the scoop on a more surprising tidbit he revealed to me in the interview because another buddy gets to announce that one. I’ve prepped the video, though, and will post it once the announcement is made. Actually quite exciting to me.

Here’s the video clip of Brian talking about the coming “election year” and his intention to run:

Brian Pincott, Ward 11, Calgary, city hall, city council, YYC CC.

Counterintuitive, but true: Reducing lanes improves traffic flow

2009-07-20T23:18:00.005-06:00

It’s easy to make the assumption that if you reduce the number of lanes on busy roads that you’ll get greater congestion. It’s harder to comprehend that the reality can be quite the opposite.

In New York, a city notorious for high levels of traffic congestion, an experiment with car-free squares on Broadway (not what you would call low-traffic or a side-street) has had a very positive impact on traffic flow, in addition to the expected benefits to pedestrians and cyclists.

What is also impressive is how quickly a relatively simple and inexpensive realignment of roadways can transform things.

This short video from Streetfilms really highlights the positive impact of road closures for almost everyone affected.

closures, street closures, public space, traffic, roads, urban, transportation, car-free, pedestrian.

Videos: Friends of Medicare rally from May

2009-07-19T11:30:00.005-06:00

Earlier this month, I finally posted videos from the Friends of Medicare rally for public healthcare that was held at the Alberta Legislature, in Edmonton, on May 5, 2009.

People drove and bussed in from many communities around the province. Along with a variety of speakers, the rally featured a few different musical groups: A rock band who’s name I didn’t catch, Edmonton’s Raging Grannies, and Notre Dame des Bananes.

I didn’t post everything from the rally, but here is what I did put up:

Speakers

Diana Gibson, researcher.
Raging Grannies speak on “Two Doors to Healthcare”.
Jan Buterman, transgendered Albertans and access to gender reassignment surgery (GRS).
Brian Mason, Alberta NDP leader.
Hugh MacDonald, Alberta Liberal MLA.
David Eggen, executive director of Friends of Medicare, presents a petition to the Legislature.

Music

Edmonton’s Raging Grannies
We Shall Not be Moved, sung by everybody at the end of the rally.

healthcare, public healthcare, medicare, Friends of Medicare, rally, Alberta, legislature, Alberta Legislature, Edmonton.

Calgary Critical Mass — June 2009 [Flickr]

2009-07-02T16:09:12-07:00

Grant Neufeld posted a photo:

The Calgary critical mass bike ride in June, 2009, saw close to 40 cyclists participate.

The rides have been going on in Calgary since the late 1990’s, and happen every month on the last Friday, gathering at 5:30pm (usually leaving closer to 6pm). We gather at Eau Claire Plaza (between the YMCA and the Eau Claire Market — 101 - 3 Street SW). The route is usually random, being determined as we ride by whomever happens to be in front.

“We’re not blocking traffic.
We are traffic!”

Democracy with ballots not bullets [Flickr]

2009-06-20T16:34:44-07:00

Grant Neufeld posted a photo:

The Calgary Iranian communities held a rally calling for democracy and an end to the violence taking place in Iran. Saturday, June 19, 2009.

(I’ve obscured or altered most faces to protect those who might face reprisal for speaking out against the Iranian government.)

Stop violence in Iran [Flickr]

2009-06-20T16:34:14-07:00

Grant Neufeld posted a photo:

Iran Rally in Calgary - 24 [Flickr]

2009-06-20T16:33:40-07:00

Grant Neufeld posted a photo:

Iran Rally in Calgary - 23 [Flickr]

2009-06-20T16:33:03-07:00

Grant Neufeld posted a photo:

Iran Rally in Calgary - 22 [Flickr]

2009-06-20T16:32:16-07:00

Grant Neufeld posted a photo:

How to actually get to fill out the FFWD Best of Calgary survey

2009-05-21T12:00:00.006-06:00

A few people have contacted me asking how they can actually get to fill out the survey. Here are my very detailed directions, hopefully specific enough for those who remain quite uncomfortable with computers. The deadline is Wednesday, May 27, 2009.

First, you need to be registered with the FFWD website. You can do that at their “Register” link. (You can use this registration again in future, so should not ever need to repeat this step). They might send you a confirmation email which you'll need to click a link from to verify your email.
Once you have submitted your registration, make sure you are logged-in to their website (you probably will be, but just in case you are not, you can use their “Login” link.)
Then go to their “Best of Calgary” link.
For each section of the survey (the sections are listed in big text at the bottom of the page) you will need to click the "disclosure triangle" to the left of the section title to reveal the questions.
For questions that have multiple choices, click the small square box beside the word “Other”, then put your answer in the wide rectangular text box. For questions with just a text box, just put your answer in the text box
Finally, submit your survey answers with the button at the bottom.

Best of Calgary, FFWD, Calgary, award.

Why I think politicians should not become judges

2009-05-19T17:35:00.003-06:00

With Alberta’s Deputy Premier Ron Stevens leaving his position mid-term to become a judge, I made the comment on twitter that “Having a politician (Ron Stevens) become a judge calls into question, for me at least, the neutrality of the judiciary.” That garnered a short exchange between myself and Ken Chapman:

@KenChapman46: Why? They recuse themselves from any matter where a conflict may arise.
@grant: “Justice must be seen to be done.” The appearance (real or not) of a politically biased perspective diminishes trust.
@KenChapman46: With that logic a divorced judge should not hear divorce matters. They hear the evidence, weigh it and then apply the laws.

I strongly disagree with Ken’s equating of divorcees’ bias with politicians’ bias. The only bias we can assume from a divorcee is that they think divorce can be an appropriate choice. Heck, we probably can’t even assume that since they might have been divorced against their wishes. We can, however, assume that someone who spent years working, and getting paid, to promote a politically biased agenda might well carry those biases long after hanging up their official hat as a politician. One need only look at the examples of the political activities of the ‘retired’ politicians we hear about to see that continuation of bias in practice.

Regardless of whether such a person is able to “put on the hat of neutrality”, they carry such a strong image of holding a political bias that the perception of the continuation political bias will remain (even if that perception is wrong).

The separation of the government and the judiciary is very important as both a check & balance, but also for encouraging public trust in our system of government. The perception (again, whether right or not) of taking the political agenda into the judicial system compromises the public’s ability to trust the system.

Alberta politics, Alberta, bias, judiciary, Ron Stevens.

Explanations of my choices for FFWD’s Best of Calgary survey

2009-05-18T16:10:00.000-06:00

I’ve had questions about some of my recommendations for the FFWD Best of Calgary 2009 survey. So, here are some explanations:

Best New Trend: More street festivals

There has been some negativity in this city — instigated by right-wing politicians on City Council — around using major streets for anything other than cars. Street festivals bring people together and highlight alternatives for our communities. They also diversify our approaches to city living.

Worst new trend: Bush regime visits

That there are people in this city who happily pay war criminals to come give speeches here — particularly when the Bush regime did a lot to suppress free speech in their own country and around the world — is appalling.

Best kept Calgary secret: All the progressive activism

You wouldn’t know it from the corporate media or the stereotypes about this city but, Calgary is actually a hotbed of progressive activism. It just tends to come in the form of tiny projects, events and groups who don’t get much attention.

Scariest Intersection: The federal and provincial Conservatives

The provincial Conservatives are bad enough for social justice and the environment. When the Conservatives are also in power federally — it’s an outright disaster.

Best place to tie the knot: Gay bar

Even for “straight” couples, celebrating diversity and the human rights of everyone is a great foundation for a marriage, in my books.

Best places to snag Stampede Breakfast: Sunrise Community Link

The only stampede breakfast I’ve ever been to where I could actually get a decent breakfast (since I don’t eat meat, eggs or sugar). Sunrise puts on (or is part of?) an international-flavoured Stampede Breakfast in Forest Lawn that has a wide variety of dishes from all sorts of different cultures. Yum!

Best Local Charity: The Women’s Centre

The Women’s Centre of Calgary meshes the charitable response to immediate needs with supporting efforts for social change to address root causes. An empowering and inspiring organization.

Calgary’s claim to shame: NIMBYism

“Not In My Back Yard” is so often the response to most efforts to make a positive difference in this city. Whether it’s addressing poverty and homelessness, crime, the environment or whatever — so many individuals and neighbourhoods fight against sharing in our collective responsibility to take care of each other.

Best use of local tax dollars: Public Library

There cannot be democracy without libraries. The libraries serve as a connecting point for all manner of ideas and communities in our city. An amazing and powerful institution that is worth every cent and more.

Worst use of local tax dollars: Water fluoridation

So, let me get this straight. We are paying for reprocessed industrial effluent to be disposed of in our water supply. This is ostensibly for a supposed health benefit for a small portion of the population who could readily receive that treatment through other means. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the fluoride ends up in people who don’t need or want it, in our soil and in our water systems (rivers, aquifers, etc.). Oh, and there can be negative health effects from exposure to fluoride (such as “dental fluorosis”). Even if fluoride were actually good for kids teeth (a point which remains a matter of controversy), this is a very wasteful and inefficient way to deliver it.

Most embarrassing Calgarian: Ric McIver

I don’t object to right-wing, corporatist, perspectives being represented in government (in balance with all the other perspectives). This is supposed to be a democracy, after all. But McIver has taken to grand-standing and making very misleading and deceptive statements in what seems to be a concerted effort to try to falsely discredit and belittle people he apparently sees as opponents. This is vicious politics and would have no place in a genuine democracy.

Most dedicated activist: Genevieve Balogun

I explained why I hope Genevieve wins this category in a previous post.

Sexiest Man: Grant Neufeld

I also explained this one in that previous post but, to reiterate, this is an opportunity to encourage activism by identifying being an activist with being sexy :-)

Sexiest Woman: Druh Farrell

Druh has been targeted by a deceptive and misleading campaign to discredit her in the eyes of the public. It’s part of a right-wing agenda to crush any progressive voices on our city council. This vote is a small opportunity to try to counter that.

Best Bike Shop: Good-Life Community Bikes

Co-operatively run by folks who are advocating for bike culture in our city. Good-Life has provided space for community and activist efforts beyond just bicycling. They have also been very supportive of the critical mass bike rides.

Best of Calgary, FFWD, Calgary, award.

More on the takeover of the Alberta Greens

2009-05-16T21:10:00.005-06:00

The former Chief Financial Officer of the Alberta Greens, David Crowe, has posted some documentation that contradicts the statements of the folks who took over the party.

David discusses the new executive’s arbitrary purging of all party memberships and their mishandling of the party’s financial reporting. The new executive have blamed him for their problems with reporting and issuing tax receipts, but a conversation David recorded with their accountant indicates that they failed to pass on a key database file that he had provided for them when he left the executive last year.

You can read his documentation, with many links to related documents and articles, along with an audio file (MP3) of his conversation with the accountant (and a transcript).

Alberta Greens, GPA, Green Party of Alberta, Green Party, Alberta, Alberta politics.

How I’m voting in the FFWD Best of Calgary survey

2009-05-15T12:26:00.005-06:00

Here are a list of my recommendations on voting in the FFWD Best of Calgary 2009 survey. By section:

The City

Best New Trend: More street festivals
Worst new trend: Bush regime visits
Best kept Calgary secret: All the progressive activism
Scariest Intersection: The federal and provincial Conservatives
Best place to tie the knot: Gay bar
Best places to snag Stampede Breakfast: Sunrise Community Link
Best Local Charity: The Women’s Centre
Calgary’s claim to shame: NIMBYism
Best use of local tax dollars: Public Library
Worst use of local tax dollars: Water fluoridation

Urban Life

Most embarrassing Calgarian: Ric McIver
Most dedicated activist: Genevieve Balogun
Sexiest Man: Grant Neufeld
Sexiest Woman: Druh Farrell

Shopping

Best Bike Shop: Good-Life Community Bikes

You can vote online at FFWD’s Best of Calgary 2009.

Update: I’ve posted detailed explanations for each of my recommendations.

Best of Calgary, vote, survey, FFWD, Calgary.

Don’t vote for me (but please vote for me)

2009-05-15T11:49:00.005-06:00

For the past couple of year’s, I’ve been given the “Most Active Activist” label in FFWD Weekly’s “Best of Calgary” survey.

I’ve always felt awkward about awards, and this one in particular. It’s a lot easier for me to be the “most active” than it is for most people engaged in activism. I have a tremendous bundle of privileges that give me more opportunities than most (male privilege, white privilege, economic security, etc., etc.…).

Looking back on the people who have been identified as “most active activist”, and runners-up, over the year’s FFWD has been running the survey, I’m pretty sure we’re all a bunch of non-impoverished, adult (but not “too old”), white males. This stands in stark contrast to what I see in the activism in this city.

The reality is, there are a tremendous number of people in this city, with very diverse backgrounds, doing some amazing activism.

There are tons of people in this city who — in the face of challenges my privileges shield me from — are doing amazing work for positive social change. I think we would be better served by creating ways of recognizing their contributions.

A couple months back, I sent a request to FFWD to change the name of the “Most Active Activist” category to “Most Dedicated Activist”. I’m pleased to see that they have taken that advice — thank-you FFWD!

It may seem a subtle difference, but I think it’s really important. It’s probably true that I’m the most “active” in this city, given the insane number of projects and groups I support and the hours my privilege (and insanity) enables me to put in on this work. But I don’t see myself as the most dedicated. There are many people I’ve met and worked with who have shown wonderful dedication, but who are not able to be as active because of various forms of oppression and other diminished opportunities they face in their lives.

These are the people who I would like to see recognized.

Please vote for Genevieve Balogun

I am making a specific nomination recommendation this year, but would like us, as those engaged in progressive activism in this city, to talk over this coming year about how we want to recognize those who show real dedication to the work.

I am encouraging everyone to vote for Genevieve Balogun for “Most Dedicated Activist”, a long-time powerhouse of activism in this city who made a real difference in people’s lives over the years. Genevieve passed away last month, but her impact continues and I’m sure it will be felt for years to come.

You can vote online for the Best of Calgary 2009.

If you want to recognize me

I think activism is sexy. If you agree, let’s use the FFWD poll to try to make that point. Please vote for me as “Sexiest Man” (in the Urban Life section). Maybe this will even help me finally get a date!

(I’ve posted my list of recommendations for various categories in a follow-up blog post here.)

Best of Calgary, award, Calgary, activism, activist.

Are protests effective?

2009-05-13T23:56:00.006-06:00

Over my many, many (many), years of attending and organizing protests, I have periodically heard some folks complain that “protests don’t achieve anything” or the like.

Today, a friend posted a status update online in support of the protest in Calgary against the war criminal Condoleeza Rice’s visit. A friend of that friend posted this comment:

What good is that going to do? Protests are horrendously ineffective.

My response was:

Tell that to the people who protested for the abolition of slavery in Europe and the U.S. Tell that to the people who protested for the passage of a civil rights amendment in the U.S. Tell that to the women and their supporters who protested for women to get the right to vote. Tell that to the people of India who protested for an end to British rule. Tell that to the people of South Africa and their supporters around the world who protested for an end to apartheid. Tell that to the most celebrated heroes of the twentieth century, MLK and Gandhi, who are celebrated because of their activism and protesting for social change.

They followed up with:

It's great that you're able to conflate waving a few placards with massive social movements with real impacts. Bravo.
Perhaps I should have made it clear: Waving signs at Miss Rice isn't going to change what she did, nor will it punish her for what she did. Much better methods exist than that. What they are, I don't know, necessarily.

To which I wrote this lengthy response:

First off, I was responding to your statement that “Protests are horrendously ineffective.” I believe that to be entirely inaccurate (as amply illustrated by my previous examples).

Secondly, do you honestly believe that leaving this war criminal’s paid visit to Calgary completely unremarked would not have sent the unacceptable signal that Canadians don’t care about her war crimes?

Sometimes protests are not about making things better, they can be just about trying to prevent things from getting worse.

What did this particular protest accomplish? It made sure that there was acknowledgement that not everyone in our city accepts the use of torture and other human rights violations. It drew attention, on the street and in the media (and online such as right here), to the issues around the Bush regime and our current Canadian government’s acceptance (and I would go so far as to say embracing) of state terror. It connected some new people in with local organizing for peace and social justice, and increased connections for others.

In other words, it was a step toward making things better.

Is that enough? No. Which is why so many of us are engaged in a wide variety of additional efforts to address these issues. (Things such as petitions, letter-writing, education campaigns, lobbying, political campaigns, legal proceedings, producing documentaries, writing articles & books, building alternatives, etc., etc.)

If all we did was protest, we probably wouldn’t get very far overall. But if we never protested, we probably wouldn’t get very far, either. Protest is a necessary (but far from the only) part of democratic efforts for social change.

Over the years, I’ve been to extremely tiny protests and I’ve been to protests with too many thousands of people to properly count (and various sizes between). Every single one of the big protests came about after years of tiny protests leading up to them. Without the tiny protests, there would never be any big protests. Without tiny efforts, there would never be any massive change in this world.

It was not a waste to “wave a few placards”. It was another piece in a very big puzzle of getting us to a better world.

protest, activism, why protest, social change.

The outcomes from the vote on my projects

2009-05-07T18:57:00.004-06:00

I’ve posted a video update on the outcomes from the vote I held on projects I can work on:

This is still a bit long, but I did cut a lot out — my original recording was about 23 minutes of me going on about this stuff, and no one wants to sit through all that :-)

Grant Neufeld, projects, vote, video.

Video: Druh Farrell on the Memorial Drive promenade

2009-05-05T16:31:00.003-06:00

I interviewed Druh Farrell, Calgary city councillor for Ward 7, about the Memorial Drive promenade. Here’s the video:

Druh Farrell, Memorial Drive, Calgary, yyc, promenade, video, interview.