Mike Simpson » Politics

Remembering and Celebrating Jack

Mike — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 14:06:35 +0000

Photo by Jackman Chiu

On the morning of my birthday, August 22, we were doing our usual breakfast time things when suddenly the TV announced that Jack Layton had passed. What a shock! It hit me like a ton of bricks. It was amazing to witness the coverage on CBC and other channels – it reminded me of the fanfare and mourning that accompanied the death of Pierre Trudeau. One of the amazing things I remember about that was sitting with my mother and watching the train that transported Trudeau and his sons from Ottawa to Montreal, and how amazing it was when the camera captured people standing at railway crossings waving and the sons leaning out windows to engage with the well-wishers.

It is a sad and profound moment. At 61 Layton was truly just hitting his stride. Could he have been PM? It’s possible. There is a swing going on now in politics – the greens are gaining and young people are seemingly turning to the left. When they interviewed a group of twenty-somethings in a restaurant after the televised leaders debates during the last election, nearly every one of them said “Jack won.” I think it was partly his charisma, and partly a left-leaning wave. There are always waves and times of momentum, and right now Harper is riding his, but times will change, and he will be replaced. Will it be by an NDP, Liberal or Coalition leader? No one can say.

Jack was important to me and I am left very saddened by this turn of events. I remembered how gaunt he looked in his last television appearance but I assumed he was in recovery and going to gain strength and come back fighting. This time also reminds me of my mother’s battle with cancer. She too had ups and downs before she finally lost her battle. Jack represented a genuine force for the common good. He was the champion of what is right, and would engage in battles for the little guy – meaning the urban poor, women, children and seniors. He was particularly vocal on the behalf of seniors and that was an endearing quality. Of course he was a friend to the workers and battled for the environment too.

There is one particularly amazing scene that I have in my mind about Jack and his public persona and public battles. Some would say he had a bit of the grand-stander in him, but I argue that his pedigree, work ethic and talent for speaking just produced the right combination of characteristics to allow him to rise to the fore in many public forums of debate. He was an all-star city councillor and was frequently found at the front lines, at a protest, or discussing among a group at a public debate. This scene I have in my mind is one found in the documentary “The Mayor of Tent City,” which documents the brief existence of “Tent City” – a shantytown on Toronto’s waterfront that existed around 2000. The movie centres on a charismatic German emigree who the homeless denizens look to for leadership, but also turns the lens on Jack Layton, who is right in the thick of it when the police and bulldozers come calling. Here is what the CBC website report said:

City councillor Jack Layton, who is also running for the leadership of the federal NDP, said the evictions underline the homelessness problem in the city.

“As we’ve been pointing out for years, we need some affordable housing built,” said Layton. “At least at Tent City they’d built themselves a warm place for the winter.”

Jack Layton was a hero to me. It is obvious but can be restated – he was such a powerful figure that people would definitely vote NDP rather than for the local NDP candidate. He was consistently rated higher in polls than Harper or Ignatieff. The only elite politician with his kind of pull is probably Elizabeth May, and she is indeed a fighter as well, but the Greens may take many more years, perhaps decades, before they even get remotely into contention with centre-left parties like the NDP.

Truth be told, up until this summer I didn’t know much about Jack. It was a Maclean’s magazine piece on his life and legacy that really blew me away, and made me feel I understood the confluence of factors that brought him to that pedestal of power where he was but one step away from the PM’s office. Quite a rise, from city council to the highest echelons. Jack came from an elite background in Anglo Montreal, but was quite naturally a true man of the people – down to earth, earnest, vociferous on many issues and fronts, and it is these qualities that mark his legacy and instill powerful memories that will not dim for a long, long while. Rest in peace Jack.

Links:

Photographer Jackman Chiu
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lewolf011/

Maclean’s article – a MUST READ – The Life and Time’s of Jack Layton
http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/06/17/the-making-of-jack-layton/

Macleans article – Jack Layton’s Amazing Race
http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/04/29/jacks-amazing-race/

BlogTO – Hundreds rally to remember Jack Layton
http://www.blogto.com/city/2011/08/hundreds_rally_in_toronto_to_remember_jack_layton/

CBC Article on Toronto’s “Tent City”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2002/09/24/tentcity_eviction020924.html

Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Layton

The movie “The Mayor of Tent City” can be found in the Toronto Public Library.

Inside Job – New Documentary on Financial Crisis

Mike — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 21:04:07 +0000

Update: March 2011 – this movie won the Academy Award for Best Documentary at the 2010 Awards ceremony

A new documentary is opening – “Inside Job” – a film about the global financial crisis. Positive reviews abound: Rottentomatoes.com gave the flick an amazing 95%!

Directed by Charles Ferguson, the doc features Matt Damon as the narrator, and a heavy duty investigative flavor that is sure to make waves in media, entertainment and politics. But will it have any effect on economics? Hopefully – but obviously regulators and politicians have a role to play in reigning in the excessive system that is a greedy, irresponsible blight on the early 21st century landscape. The movie traces the development of the causes of the disaster, which have their roots in 1980s Reagonomics – the loosening or removal of financial systems regulations designed to stymie abuse and protect consumers.

Here is the synopsis:

‘Inside Job’ is the first film to provide a comprehensive analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, which at a cost over $20 trillion, caused millions of people to lose their jobs and homes in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and nearly resulted in a global financial collapse. Through exhaustive research and extensive interviews with key financial insiders, politicians, journalists, and academics, the film traces the rise of a rogue industry which has corrupted politics, regulation, and academia

Links:

Article in Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/movies/inside-job-skillfully-skewering-the-lobbyists-and-apologists/article1776590/

Trailer at YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzrBurlJUNk

The World Comes Home to Africa – FIFA World Cup 2010 – A Musical Perspective

Mike — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:40:52 +0000

The opening ceremony of the 2010 World Cup is taking place right now, and it’s reminiscent of the large-scale ceremonies I remember from the Vancouver and Beijing games. The stadium is ginormous and hundreds of Africans, primarily women, are performing synchronized dancing as performers do songs blended together in medleys.

I just saw the singer of a classic Ghanaian group called Osibisa perform “Sunshine Day.” I still remember this first time I heard that incredible positive funky rock song. It reminded me of the anthem quality in the positive rock/reggae crossover songs by Bob Marley. One of the astonishing images from the first part of the ceremony was the giant patchwork quilt that spread out on the floor of the stadium – in the shape of the African continent. And then slowly the other continents slowly formed around Africa as the participants roamed the floor. The quilt was a beautiful metaphor and a stunning visual. Watch for it in highlights on TV and video.

One of the amazing things that I just discovered is that K’Naan’s “Wavin’ Flag” is apparently NOT an official song for the World Cup. I think the Canadian media and World Cup sponsor Coca Cola have slid this in by the backdoor. In fact, if you look at the Wikipedia page and read some news stories on World Cup music, you’ll discover that the official song is called “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)” and it will be performed by Colombia’s Shakira, with a South African group called Freshlyground at the closing ceremony. Even the official “anthem” is by R. Kelly.

Interesting. Seems somehow the hype machine of both Coca-Cola and the music business have blended fact and fiction, and as is very common these days — often a commercial branding initiative with TV commercials and catchy music will blend the line between culture and commerce. Have we been duped? Or are we just dumb consumers? Many reputable publications, including Exclaim Magazine, and the NME from Britain, misreported this story.

I really like K’Naan’s “Wavin’ Flag,” and I had the pleasure of teaching it to a group of LINC ESL students a week ago. It really is an amazing song – capturing a certain momentum that K’Naan has been building for the last few years. I downloaded “Soapbox” and a half dozen other songs from eMusic about 3 years ago. The kid from the rugged Somalian capital Mogadishu whose family now calls Toronto home, has crafted a truly epic, anthemic song. the song however is Coke’s official song, and I’ve just witnessed it in the background of commercial spot on the CBC broadcast.

I have to admit I’m mildly disappointed. YouTube has a video labelled “Official World Cup theme song” and the buzz has all been building toward K’Naan = World Cup 2010. I thought it was a great fit. Apparently, Coca Cola did too but even asked K’Naan to modify his lyrics, which they found to be dark and dour (and which I celebrated as an echo of the beautiful but plain-spoken lyrics of Bob Marley, see “Buffalo Soldier” which K’Naan references in his song).

This is the latest from Exclaim‘s website (other sites including Dose are reporting this too so hopefully it’s factual):

In a recent interview with Billboard, it was revealed that before the song could be used by the soft drink giant, Coke asked K’naan to rewrite the lyrics, which called Somalia “a violent prone, poor people zone,” referring to its people “struggling, fighting to eat.” K’naan complied, and in the interview, defended his choice before anyone could cry “sellout.”

“I saw it as an opportunity to reach more people,” he said. “I don’t work for Coke or anything; what I do is my music. This was a really great opportunity for them to use my song, without compromising my integrity as a musician. This is what I write, these are the songs I make. I’m happy about it.”

What about the games and the sport you ask?

Well, as you may know this blog is about people, culture, language and arts. So, in short, I am not a huge soccer fan, but I will tune in to a few World Cup games. Like most things in my life these days, I’d rather play and participate than watch. As a spectator I hope to catch some of the magic of South Africa, from the people to the music to the other aspects of African culture which hopefully will shine and benefit from this spectacle.I with the people of South Africa well and hope this World Cup is truly on the positive side of the boon/bust ledger. I also hope the platinum selling “Wavin’ Flag” will be a boon to K’Naan and remain an inspiration and beacon of hope, and not just a mass-marketed jingle for a soft drink multinational.

Recommended Viewing:

Look up the CBC “Q” video on YouTube for an excellent acoustic “unplugged” style rendition of K’naan performing “Wavin’ Flag.”

“Waterlife” Documentary – Free Screening at NFB on June 1st

Mike — Tue, 25 May 2010 15:09:23 +0000

This movie looks like a “must see.” The director, Kevin McMahon has directed some amazing documentaries, including one of my favorites, “McLuhan’s Wake” – a doc on the Canadian media communications theorist Marshall McLuhan.

Green Screens presents WATERLIFE

Directed by Kevin McMahon, 2009, 109 minutes.

Tuesday June 1 at 7pm

FREE

NFB Cinema – 150 John St (at Richmond St W), Toronto

Waterlife follows the epic cascade of the Great Lakes from Lake Superior to the Atlantic Ocean, telling the story of the last huge supply of fresh water on Earth. Filled with fascinating characters and stunning imagery, Waterlife is a cinematic poem about the beauty of water and the dangers of taking it for granted.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Tony Maas, Director of the Freshwater Program at WWF-Canada; Dr. Romila Verma, CIELAP Research Associate, Watershed Management and Climate Change; and Hilary Van Welter, Director of Social Innovation, Windfall Ecology Centre.

Green Screens partners films from the NFB with experts and panellists selected by the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy. If you are interested in the environment, Green Screens will entertain and inform you.

For more information, please call 416-973-3012 or visit:

http://www.NFB.ca/mediatheque

http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/mediatheque/?lg=eng

Greatest Indie Canadians

Mike — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:28:06 +0000

Recently I got to playing around with a graphic of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games and a picture of artist/writer Douglas Coupland. I was compositing the two and came up with the image at left, which I really quite like. I started thinking about what makes Doug Coupland one of my favourite Canadians, and who else would make that list.

In 2004, as you may remember, the CBC commissioned a survey asking Canadians to nominate their own “Top 10 Greatest Canadians.” It was quite a challenge but the people were up to the task. I still remember that program. there were media/sport celebrities like Don Cherry and the environmentalist David Suzuki. There were pioneers in politics and science/medicine like Tommy Douglas and Frederick Banting. It was quite an impressive list. Perhaps the only person I thought was ”sure thing” was Pierre Trudeau. For any of his faults, he was a thinker and an enigmatic leader who came to power at the same time that Canada was blossoming on the world stage.

If we think of the dramatic decade that was the 1960s, and the amazing moments like a man on the moon and the Vietnam war, Trudeau was a leader for amazing times. He was, as the expression goes (especially for new young alpha male leaders in areas like extreme sport), a “Rock Star.” He also championed, along with the Liberal party, the rights of minorities and helped usher in the modern age of Canada as global human-rights benefactor and multicultural country (particularly through UN peacekeeping missions and landmark moments like the acceptance of the “boat people” – the tide of hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled Southeast Asia during the Vietnam war, rejected elsewhere but accepted first by Canada).

This stuff is really important, especially as we regard cities as the future habitat of most of humanity, and we begin to understand how things like climate change will play a role in forcing large groups of people to seek new lands in the 21st century. Canada can lead in progressive humanitarian areas, even as we fail or struggle to lead on the global environmental stage. But back to my list of “Great Indie Canadians.”

I thought up that title because I don’t feel the need to challenge the present CBC list which is found at http://www.cbc.ca/greatest/top_ten/. My “Indie” group, as you might have guessed, are not heroes of the nation in science or politics, and might be recognizable more to those who grew up in the 1970s and 80s, the children of the Baby boomers, and as Douglas Coupland calls them, “Generation X.”

My heroes include Doug Coupland, who has written books like “Generation X”, “Micro Serfs,” and “Shampoo Planet,” and authored a couple of photo-based books called “Souvenir of Canada” (Parts 1 and 2). I suggest you check out the books, but also rent or buy the DVD version. Watching Coupland mount his art exhibit of Canadian “souvenirs” in a condemned suburban family house in Vancouver he calls “Canada House” is remarkable. Included are dramatizations of Coupland’s youth: first jobs, traveling across Canada by car and other coming of age anecdotes, a terrific narration of his travails through university and his twenties, and an in-depth look at the identity of one of Canada’s most interesting and self-deprecating author/celebrities.

As a teacher and an artist, I feel great pride and admiration for this example of new-school multimedia work and encourage any and all to seek it out. If you like the old National film Board “educational” films you’ll enjoy some of the archival footage that is also used throughout the DVD. Doug is very Canadian and sits somewhere right at the top of my list. Who else makes my list? Well, in no particular order, here are a loose group of my Canadian heroes.

(My) Greatest (Indie) Canadians:

Douglas Coupland (writer), Marshall McLuhan (thinker/writer), Sloan (the rock group), Wendel Clark (vs. Marty McSorely), Atom Egoyan and Bruce McDonald (film directors), The Tragically Hip, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Rush (Musicians), Maestro (Fresh Wes, the rapper) and Frank Arthur Calder (First Aboriginal Canadian elected to a Legislature in Canada).

Please feel free to contribute your own list! Looking forward to your comments!

(Related) From the Toronto Star:
“Designed by Canadian artist/author Douglas Coupland and landscape architects Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg, an 8-acre park in downtown Toronto was unveiled today, featuring unique public art, water features and a jogging track dedicated to Terry Fox. Narration by Christopher Hume. Video by Bernard Weil. (September 9, 2009)” – This video shows some iconic images/people from “Douglas Coupland’s Canada”
http://www.thestar.com/videozone/693351

China Promoting Itself to the World with Art and Artist's Districts

Mike — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:25:35 +0000

Art by a Chinese artist named Liu Bolin. He specializes in camouflage painting. His work challenges us to think about identity and ambiguity in contemporary Chinese society. Click to view larger image.

It’s no secret that China has long been the world’s factory and is increasingly looking to change its position from that of producer to creator. Once upon a time the US, Japan and Germany were engineering new technical marvels and China was simply where the production would happen. That is starting to change, and China is developing new capability for aspects of design, and increasingly, seeking to grow by instigating a kind of new Cultural Revolution – one in which art and artists have new freedoms and the government recognizes that creativity needs to be encouraged to bolster the still emerging economy.

Here in Toronto we have long had government support for the arts and some long-standing galleries, museums and private art spaces, but even here artist zones or development are a relatively new idea. Liberty Village and the Distillery District are two such former industrial areas converted to live/work loft spaces with lots of cafes, galleries and condos in the mix. According to a recent TO Star article, China is incubating these new projects at a furious pace. They may not have pioneered this process but they’re ahead of the global pack (Beijing has dozens of these areas and Shanghai has hundreds). It’s all part of China’s quest to obtain what the article describes as “soft power.”

The article in the Star focuses on artist Yue Minju, one of a number of rising Chinese art stars who earn millions of dollars for their works. If you read the TO Star article 798 Art District doesn’t sound far off from Toronto’s Distillery District. Here’s a snippet to pique your interest: ”As he spoke, Minjun sat perched at a chic outdoor café in Beijing’s 798 Art District, a massive former munitions factory repurposed by the government in 2002 as a home for artist studios, galleries and boutiques. Across the way, a tourist shop’s shelves were filled with versions of his personal brand-name icon: a self-portrait frozen in a cackle of grim hysteria, on coffee mugs, calendars, notebooks and picture frames.”

Read the TO Star article.

Read about and see more of Liu Bolin’s amazing urban camouflage work at the Inspiration Room blog.

Canada scores a "B" – What it means to be "strong and free"

Mike — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:35:03 +0000

Often I ponder Canada and what it means, to quote our national anthem, to be “strong and free.” Of course, many will note that “strong and free” is in fact a marketing slogan for me and my services/products, and my main domain is ”strongandfree.ca.” I’m an entrepreneur and a patriot, that goes without saying. But I’m hardly among the 90% who would declare, as I heard on this morning’s TV broadcast, that “Canada is the best country in the world.”

Once upon a time when I was launching a clothing company and website portal, I brainstormed for marketing slogans and hit upon “strong and free.” I registered the aforementioned domain, printed the slogan up on some t-shirts and proceeded to spread the message – my clothing was “strong and free.” It’s catchy. And I held on to the trademark I registered for nearly a decade, before abandoning it because I had long abandoned the clothing line. (If you’re curious it’s at strongandfree.ca/sick).

These days I am knee deep in the same kind of pondering because I make part of my living as an English teacher, instructing ESL students including temporary visitors at “visa schools” and recent immigrants in “LINC schools.” I learned early on to be careful about debating the positives and negatives of any country, and that was senstive territory on those first few “warm up” days when everyone was getting to know each other and the topic of “how does my country differ from Canada” came up. I was always pretty even, tempering any praise with some strokes of cold, hard reality. If a student offered the observation that “Canada is a clean and natural country” I would recognize the point, and then offer the devil’s advocate view; Canada is also a world-leader in producing everything from household garabge (even outranking the U.S.) to contributing massively per capita to global warming. In short, yes the Rockies are incredibly beautiful, but the “tar sands” are lurking just downwind! In this area I suggest that we are highly deluded if we think that buying a hybrid Prius is really an “eco-friendly” act (among other innacurate terms). Canadians aren’t very green. In that regard we’d rate a “C” at best. We are red enough for my liking though.

Where I can get positive is about our social safety net and the overall inclination towards the basic tenents of socialism (exluding forays into super-right territory by Mike Harris and Stephen Harper Tories). We have a system that is presently producing more and more homeless and other “have nots” but is basically keeping most of us afloat (again I play devil’s advocate and dabble in the grey nuances). I’m happy about tolerance and pluralism. I might even believe that, especially in my neighbourhood and other progressive urban centres, that ”multiculturalism” isn’t just “once a week” to an ethnic restaurant or “once a summer” to the ____ festival or ____ parade. I think there’s a really strong multi-everything vibe that permeates most people and places in Canada. Especially in the young people. In this day and age, with satellite, broadband, TV and Internet linking everybody to the newest fashion, music, and lifestyle media, there’s an awareness of connectivity where “thinking globally” is deeply embedded in the DNA of the “digital natives” as some would call the Net Generation. On a political/social/cultural level I rate a (little generous) “A.”

Overall, Canada, in my eyes, rates a “B.” If I had to go further I’d even say a “B-.” We’re just hanging in though. Much of the rest of the world views Canada as a green, progressive, multicultural paradise. We’ve got a ways to go. With the continued support of the Tories after a century of more centre-left Liberal rule we are sliding toward a “C+.” If we don’t sign and then work to implement the “KyotoPlus” environmental protocol then we’ll be sliding faster and further into the oblivion of a solid “D.” We need to get into the trenches and lift up the poor, abandon our delusions that the “Prius” will really offset the “SUV” in the neigbours drive, and begin a fundamental movement toward strong cities with progressive policies on transit and recycling/composting/”really living green.” If we can do that then just maybe we’ll maintain that “B-” which, I’m proud to say, is still lots more generous than the mark I’d give 99% of the rest of the countries of the world.

Happy Canada Day!