Monday, October 30, 2006

Oops did I scare you?


Well, tomorrow evening is Hallowe'en, and I will be in my joyous creative workshop!! Sadly, yet another year where I will forgo my Hallowe'en joys. Every year I would dress up, somehow I would put something together from my wardrobe and then I would plaster my face with gobs of make-up and then spend the day wandering around with an itchy face and unable to scratch it because it would ruin my make-up. Truly sounds annoying but I had fun with it. I also love seeing what other people come up with. While I do enjoy that I have a great imagination other people are fare more inventive than I am, and that is FANTASTIC.
So, last year I gave up on the idea of a party or the bar because well it was Monday and I am a stickler for making sure that I get a good nights sleep for classes. This year, it is a Tuesday and I am seriously lacking funds...no costume, no party...BOOO...But that is okay, because the spirit is still alive in me. And well Dylan brought home a pumpkin for us to carve...I do love that man and the way he indulges my creative lusts.
But as I sit her typing this blog I am caught by the news report on CBC which just makes my heart sink. HALLOWE'EN is BAD! Well okay they didn't say that on CBC, but they may as well have! Crime is on the rise, obesity is on the rise, violence against children is on the rise...blah blah blah. Suck the fun out of a very communal activity.
Think about it...when do we get to go door to door and knock on people's doors and have them open the door with a smile and give us something?? Seriously, the stores stock up with candy and we buy it...and then give it away. My sense it is the last community building activity thing that we do in our culture. Not even on Christmas do total strangers get this close to giving and opening up their doors. True, some may argue yes we do on Christmas...but I think Hallowe'en could give Christmas a run for it's money.
But, the news in it's ever present ability to instill fear in our hearts that the world is coming to an end is also slowly chipping away at the joy of Hallowe'en.
I will now and forever and have, stand by the fact that the news is the demise of the world. Ever since we went global with media, humans the world over have become fearful creatures....really though, in North America especially, the amount of violence that is reported compared to amount of kind acts that go unnoticed, is way out of proportion but we only hear about the bad.
I remember reading that we live in the most peaceful time ever in history....although I sense there are people who would read this and immediately knee jerk into a desire to refute that assertion. Why? Why is it so hard to believe that we are safer than we ever have been?
And while we live in fear that the world is getting worse and that we have no desire to bring more children into a world that is going to hell in a handbasket, we forget we live in a community and that we are capable of being active in that community...the community that exists beyond our mom, dad, sister and partner...the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Not because violence is increasing, but because fear of our next door neighbour is at an all time high!! We care more about ourselves than we do about anyone else...
DAMMIT, fight the fear and celebrate HALLOWE'EN!!! and if your kid is FAT, make him/her jog to each door and ration out the candy...DO NOT BLAME OBESITY ON HALLOWE'EN...

Monday, October 23, 2006

OMG where did she go?

Hello my devoted fan base...all three of you...sometimes four! Okay, so I disappeared off the blogspot for some time and I am sorry for that. I know my information and discussion is very exciting.
So what happened to me anyways? Well...expectations happened to me. The expectation that I am expected to be a social being, an academic being, a renter, and an employee...all of my hats collided and squished me the last couple of weeks. I have picked up a new job, and it was created by a necessity for someone else to get their work done. Of course my work is great and does have some abstract relation to my studies...however, because of someone else's deadline, I had to run quickly and learn FAST! Add that to my reading for my complex mind numbing courses...and the continual fret that I will never get to my assignments...and well the lack of public transit that functions and administration that is more bent on being an obstacle than a facilitator (WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY GETTING PAID? more than me FUCKERS) ... uhm, ya that is my feeling on the current administration!

So, something I noticed and desired to get back to was excercising. I don't bike anymore because my day requires me to smell nice and carry certain items that don't travel well by bike. I have lamented the loss of biking and told myself I would get a gym pass...soon...well, the reality of making it to the gym in terms of all my other commitments really didn't make itself a goal that is attainable...well it is but at the expense of my mental well being...and I am stressed enough. So here is the new thing...getting up in the morning and keeping myself attached to my exercise ball for an hour...or running on the spot. Hopefully that will produce results that will provide the universe with a more balanced me.
I am frazzled. Razzled, and not at all dazzled.
But on the positive note I am trying to enter a piece of fiction into the CBC literary awards...I don't expect to win, what I do expect is that by entering I will legitimate in my own mind that I am a writer. Finally I am a writer!

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

More on Housing...

So, for the last couple of days, World Report on CBC has been feeding fuel to my fire about housing in Canada. Currently, the government is about to release a new social housing initiative. I am still waiting for the release at the moment. But so far the gist of what I understand is that the government plans on subsidizing rent for low income people...15thousand people is the number I heard.

While I feel it is great that the help is coming I also feel it is misplaced and once again another demonstration of an ineffective government. The problem, the much larger problem, is the lack of available affordable housing. Currently, housing starts for rental units are declining, especially in BC becuase it is a sales market right now and developers can make quick money at making houses than at rental units. Rental units have never been a money maker and usually the government has to subsidize developers to even get rental units made, started, whatever you want to call it.

So, here the government has graciously decided that they will help people who are spending large amounts of their income on housing. Great, but what about those who have no housing...perhaps, which is true in a lot of cases they have paying jobs, but no housing.

Yesterday and housing advocate and centre coordinater for a homeless shelter in Calgary sent out 500 emails to other housing shelters, stating that people who want to come to Calgary in search of work should be discouraged because there is no housing. None. There are people who are working but are living in cars, tents, or in shelters with no near solution of housing. Winter is coming...I bet you the death toll will rise.

I find it funny that citizens are doing what the government is steering them do, support themselves...and yet the government is also making it impossible for the citizens to be successful. Okay, piles of work, but no homes...we don't need a crystal ball to forsee this outcome.

I certainly do not advocate this neo-liberalist point of view, every person for themselves. I do not enjoy that I am part of a capitalistic system that has no care for a sense of community. Currently the way the income assistance and employment programs are set up by the government operate is to facilitate those who already have the means. So, tell me how far you can go on 575/mos. 325 is meant for rent? Workers are now only reachable by phone, and you aren't assigned a worker, so you will always have a different one and have to establish a new relationship. You have to have an address for at least three months to recieve any assistance. So if you are homeless and decide this is crap but you need a place to start...well, you don't have an address, so no help for you. Same goes for people who want off assistance but can't find fulltime work or still need subsidizing. The government has removed the ability to make anything over 200 dollars...if you have external income of over 200 dollars you don't get assistance!

Part of me believes of pull yourself up by the bootstraps...however, the culture does not generate a healthy atmosphere for a large number of people to do so.

And the sense that middle class people can turn their eyes from what is happening and focus on what fabric they will get to cover their couch, appalls me. 38% of people who were homeless in Kelowna in 2005 reported that they lost their homes while employed!! Simply being hard working and motivated does not automatically mean one is removed from ever ending up on the street, especially in the current political capitalistic neo liberalist atmosphere!!

I could go on about those who are on the street now, and mental illness and drug abuse...but I will sum it up as a product of this massive emphasis on the individual instead of the community.

Right now, housing needs to be generated...we have to start somewhere. Housing is a right, should be right, I hope someday will be a right. It definitely won't solve all the problems, but I feel it would be a step in the right direction.