Look Through My Window

May 28

Section 13

(Note: This interview took place on February 20, 2009. I figured I should post it from my other blog site: http://agoldenworld.vox.com/ since I introduced this situation earlier on this site.)

In Canada, freedom of speech is an unknown luxury because of a law called Section13. Section 13 began in the early ‘80’s by the CHRCs (Canadian Human Rights Commissions) in order to censor hate speech as they put it. This is defined in Section 13 as anything “likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt.” Hate speech is a crime, like the novel, 1984, called a thought crime. It’s a complicated law that protects certain groups of people such as Muslims, but not Christians. And gays, but not straight people.

Kathy Shaidle is a Canadian blogger and a published writer who has been speaking out against Section 13 through her book, “The Tyranny of Nice: How Canada Crushes Freedom in the Name of Human Rights” and she recently wrote an article explaining the complicated history of Section 13 on FrontPage Magazine here: http://frontpagemag.com/articles/Read.aspx?GUID=95F30557-369D-47BA-AC6E-99C0CB173C43

I recently spoke to Shaidle via e-mail about her life as a writer in a country where you can’t say anything you want and how she believes this threat may be crossing over into America.


Q: How long have you been blogging?

A: I started blogging in 2000, so this is my ninth year.


Q: What got you into blogging?

I fell in love with proto-blogs like RobotWisdom, Arts & Letters Daily and PopCultureJunkMail. When I heard about the free Blogger platform, I started using it as a handy way to keep track of all the weird religion news stories I saw on the net. I was writing a Toronto Star religion column at the time and blogging helped me keep column ideas ‘front of mind’. Eventually others started reading the blog. I don’t write for the Star any more but I’m still blogging.



Q: What do you blog about?

A: I write about religion, politics and culture from a conservative/libertarian, VERY politically incorrect perspective.



Q: Would I be able to have a link to your blog?

A: Sure:
http://www.FiveFeetOfFury.com



Q: Have you written for any publication?

A: I’ve written for all kinds of print publications since I became a professional writer: along with Canada’s major daily papers, I’ve written for the Dallas Morning News, Catholic World Report, the American Spectator and many other publications. I also write for online publications like FrontPageMag.com, PajamasMedia.com and other sites.


Q: How active of a role do you play against section 13?

A: I’ve been blogging about the abuses of the Canadian Human Rights Commissions and about Section 13 since Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn were charged with “hate speech.” This led to my co-authoring a book about the topic called The Tyranny of Nice: how Canada crushes freedom in the name of human rights, and why it matters to Americans.
Along with Ezra Levant and a number of other Canadian bloggers, I am being sued by ex-Human Rights Commission employee Richard Warman, for criticizing some of his methods when he was working there. Here is an example of what he admits to doing, under oath:
http://ezralevant.com/2008/05/chrc-bigoted-comment-of-the-da-1.html

I make a point of violating Section 13 on my blog every day. It is hard for anyone NOT to because of the “likely” clause in wording of the law. :-) Political correctness is a grave threat to our culture and I try to do my part to undermine it. The CHRC operates outside of the real Canadian justice system; it is like the real justice system is the Mayo Clinic, and the CHRC is Lucy’s sidewalk psychiatry booth in Peanuts.



Q: Do you feel things are getting better or worse with this fight
to stop it?

A: I feel things are improving in Canada slightly, but disintegrating elsewhere. American politicians are pondering the reintroduction of the Fairness Doctrine, Geert Wilders was barred from entering the UK. Few nations can rival England for their descent into politically correct censorship:
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/6199/
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3789

Q: In your article in FrontPage Magazine, you say these commissions that enforce section 13 “aren’t ‘real’ courts. They operate outside the criminal justice system in an Orwellian world of their own.” When I first heard of section 13, 1984 immediately popped into my head. Have you heard a lot of people in Canada comparing the book to section 13?

A: Absolutely. But, as Dennis Miller says, he never expected the bad guys in 1984 to be on the Left! My coauthor feels the comparison to Brave New World is more apt:
http://www.twoorthree.net/2008/10/the-tyranny-of-nice-how-canada-crushes-freedom-in-the-name-of-human-rights.html



Q: There is obviously a strong protest against section 13 in Canada, but are there a decent amount of citizens who support it? Have you met one and debated about it? If so, what has been their reasoning?

A: The reasoning behind it is that laws against ‘hate speech’ will ‘prevent the next Holocaust’.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/05/21/mark-freiman-makes-the-case-for-censoring-hate.aspx
http://ezralevant.com/2009/02/two-ottawa-speeches.html
however, those sorts of laws didn’t prevent the FIRST one, so:
http://www.macleans.ca/canada/opinions/article.jsp?content=20080423_31672_31672



Q: How do you personally try to undermine section 13 everyday?

A: If you look at my blog, you’ll see that I discuss racial, political, religious etc issues in politically incorrect ways. I insult everyone, from the Amish to Zulus. What I write wouldn’t actually be considered that odd if I were saying it from the stage of a comedy club. However, most of my enemies don’t get out much.



Q: If you undermine section 13 everyday, how are you getting away with it and others are not?

A: Because no one has brought an HRC case against me — yet. That may be about to change :-)
http://www.fivefeetoffury.com/:entry:fivefeet-2009-02-17-0001/



Q: Your friend that referred me to you was at first very cautious to talk to me, and apologized for seeming so paranoid. What convinced he/she to talk to me was when I gave my school e-mail address. If I got in touch with you at first, would you have been just as cautious? Why or why not?

A: Yes, I would have because people who work at the HRC use the internet to entrap people all the time:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/canada%E2%80%99s-human-rights-kangaroo-court/

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May 16

You mean, I can talk to people while I'm on the go?

The very first cellphone ad:

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April 21

4/20 and how I can't fit text with photos and videos the right way

This year, the “holiday”, 4/20 felt noticed. When I logged on facebook around 11 in the morning, I saw eight people that referred to 4/20 in their statuses. I was shocked by some of the people that decided to recognize the sub-culture holiday. Maybe it’s because in the past year there has been such overwhelming support to legalize marijuana that even Glenn Beck from Fox News believes it should happen: Maybe it’s because when President Obama scoffed at the idea of marijuana legalization, donations to NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) quadrupled in less than 24 hours: And NORML also launched 7,770 of these ads promoting marijuana legalization the day before 4/20 as well: Whether you’re for it or not…for future reference, these aren’t menthols: ok

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April 18

Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you.

So, I put in my zipcode on www.everyblock.com to check out what’s happening around the neighborhood I sleep in and this is what came up for crimes:

Place: Street. Reported at 6:15 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Residential yard (front / back). Reported at 12:30 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Parking lot / garage (non-residential). Reported at 7:30 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Street. Reported at 11:45 a.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Apartment. Reported at 11:15 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Apartment. Reported at 8:30 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Residential yard (front / back). Reported at 4 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Sidewalk. Reported at 2:25 a.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Street. Reported at 1:30 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Residence (porch/hallway). Reported at 7:05 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Residence. Reported at 7 p.m. on January 13, 2009.

Place: Other. Reported at 8 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Apartment. Reported at 4:45 a.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Street. Reported at midnight on April 9, 2009.

Place: Vehicle (non-commercial). Reported at 6 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Vehicle (non-commercial). Reported at 8 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Currency exchange. Reported at 4 p.m. on January 13, 2009.

Place: Residence. Reported at noon on April 9, 2009.

Place: Warehouse. Reported at 6:45 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Sidewalk. Reported at 3:49 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Street. Reported at 2:34 a.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Residence. Reported at 10 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Street. Reported at 3 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Residential yard (front / back). Reported at 8 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Residence (garage). Reported at 7 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: CTA bus. Reported at 3:20 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Street. Reported at 3:10 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Small retail store. Reported at 4:30 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Place: Sidewalk. Reported at 8:26 p.m. on April 9, 2009.

Now, this site is great and I bet it will be expanding to the suburbs very soon, but I’m f**king freaked out at all the crimes. It’s a great tool to get people aware of where they live and what’s happening, but I personally don’t know if I want to know all this. I guess it’s sort of the “red pill or blue pill” analogy of the Matrix.

This could be a useful tool to combat crime I believe. If a decent amount of people saw a list like I copied and pasted above, there may be more of a community tactic to prevent future crimes from happening. (Sorry, I’m still on time travel mode from my post below).  The only negative thing I can think about this site is it may cause severe paranoia.

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I can only hope to travel back to this life in the next life now

I’m 23 now and I know I will never be able to do the one thing I’ve always wanted to do before I die. I’m not dying. I think I’m in good health, (I really wish I checked to see if I had a piece of wood around me to knock on before I typed that.) but as I get older and supposedly wiser, I realize the possibility of traveling through time will never come to fruition while I’m alive.

My infatuation with the idea of time travel came before my attraction to girls and I believe that’s what got me into writing.

One of the first movies I remember watching was Back to the Future two. The idea of going back in time, seeing younger versions of people you know, seeing “your other self”, the ripple effects of subtle actions that changed the past – all of it! It’s intense and basically an awesome story idea.

When I first started writing incoherent short stories in first grade, they all involved time travel. I learned more about narrative storytelling through Back to the Future compared to any English class I took in school. The idea of time travel is story. It made me pay attention to what was happening to the characters I was creating.

My passion for this imaginary idea wasn’t hidden. I even declared to my mom in grade school, “Before I die, I’m going to travel back in time”. And like the good parent she was to me, my mom found several movies that involved time travel for me to watch. I saw Timecop, The Time Machine, Terminator 1 & 2, and yes – even the Christopher Reeve movie Somewhere in Time. It was Superman travelling through time. Don’t judge.

As I grew up, I began to accept the fact that time travel isn’t possible. We broke up. It wasn’t working. I couldn’t keep thinking it would happen and things would change. But like the tease it is, I began to wonder all over again when I was in eighth grade and I heard about John Titor.

I don’t remember exact details of his future situation, but Titor claimed to be from the future and came to the past in the ‘90s to find something. My memory is incredibly vague, but he ended up leaving less than a year later claiming he found what he was looking for. There were Q&A threads on his site to answer people’s questions about the future. I believed his logic and what he said. I was quick to fall back in love.

A lesson I learned far too young because of time travel is, “love is blind”. As the year approached when Titor said all these global events would take place and they didn’t, that was when I lost hope.

I’ll look back on the false optimism and frustration I had on the possibility of time travel like a one night stand that could’ve been so much more between us.

Now, shitty movies like Butterfly Effect, Frequency, and The Lake House are who she’s with now, but I’ll always cherish what we had.

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Podcasts: When you have so much to say that videos, links, blogs, twitter, and facebook aren't enough

I’m not a fan of talk radio. It’s my personal opinion.  I don’t like it for the same reason I don’t like sitting through a lecture. It’s hard for me to follow one voice for an extended period of time.

From what I can tell, podcasts are nothing but talk radio – just people droning on about things. I could be wrong; I’m just basing this off of what little exposure I had to podcasts. In fact, the only podcast I listened to more than once by the same person was Dane Cook.

I don’t like Dane Cook and I really can’t recall in detail how this happened, but I accidently clicked on something that gave me this free subscription to his podcasts.  This happened around the time George Carlin died. I know this because the first podcast I accidently listened to in my “Recently Added” list was Dane Cook talking for fifteen minutes about how much of a fan he was of George Carlin on the day he died. He was a fan. He didn’t know him. He was simply a comedian that wanted to talk about how much he loved another comedian…for 15 minutes.

I obviously didn’t get the best first impression to podcasts and I’m sure there are some good ones out there.

I do think there is a lot of potential for podcasts. It helps people reach their audience in a convenient way.  When I accidently got that Dane Cook podcast, I was put on a subscription and my iTunes automatically downloaded his podcasts. It took about a minute at most for me to obliviously download it on to my iPod as well.

This all took so little time and effort and I can see that being very beneficial for people hosting websites, or simply anyone trying to reach their audience. Podcasts are a great multimedia tool for everyone and I predict it will only get bigger.

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March 30

Actions always speak louder than words

Like most things in the world right now, the presidential debates have become more than just debates. When I say more, I don’t mean that in a positive way.

The point of presidential debates is to see which individual is most qualified to lead the country. As technology as grown, it’s become more about appeal. It all started when the debates were first televised between Nixon and Kennedy, and Nixon lost due to his uneasy manner in front of the camera. Since then, it’s all gone downhill from there. It hasn’t been as much about the ideas as it has been about competition.

When President Obama was running for office, he said he would post every non-emergency bill online days before it was passed, which he recently went back on when signing a bill for equal pay for men and women. I, and I’m sure most people already agree with this bill, but in the end, it still goes back on President Obama’s promise.

I like President Obama overall and he’s not the problem – the tradition of presidential debates are. Promises made by president-elects that are later contradicted when they are commander-in-chief have been committed by several people.  The people that break these promises should be charged of breaching an oral contract. People who don’t even pay close attention to politics still vote because of one or two ideas one presidential-elect believes in compared to the other.  When a sitting president goes back on what they say, that could completely undermine the reason some people voted for him.

If presidents had to legally abide by the promises they make when they were running for office, who knows how different things would be. American citizens are meant to choose their leader off of what they personally believe. How is that justified when sitting presidents have the freedom to do what they want and not follow through with what they promised?

It says in The Gettysburg address, “…that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Oops.

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March 12

A message as repetitive as its subject

To start this off bluntly: All world news channels on TV should go. Seriously. Every one of them. CNN, MSNBC, Fox News (Well, I’m sure most of us thought this.), and so on. Why? There is no need for them.

There are way too many things going on in the world today that deserve to be reported. Serious issues are happening simultaneously, but when I flipped through the news channels, these were the top stories: Why Rihanna stayed with Chris Brown, the Feud between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer, and my favorite, Deer Make a Beer Run. In between these stories they commented that the economy is getting worse.

Sure, these are interesting stories to some people, and these different stations are businesses, but they should just go. I know the definition for news is anything that is a current or recent event, but these channels are out to entertain people first, then inform them.

What I’m saying may sound as old as the Chris Brown story right now, but you’d think channels that broadcast news stories 24/7 would cover a whole range of stories instead of reporting them on a repetitively like an oldies radio station.

Real news and events can be found online in more detail. All we may need is our local news broadcast. It seems those half hours shows have more to say than the ones that run all day everyday.

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So close, yet so far

The appeal of online social networks seems to be a double edged sword. Now more than ever, everyone seems to be myspace and especially facebook.

There is so much private information exposed that people would be fine to show to some, but not to others. I, personally, have not had any elder relatives try to “friend me” on facebook, but I’ve ran into too many people that ended up scrambling to rearrange their privacy settings on their account when their aunts, uncles, or parents “friend them” on facebook.

Social network sites are nice. They really are. They connect you with people you haven’t talked to in years and you learn things about people that haven’t been brought up in conversation. The thing about the internet is that more people are becoming more accustomed to it, which leads to more people connecting with each other.

No matter who you are, there is always a fine line on what you want to be exposed about you to certain people. Outside of just social network sites, it seems the internet has a huge amount of trouble adjusting to creating those fine lines that shouldn’t be crossed.

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February 26

Don't act surprised

In an interview with the Associated Press a little over a month ago, when former Vice President Dick Cheney was still in office, he said repeatedly that no one saw our present financial crisis coming before it hit us.

There are a few people who are credited now for predicting our current economic crisis. The most noted prediction was when Nouriel Roubini, an economics professor at New York University, stood before an audience of dismissive economists in 2006 to explain the impending threat.  Other noted predictions from people were made around the same time as well, but not too many people are familiar that Lyndon Larouche, an economist and former presidential candidate, predicted all of this since the ‘70s.

Here is a ten minute video containing clips of Larouche warning the public throughout the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and our current decade (saying 2000s still looks/sounds weird to me). Despite overdramatic graphics in the beginning, this video should be looked at seriously: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdEh-7NPn-Y

After watching that video, it should be noted that when former Vice President Cheney was asked in the interview with The Associated Press why no one in the administration saw the financial crisis coming, he said, “I suppose because nobody anywhere was smart enough to figure that out.”

Well said, Dick.

Source of the interview between The Associated Press and Dick Cheney:   http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/09/cheney-911-economy/

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February 12

Movies for the blind

I believe I’m stating the obvious when I say nothing in Hollywood is original. There are too many unneeded horror movie remakes, awkward sequels to movie franchises from 10 or 20 years ago, and the majority of Oscar nominated films this year are based off of novels.

I just don’t get it. There are several screenwriters out there who I know have good ideas. I know this because of the consistent originality of independent films. I know screenplays have been pitched to several studios, they all rejected them, and then the film was made independently and became a hit by word of mouth. This scenario has happened more than a couple of times in the past few years, but studios still have yet to acknowledge it. People don’t want the same gift with an added feature; they want a new gift whether it’s good or bad.

I will admit some hypocrisy because I was excited for the fourth Indiana Jones movie. No matter how bad the reviews were, I was bound to see it anyway because I loved the original trilogy. I ended up hating the movie, but I realized that studios don’t care if the audience hates or loves the movie. They know people will see it anyway simply for nostalgic purposes.  They are immune to bad reviews and that’s why there are more and more of these rehashed stories. It’s a trend that I refuse to keep following.  When the next “long awaited sequel” comes out, judge the trailer for the movie itself and not because you’re familiar with the characters. Remember that you liked the original because it was good movie and ask yourself if the rehashed story looks good even if you didn’t see the original.

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Mother of octuplets wants strangers to pay child support

Nadya Suleman had six children from a sperm donor while she was living on food stamps. Most recently, she gave birth to octuplets from the same sperm donor while still living off of food stamps. Now, with 14 children, she’s asking for online donations to help take care of her children.

There is no problem with people wanting to have as many children as they please, but one incentive to having children is they should be supported by the parents. Suleman, on the other hand, intentionally had several children when she knew for a fact she couldn’t support them. There was no sudden layoff or any surprise financial dip she experienced. She was living on food stamps before she conceived the octuplets and she’s still living on them after they were born.

There are suggestions that Suleman had all these children for monetary gain and I completely agree. It’s not as if her situation was out of her control. She was in control of the conception of every child she gave birth to. This was her decision and if she can’t support those 14 children, they should be given to adoptive care. It’s appalling that this woman is using her children to gain sympathy from people through donations. I understand people want children no matter what, despite their financial situation, but she went too far to get attention and sympathy.

In this economic crisis, Suleman has made a selfish ploy for donations from good-hearted people who would still donate money even if they’re not financially stable themselves.

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February 5

Blame Canada!

I always thought Canada seemed like a peaceful country. In the movie, “Bowling for Columbine”, Michael Moore went door to door in Canada showing how safe it is there and no one bothers to lock their front doors. Compared to the violence and corruption of the United States, Canada seemed like an ideal country to me. That was until I got in touch with a blogger in Canada via e-mail that I’m going to be interviewing in a few days for my class, Global Blogging.

I assume the blogger is a woman based on the screen name, but she’s not willing to give up anymore information about herself because freedom of speech is under attack in Canada. When I introduced myself, she wanted to know who would read our interview, what school I go to and what my school e-mail address was so she can verify that I actually was a student. The blogger claims the Canada Human Rights Commission (CHRC) have visited her site daily to censor and watch over her blog. She knows this because there are a large amounts of visits on her site that are largely out of proportion to how long her blog has been running and the amount of entries on the blog.

Much like “1984”, Canada has a law called Section 13, which monitor “thought crimes” according to the blogger. This law has effected “writers, website owners, magazine publishers, Christians and participants on online message forums” according to the website, www.stopsection13.com. I guess not every country is perfect.

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Journalism Observations

In May of 2009, I will be receiving a bachelor’s degree in journalism. A degree into a profession that I believe is chaotic right now. Aside from the global economic downturn, and aside from print going digital, journalism will always be needed in the world one way or another. I firmly believe that. The conversion of media to another format has been solved in the past, and from what I can tell, our economic problems will be solved eventually as they have been in the past. I believe the main problem with journalism that I believe will last a long time to figure out is the legitimacy of a journalist.

As I said before, I believe converting print journalism to the internet is a problem that will be solved soon. The conversion of different forms of media has almost always been short-lived problems, but what separates journalism from other forms of media is the reliance on hard facts. People are expected and should trust the journalist, but with journalism playing a big role on the internet, literally anyone can report the news. Sources, fact checking, and an unbiased look into the subject aren’t necessary. Anyone can write what they want and people can take that as a fact. Laws have been specifically passed giving journalists special rights, but with the internet, the definition of a journalist is blurred.

I know I have more skills than most bloggers due to what I learned in school, but the fact that there is a small line between being a blogger and being a journalist makes me wonder if all my schooling and money spent was worth the degree. Only after journalists become more comfortable with the internet, I believe that’s when the new laws will be proposed for journalists.

I went to school with a certain idea of journalism – only to see it transition as I go through schooling. There are problems that need to be solved before the legalities of being a journalist are addressed in the 21st century, but I believe those legal issues  will take a long time to come to fruition. Those legal rights of journalists are what make them reliable. I just hope I become a journalist and not just a blogger.

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