The Perfect Taj Picture

The Taj Mahal is really everything it is cracked up to be. When we went to Agra to see it a couple of weeks ago, we were both sort of surprised that it actually does live up to the hype: it really is the most beautiful building in the world. I enjoy the fact that there is a building out there that everyone agrees is the most beautiful, though I wonder if people that travel in architectural circles have some cynical view of that. Anyway, when you see the most beautiful structure in the world, the main thing is to get a good picture, and April happened to overhear the secret of the perfect Taj photo: on the far side of the reflecting pool, rest your camera on the ground and tilt up towards the building. Now you know.

Sanders on taxes and trade

I agree and disagree with what Bernie Sanders says here:

The Estate Tax issue is, to me, Sanders' strongest example of a policy tailored to benefit only the most wealthy Americans. I can't think of a tax that, while being a useful way for a government to raise money, is so morally justified. You can argue that a person who worked hard should get to keep his money, but why should his children get to keep his money, or his children's children, who haven't even brushed elbows with hard work. Very large inheritance should be taxed for no other reason than to prevent the growth of an aristocratic class. And to take it a step further, Michael Kinsley argued in the Atlantic a while back that if the Boomer generation really wants to live up to their parents' legacy - a generation that lived through a Great Depression, defeated fascism and saw the collapse of communism - they should give up all their inheritance to taxes and use the windfall to pay off the debt. I see no reason to disagree with that.

Where I think Sanders falls down is when it comes to trade. He seems to take it for granted that a product made it China is equivalent to a job lost in America. Even if international trade was as zero-sum as Sanders perceives it to be, I would find it hard to muster a lot of rage at the thought of a very poor Chinese person feeding her family with income earned by making cheap sneakers for Americans. But the main point is that there is a broad consensus among economists that trade among nations is not zero-sum. While t-shirts and sneakers might be made it China, some people point out that American manufacturing isn't really in long term decline at all. It's easy enough to look at the tag on your jeans, but not so easy to know where machinery components were made.

Finally, and this may be beside the point, if Bernie Sanders was a character from Seinfeld, he would be Frank Costanza.

Robin and Batman

An interesting part of the fallout from the Wikileaks release of US diplomatic cables is the degree to which diplomats are concerned with the petty insecurities of nations. Canadians, for example, “'always carry a chip on their shoulder' in part because of a feeling that their country 'is condemned to always play ‘Robin’ to the U.S. ‘Batman.’" This strikes me as true enough, though Tony Blair might have disputed who the real Robin is.

Deriving a sense of personal prestige from a sense of national prestige, though irrational, is real and not unique to any nation. People outside of the U.S. think 'American exceptionalism' is ludicrous: We would never fall for such a stupid idea here...we're just exceptional like that.

The fact is that a country as underpopulated as Canada will always have a hard time playing Batman. It reminds me of how rural Canadians resent Toronto for being so dominant. Toronto is dominant because it's where all the people live. Don't live where bears outnumber people if you want to feel a part of a powerful society.

Luckily there is a policy that will solve Canada's national inferiority complex once and for all: open the borders. Canada is vastly underpopulated. There are a lot of people in the world that would jump at the opportunity to move here. Double the population, triple it, quadruple, and suddenly the importance of the country on the international stage will zoom to supersize. Batman? I'm talking the Silver Surfer.

Crossing the Green Line

A story on NPR points out how Israel's security interests are leading it to commit more resources to green energy:

It's something that is obvious when you think about it - Israel's relative strength in the region, and leverage with the west, is inversely proportional to global oil demand - but it's not something that normally comes to mind when thinking about Israel. It's nice to know that there is at least one country who's immediate security concern is, or at least should be, ending the world's addiction to oil. And this isn't just any country, it's a tiny place that happens to be a world leader in cutting edge technology.

The story points out how Israel has been slow to start investing in alternative energy, but there is really only one thing that can get a country to invest big and move quickly: national security.

Mini doc featuring The Werneckes

Here's a nice mini documentary from Vancouver. One of my songs, as The Werneckes - Looking Forward to April, from the album of the same name - is featured at the end. More of my stuff, and other music can be found at fundamentalfrequency.com.

Beautiful Work from Without Illusions on Vimeo.

G8-G20 Protests - Saturday, Part 3

We walked up University Ave. towards to see what lay in store for us. Another line of cops? Most likely. We’d heard that things had gotten harrier down there, but given the well-maintained lines of riot police I’d seen earlier today, I didn’t expect anything too hairy. On our way North we saw a topless woman with a microphone, reporting in front of the barricade around the American consulate. The police didn’t seem to mind. Maybe a few of them were fans of the naked news themselves.

As we approached the corner of College and University the inevitable line of police came into view. All of 10 metres away stood our bikes, now unreachable. I went up to the friendliest cop I could find and asked him if we could get through to grab our ride home. He said “no” with a smile. I asked him when the cordoned-off area might become accessible. He laughed: “Come back in a couple of days.”

We went south and ducked west, hoping that maybe westerly police line blocking College St would be behind our bikes. My friend knocked my hat off my head in frustration. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” I explained. “The more I think about it, it’s actually a horrible idea! Why on Earth would we lock our bikes next to the designated protest zone?” He was right – looking back, it was a horrible idea. Though annoyed, I found everything more funny than tragic – after all, as long as our bikes were in one piece it wouldn’t be the end of the world; home is, after all, only 30 minute walk away.

Coming East on College St, up to the westerly line, we finally saw our bikes. Unfortunately we also saw a riot police less than 10 metres in front of them. We lamented the situation aloud. My friend made a video of the whole event. I briefly considered asking the riot cops, but as I’d learned earlier that day, given the right circumstances and the right officer, you might be able to hold a conversation with a regular cop, but never with 21^st century legionnaire. Put a cop in riot gear and they seem to lose their humanity, their ability for independent thought. To call them “riot police” is something of a misnomer – they’re infantry, armed, armored, and distinctly disinclined to verbally engage The Enemy.

I’m not sure what the protesters who had gathered by the Western line wanted. Clearly something was happening in Queen’s Park – there was a bunch of police there and reinforcements, including cavalry, were trickling in. The protesters we saw were only a few dozen-strong. Mostly they just appeared to be telling the police that they should be ashamed of themselves, though for what, precisely, I’m not sure. Did they know something we didn’t? What had these guys done that was so bad, aside from block protesters from going to a particular part of town? I assumed they were supposed to feel a general guilt for being The Man, for working against The People. The crowd (or more specifically a small subset of the crowd) sang “What the world needs now is love, sweet, love. No, not just for some, but for everyone.” True that.

The riot police were relieved of their duties by some regularly-dressed cops. Did someone decide that this crowd wasn’t a security threat (which it obviously wasn’t)? As they marched north I surmised that they were probably needed elsewhere. Holding the Western line was probably a waste of armor.

With the situation improved, I decided to try my luck again. I told one of the cops where our bikes were and offered to give him the keys to unlock it. He said “give me a few minutes and we’ll see”. A minute later he took our keys and headed over to our bikes. One of the protesters, the most vocal one so far, screamed “Hands off our bikes!” We yelled back “No! They’re helping us get our bikes!” The protester was caught off guard “Oh… in that case can you get her’s?” she asked, pointing to her friend. It looked like the cop was going to say yes. Good man.

We thanked our one-man bike-retrieval-unit and rode home. Our G20 experience, at least the “run around and see what’s going on” portion of it, was over. We’d seen a lot of anger and volume, but few physical confrontations. We’d seen some wanton destruction, but not too much, all things considered. From our perspective the police seemed to be on their best behaviour – I can imagine how pissed off I’d be, standing around in riot gear, having people yell at me for no conceivable reason, rage at my sheer presence. I rode home feeling a sense of satisfaction – while freedom of movement was moderately disrupted, free speech remained intact. While I was angry with the Black Block for their indiscriminate vandalism and obvious provocation, I was pleased with the general all-around level of restraint – better to let a few windows get smashed than beat up a crowd.

It was Saturday, 6PM. Over the coming days my pride in the police would all but disappear.

G8-G20 Protests - Saturday, Part 3

We moved along Wellington until we got to Yonge. Looking North, there seemed to be some action. Some protesters wanted to come south. A mass of riot-gear armed cops held them back. They seemed peaceful enough, but the cops soon pushed them back and took up as much of Yonge as they could. Why they were trying to occupy as much of Yonge as possible didn't make any sense to me. I didn't realize that Yonge was, in fact, the seat of much destruction, and that they were driving people away from the scene. The cop-tactic of forming a rectangle seemed to be the rule of the day. Their batons and riot gear, backed up by tear gas didn't make me want to challenge it.

We noted a bunch of "outs", places to run so we couldn't get fenced in, but by the time the cops started moving we just decided to head south where they hadn't covered yet. At this point no protesters had been "kettled" - that would come later.

We ended up on Bay and King, right back at the spot of the burnt car, minus most of the car, but with a giant burned mark where it once stood to remind you what went down. Some people had taken pieces of it, souvenirs, I suppose. A war souvenir, maybe? I picked up something too - it was a disgusting, burned, drenched, floor-mat. I put it back.

The standoff scene that I had now grown accustomed to repeated itself. This time, though the cops weren't taking more space, they were simply blocking a large, orderly group of from what I could tell mostly labour protesters from going south, from getting only one block farther and reaching the fence. Why these protesters didn't just peel off and split up in smaller groups and go around seemed strange to me - like earlier that day, all I could think was if you really wanted to let your voices be heard as close to the fence as possible you should just get there on your own. Perhaps it's the principle of the thing. For whatever reason, they decided to hold a standoff with the cops, which remained calm and emotionless. Well, for the most part - when a buddy of mine suggested we play "red rover" he couldn't help but laugh behind his gas mask.

I couldn't see it but the Starbucks at the northeast corner was smashed in.

We hung around the cops a bit, looked for outs just in case they moved, but they didn't really do much. A bunch of protesters dressed in pink danced, to no avail. A broken plastic screen on a bust stop was smashed - no doubt by the car-torching anarchists. People were sitting/standing atop it. I resisted my natural urge to climb everything in sight.

Someone was discussing getting lifted up to the security camera so he could cover or spray-paint it. He hated those cameras. would rather cover it so that's not technically vandalism, but he found a can of spray paint, and that would do the job. My friend and I declined to help him.

I thought about the police tactics, and the efficacy of keeping people from reaching the fence. I came to the conclusion that all you have to do is stick a row of cops anywhere and some protesters won't bother going to the fence, they'll just try to get through, demanding passage as their civil right.

What was the goal of the protesters? Was it to tell the G20 that their capitalist, Earth-raping ways were no good? Was it to demand women's rights or free Palestine? Was it to add bulk to the mass group in a show of solidarity? Was it to smash the state? Or was it to simply exert the right to dissent, the right to demand that Toronto not be turned into a city controlled by the police? I saw more of the latter than anything else - the protesters vented their anger against the cops, not at anyone who actually could do anything, just because they were there. They chanted, shamed them, and begged them to join them. The protests stopped being about capitalism, women's rights or the environment. They were just about telling the cops to go home, telling them that they didn't need to stand guard, and that they were working with the bad guys.

This, for me, was one of the central take-home lessons of the day - more than anything, the protesters wanted their voices heard and they didn't want anyone saying this couldn't be done.

We decided that the standoff wasn't going anywhere and retreated back down Bay St towards the fence, where anyone on our side could be, if they weren't more interested in the King St. blockade. We passed the main downtown Scotiabank, which was spray painted with "capital kills", windows smashed in methodically. The spider-cracks in the glass, some which stretched metres, were eerily beautiful.

By the fence people were taking just hanging out. Someone was walking around in a Tibetan flag. No one was actively protesting, as far as I could tell, unless touching the fence and having your picture taken counts. On the way back to our bikes I called my girlfriend. She informed us that things were getting really hairy near Queens Park.

Shit. That's where we left our bikes.

G8-G20 Protests - Saturday, Part 2

Well fed, my buddy and I decided to head south.

The goal we had in mind was simple: how far could we get? It looked like it was possible to head through the police blockades if you're just a few people, and even easier to go around them. If the goal of the protesters was getting to the fence, could they do it?

As it turned out, the answer was yes - anyone moving in small groups with a moderate degree of knowledge of Toronto's structure could walk right up to the fence, which was mostly along Wellington. We were baffled why no else though of this. Maybe if we were in a large group this would be hard. After all, for two people with no signs to veer off path is one thing, to take a massive blimp or coat hanger down Bathurst is another.

Over the past few days, the laws granted to police regarding people near the fence were frightening. Within five meters, the police had the legal right to ask you why you were there, to search you, and if refused and didn't leave (or maybe just refused - it was unclear to me), you could be arrested on the spot. Furthermore, in court, the police's word was God - no witnesses could save you from whatever the cops said on the stand.

As we neared the fence, we stood back, as far from it as could be. Yet for all the hype about having to be away from the fence, it turned out that no one cared. People (from what I could see regular folks who weren't protesting) walked next the fence. Some even walked up to it and touched it. This was clearly not what I had imagined.

We moved away from the fence a bit and decided to walk along King. As we approached Bay we saw a line of cops. Maybe the protesters were coming down there. Had they broken through? Were they getting to the fence?

Then I heard the Band. I never saw the band, but from the way they sounded I was sure it was the Anarchist Marching Band (or at least parts of it) from yesterday, their jovial arpeggiated tune heralding the coming of red and black flags. I was only half a block away and there was a dozens of cops in the way, yet we could see the flags wave while people clad in black ran through the intersection, then quickly away. As they left smoke began to rise.

We had just witnessed the lighting of the cop car in the middle of King and Bay. A handful of cameras were on the scene, but not too many. Police moved in and yelled at us to get back. We complied.

Standing half a block we waited, while our cameras and video recorders did their job. Would the protesters be hemmed in by the cops? The cavalry came in, dwarfing the yellow-jacket cops on bikes. We saw riot police put on their masks and march to the scene, flicking out their batons. As we took pictures one of the more conversationally-inclined cop asked us "So we're the bad guys, eh?" My friend responded that he didn't think so, and that there's no reason for setting a car on fire. I didn't think so either - up to now all the action taken by the police was marked by personal restraint - God knows I would've wanted to smash some guy's face in if he was yelling at me for hours.

I was both disheartened and excited - the protests would not be remembered for violence, not the peaceful chanting I saw yesterday and earlier today. No would remember that earlier this morning, Greenpeace, Oxfam, and Amnesty International demanded a better world. Yet seeing the beginnings of "who knows what" was admittedly thrilling. And besides, I'd never seen a burning car before.

From all the way back there was some confusion. Was it one car on fire or two? Where were the anarchists? Did they move south? Were they diverted? We wondered aloud to each other if they had reached the fence.

The car was set on fire a little before 1PM, and it took nearly 20 minutes to put it out. By this the things had moved elsewhere. We down to Wellington to see if the fence had been reached, or even breached. No sign of anyone here. Police on horseback came marching through, followed by a truck carrying water bottles and hay. Horses relived themselves. We couldn't help but laugh.

G8-G20 Protests - Saturday, Part 1

Saturday morning, high noon. It was raining hard but a friend and I braved the weather to bike into town for would be a day to remember. The big question hanging over our heads as we peddled to the Student Rally at Bloor and Spadina was whether or not things would turn out as peacefully as they did Friday, where, despite arrests towards the end of the day in Allan Gardens, the march itself remained peaceful.

We rode up to the scene to find a small group of students, led by the Canadian Federation of Students, huddled around the speaker, armed with a megaphone. She spoke of high tuition fees, affordable education as a universal right, and criticized the cost of the summit and war in Afghanistan, money that could be better spent on students. There were a group of people dressed largely in black, some sporting bandanas. Overhearing them, they seemed to be mostly from Montreal. Cries of "So-So-So! Solidarité!" could be heard before the by-now tiresome (and questionably accurate) "No G20 on Stolen Native Land!" started up and the group moved off. We grabbed our bikes and accompanied what seemed to be a pretty reasonable protest of between 50-100 people as they trekked through campus towards Queen's Park.

Queen's Park was packed. If the rain kept the numbers down it didn't by much. There were speakers who talked about social justice, environmentalism, the rising cost of education, labour rights, and the like. It was one of the big-tent rallies, with grievances of all types welcome. From yesterday, the communists (of both Iran and Iraq now) were there, as well women's rights activists, trade-unionists (e.g. CUPE), and the Anti-Israeli Apartheiders, who held up large letters: "B" "D" and "S", representing boycott, divestment and sanctions. But there were a lot of new faces, too. The Toronto-Danforth NDP showed up, as did at one person supporting the Green Party. The Steelworkers union were there, giant blimp in tow. Greenpeace and other environmental activists also showed up in force - definitely a larger show of environmental support than yesterday. There some other groups I never anticipated either, like Kashmiris demanding independence from India, Sikhs pissed off about the 1984 raid on the Golden Temple in Amritsar. And, of course, general protesters pissed off at the sheer cost of the summit.

With the beat of the clown-faced "Samba Squad", we were off, marching down University Avenue, towards the fence. I walked with my buddies, trying to keep somewhat apart from any one particular group - the last thing I need is to be held up at the Indian border during some future flight because of my proximity to the "Free Kashmir" banner. As we walked south I saw a bunch of black-clad protesters, with no signs, running through the crowd. It looked as if the black block was here. The question is what would they do?

I spoke with, or more accurate, was spoken to, by a woman dressed up as a sort of militant clown who was having a wonderful time banging her garbage pail lid which said "Clownarchy". She said that she hoped people were going to go all the way to the fence. When I responded with "that's the plan!" she cackled with glee, banged her makeshift shield, and took off, probably to encourage someone else to go "all the way". I tried convincing myself that the Joker wasn't real, and that I didn't just have a conversation (apparently) her. I'm not sure I bought it.

There were a bunch of police out, but not too many lining the roads. Nowhere near as many as Friday, at least. The American consolate was blocked off, and some fool who tried to make a run through the barricade established around it was easily taken down. Not the best thought-out plan, really.

Some guy was balancing on the war memorial in the middle of the road. His shaggy blond hair, black button-up shirt and grey suit made us wonder if he was actually protesting or shooting an album cover. Apparently after we plodded on he took his clothes off. Word is that he was arrested later for setting a cop car on fire, and was last seen lighting joints and a crack pipe while in the driver's seat. Who'd have thunk it?

As the march went past Elm Street, I wondered where the cops would block us. Queen street was to be the protest's final destination, as it was led West, to Spadina, and up again. A thin row of cops in street closed signalled that no could go further. One block back a phalanx of riot police showed they meant business. You could still get through the first line of police, if you went through as an individual. If you wanted to buy a hot dog, from a nearby vendor, you actually had to. A few people were coming and going, but there was no way the large crowd was getting through. As they walked up Spadina, my buddy and I ducked into Gold Stone to get some cheap and delicious grub. We checked with people we knew around town to see what they were up to and planed our next course of action.

G8-G20 Protests - Friday, Part 4

The march that started out from Allan Gardens appeared to consist of three main groups: protesters, people photographing/recording the protest (to which I include myself), and police. Lots of police. Lots and lots and lots of police.

I've never had much interaction with the police. I've never been pulled over (though I don't drive much), never been questioning on the street, never been arrested, etc. I have a general idea of how to talk to the police - be polite while respectfully asserting your rights - but I can't say I'm particularly enthusiastic to strike up a conversation, at least not while they're on the job.

The protest was flanked with cops. Bike-cops held the sides, brought up the rear, stopped traffic and generally led the way for the protest. Despite the riot gear and tear gas guns (which took me a little by surprise), the protest was almost entirely peaceful and the cops weren't going to be the ones to strike the first blow.

A scuffle broke out in front of the College Park building, on College, just west of Yonge. The rumor was that someone went after someone else, and that when the cops interfered, he took a slug at them. I have no idea how accurate this is - that's just what people were saying at the time. Cries of "Let him go!", "shame", and "This is what a police state looks like!" reverberated throughout the crowd. People closed in on the police, demanding his release. More cops conga-lined through the crowd to their rescue, shoved protesters out of the way and made some space for themselves. The protesters (and photographers who had swarmed the event) didn't shove back. After some more chanting, people realized that there was nothing they could to do help the arrested guy. The crowd begrudgingly moved on.

The protest went towards University Ave, and then turned down it, to my surprise. I though everybody was heading up to Queen's Park, but those in the know had other plans. The police did an immense amount of crowd control here, steering the protests as far down as Elm St. but blocking them from going any further, presumably from reaching the downtown convention centre where the summit is being held. An immense wall of cops, some mounted, stood between the protesters and their destination, and a standoff commenced. No one decided physical confrontation was worth it, so the the crowd turned towards West the Hasty Mart, only to be blocked again a short distance later. Funneled North again, the crowd returned to Queen's Park, making their message heard along the way, loud and slow.

This is where I checked out for the day. The entire event was noisy, but peaceful; the strange unspoken truce between the cops and the protesters carried the day, but the blocking of protesters from reaching the wall was frustrating to many.

I'd return tomorrow to continue following the events. I've got a feeling that for all its emotion and noise, Friday was just a warm-up.