Darcy Casselman

Why are my pants wet?: A lesson in cultural sensitivity

I have this weird habit where I check myself out in the washroom mirror while washing my hands. I don’t know what I’m looking for–probably just making sure my hair’s okay and I don’t have a giant booger on my face or something. I’ll lean forward towards the mirror and gaze deeply into the eyes of my mirror self.

Over the last month or so, I’ve been finding that when I do this at work, I’ll get back to my desk to discover that my pants are soaked through in socially compromising areas. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t… leaking. I’m not quite old enough to have to resort to diapers. So I went back to the bathroom and checked the sink. Sure enough, the entire sink counter was flooded with water, held there with the magic of surface tension.

At first, I was angry. I hate having to use communal washrooms to begin with, but this was adding insult to injury. I was tempted to put up a post-it with one of those passive-aggressive sorts of notes you see in offices telling the slobs to clean up after their damn, lazy selves. I mean, how hard is it to wash your hands without making a mess? Seriously!

Rather than resorting to futile anger, however, I kept my wits about me and observed.

I noticed that people were doing something at the bathroom sinks that I hadn’t expected: they were washing their face. Face-washing can conceivably be more messy than hand-washing. But isn’t that level of facial cleanliness a little obsessive? I’m usually good with a shower in the morning. It’s not like we’re working in a coal mine.

I know I shouldn’t make snap judgements, so I continued to observe. The people washing faces seemed to be the same dudes who I’d noticed trying to scope out quiet places to pray at work. And they happened to say something I didn’t catch before they started. And I also noticed that it was (at the time) coming to the end of Ramadan.

[Wudu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wudu) is the act of ritual washing in preparation for prayer. It is a religious duty in Islam.

So I’m kinda glad I didn’t kick up a fuss or anything. That would’ve been really embarrassing. I’ll just have to be more careful about my pants.

Election Conclusion: Vote MMP

The title of this post is a spoiler, but I’ve run out of time to keep being coy about it.

When we last left our hero, he had decided that he would forsake the two parties that had any hope of getting a candidate elected around here, thus “throwing his vote away,” as it is said in the popular parlance. He still has choices, though.

### Catherine Fife (New Democratic Party) ###

You know, this is probably the first time I’ve been even remotely tempted to vote NDP. Out of all the parties, they are the only ones that have any sort of plan to get money to cities. And I share Howard Hampton’s [frustration](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071004.wontario05/BNStory/ontarioelection2007/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20071004.wontario05) with how this campaign’s been going.

Catherine Fife’s a really strong candidate, too. She’s a good speaker and passionate about the issues. It’s just too bad she doesn’t have a hope of winning. Maybe if the damn students bothered to vote, but that will never happen.

I have a hard time seeing myself vote NDP, though. I’ve never felt that they represented me at all. Case and point is their plan to immediately raise the minimum wage 25% to $10/hour, which I’m pretty sure would be disastrous to the economy and would put those hard-working single mothers who “deserve” a better wage out on the street. Maybe they’ve run the numbers and created the models and the fallout would be minimal, but the more likely answer is the $10 minimum wage (like a lot of their platform) is pandering to the ignorant and self-interested and doomed to fail.

To vote for them, I need some assurance that they know what they’re doing and I never get it.

### Judy Greenwood-Speers (Green Party) ###

I’ve said for ages that if I couldn’t vote for the Liberal candidate, I’d vote Green instead. There’s a lot in their platform that I like, including a strong shift to consumption taxes (especially a carbon tax, which we needed yesterday), farm policy, land use policy, cities and so forth. I don’t really have time to go on.

Judy Greenwood-Speers is definitely flamboyant and would certainly be a more *fun* MPP if she ever had a chance of being elected. If she did, I wouldn’t mind her representing me at all. So I’m going to vote for her.

There is definitely stuff I don’t like about the Greens, like, in a fit of one-upsmanship, they declared they’d raise the minimum wage to *$10.25*, which annoys the crap out of me. I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that. It’s not like they’re going to form the government anyway.

### Conclusion: Vote MMP ###

The other thing that’s going on in this election is, for the first time in 70-some years, Ontarians are being presented with a [referendum](http://www.yourbigdecision.ca/). Proposed is an alternative to the First-Past-the-Post system I’ve been describing in the last few posts.

FPTP has been how Upper Canada has voted since the 1700s and, frankly, it’s showing its age. I’m a programmer and, as such, can never leave well enough alone. I’d fix something just for the sake of fixing it. However, FPTP has some serious problems that really need to be addressed, namely among them being that minority views that are evenly distributed get absolutely no airing in our parliamentary system.

The proposed alternative (and we don’t get to pick from a buffet of choices, the [Citizen’s Assembly](http://www.citizensassembly.gov.on.ca/en/default.asp) chose for us) is called “Mixed Member Proportional,” and works rougly like this:

Under MMP, you’re presented with two seperate ballots. The first ballot is pretty much the same as the one you’re voting on today: you pick a representative for your riding who may be affiliated with a party. The second ballot asks you which party you support.

Representatives are elected and get seats in parliament. The difference is there will be additional seats set aside to make up for the discrepency between the number of votes in the house and popular support for the parties as demonstrated by the party vote.

So perhaps I could vote for Judy but throw my support behind the Liberals. Or vote for Catherine and support Green. Or throw the full weight of my vote behind the Green party.

I don’t know exactly how this system would change the political landscape. It’s kind of like when developers create an online game like Quake. For the first little while, maybe, it goes pretty much like they expect, and then people figure out strange, game-breaking tricks like missile jumps. This is kinda like that. Strategic voting would change drastically. And one thing’s for sure: we’d almost certainly never see a majority government again.

But that’s okay. I don’t have a problem with any of that. This system is roughly similar to the system in place in New Zealand, Germany and other places.

It seems like it better reflects what people really want to do–namely, vote for a party–and maybe they’d take more time to think about who represents them. All in all, I think it’s a good thing and I think you should vote for it. Like right now. The polls are open.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I’ll take a break from politics to wish you and yours a happy Thanksgiving. I’m a bit too bloated right now to contemplate the NDP anyway.

I’ve spent way too much time this weekend just sitting around playing [Jeanne D’Arc](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_d%27Arc_%28video_game%29). I’m a sucker for a turn-based tactical combat RPG, and it’s a good game. My intention was to sit around at home and relax this weekend, and that’s pretty much what I’ve done. So I’m happy.

I’m headed back early tomorrow afternoon. I have leaves to mulch when I get home and a cat that misses me. Or wants to be fed. One or the other.

Ontario Election: The Candidates

Before I start beating up on people, I want to take a minute to go over what’s going on here. I know, this is basic stuff, but it’ll become important later.

The way Canada’s national and provincial election systems work, you’re asked to vote for which of various candidates in your riding you want to represent you in parliament. The candidate with the most votes wins the seat and a vote in government. You’re picking your representative.

Candidates are generally affiliated with a political party. Parties are kind of a bundle of values and ideals and come with their own histories and internal politics. I get the impression that most people completely disregard who the people running are and vote for the party.

And in a way that makes sense. The party that gets the most seats forms the government and the party leader leads that government. The leader has a lot of power, even though they’re not directly elected.

That kinda rubs me the wrong way. I have to think about who’s going to represent me.

### Liz Whitmer (Progressive Conservative) ###

Ms Whitmer is the incumbent in the riding. She’s held it for 17 years. I have the distinct feeling she’s going to hold it for another four.

Liz Whitmer really bothered me in previous election campaigns. Given my feelings about the Mike Harris government, that probably isn’t that much of a surprise, but she came across as really smug and slimy.

This time, though, I’m not getting that vibe as much. I suppose running as the opposition is easier than running for the governing party.

I’m still not going to vote for her. There was a time when I might have considered voting PC, but even though the Conservative platform is a far cry from what it was in the Mike Harris years, I’m pretty sure their values don’t align with mine. At all.

### Louise Ervin (Liberal) ###

Disclaimer: I got involved in this election a little earlier than most. I am currently a card-carrying member of the Ontario Liberal party. Dalton McGuinty sends me email. I signed up because a friend of a friend of a friend was running for the Liberal candidacy. I actually thought he was pretty good, too. Better than Ms Ervin, anyway.

No sour grapes, though. I’m probably the biggest Liberal apologist in the world, and if they field a halfway-decent candidate, I’ll vote for them. One of the things that bugs me about the Liberal party, though, is they have a tendency of fielding less-than-decent candidates.

I’m not terribly impressed with the Dalton McGuinty government over the last four years. While they didn’t make things much worse, I was kinda hoping they’d do *something* to try to fix some of the damage Mike Harris did, including and especially start fixing the fiscal situation for municipalities. They haven’t. So colour me disappointed. They have promised things I like, like an impressive public transit program. I don’t particularly mind giving them another chance. I’d vote for the Liberal party if that was what I was asked. What I’m being asked, however, is who I want to represent me.

I don’t want Louise Ervin representing me. She’s pretty awful. From what I can tell she doesn’t have any ideas of her own. She’s a Liberal pit bull wannabe, and an incredibly ineffective one at that. What’s more, her main public service credential–trustee on the Catholic school board–makes her outrage over John Tory’s proposal to fund private religious schools hard to swallow.

So I’m not voting for her, either.

*to be continued…*

Election Posts: An Introduction

I’m in Belleville for the long weekend. Having just driven in holiday traffic for three hours, I’m a little tired. So bear with me.

I was going to write this as an introduction to my election post (which I keep talking about but have yet to actually write). That’s coming, but I thought I should lay down some guiding principles first.

First, I hate politics. I am, however, a firm believer in the importance of good government and performing my duty as a citizen in a democracy. Without getting all Jimmy Stewart, I think it’s vitally important to stay informed and do what little is expected of me: vote.

I don’t think, however, that debating politics (especially on the internets) is often very productive. So I generally avoid it. But I’m torn, because I think that by avoiding it, I’m contributing to a general malaise and cynicism about democracy which I think is a huge problem in our society. (For the record, I have no problem with malaise and cynicism about politics, which I think is natural and inevitable. However, I think it’s important to separate democracy, society and governance from politics. They aren’t the same thing. The former is important and the latter is a retarded spectator sport).

So I’m going to talk about politics, but in a particular sort of way.

I want to lay out the basis for my coming to a decision regarding the election, or elections in general. I want to do this both to help me validate those thought processes in my own mind. I also kinda want to subtly encourage people by example. Which is to say I don’t particularly want to slog out a debate about who’s the better candidate in the comments. I’m not going to get into that. I would be very happy, however, to see others post about their own thought processes. I like to read that stuff.

I am not going to stump for a candidate. I don’t think that’s particularly classy. If there was one candidate I was enthusiastically ecstatic about (and there isn’t), that would probably show through. However, it’s not my goal to make you vote the way I vote. This is mostly about me, but if I wanted you to take anything out of this exercise, it’s to think for yourself, evaluate your own values and beliefs and cast a ballot for the candidate that you feel would best represent you.

I think of an election like it’s hiring someone for a job. You need to have that position filled by next week, even if all the candidates who’ve applied are horrible. That’s all you have to work with. It’s your job to pick one and move on.

I’ll post about the candidates tomorrow.