Unkie Herb

Thanks to high profile deaths, tasers have never been so controversial in Canada. A full scale review is under way into the design and use of these devices by law enforcement, and debate is simmering nicely.

I’d say we’re at a medium heat, for now. Like a good pot of vegetarian cashew chili.

A little background:

A Polish man was tasered to death at Vancouver’s airport. He had been there for hours with no explanation - he spoke no English and airport authorities made no attempt to find a translator. After ten hours of purgatory, he finally snapped. The video of his final moments show him angrily shifting airport furniture and moving about like an agitated caged animal. RCMP officers approached him and with no other attempt to subdue the man, proceeded to taser him into the ground. They piled on top and tasered him again. No effort to resuscitate him was made. The (very disquieting) video is here.

This is a tragic event that deserves the attention it has received. Police taser policy needs to be reviewed in a serious manner.

If we were to electrocute convicted felons in a prison, it would rightly be called torture. And yet it is acceptable to zap troublesome citizens while they walk the streets? Tasers, if they continue to be part of the police arsenal, should be used only in the last resort, right before a gun is drawn.

What troubles me on a general level is the initial police reaction to the event. The police report first claimed the man had been tasered because he was wildly agitated and could not be subdued. Only once the bystander video was released did the police change their testimony in the face of visual evidence.

It can’t help but make me wonder: What other lies have the police told us that, without evidence to the contrary, was accepted by the general public?

I’m reminded of another story involving the RCMP, Canada’s iconic Mounted Police. A twenty-two year old man was charged with drinking in a public place and, after being arrested for giving a false name, was taken into custody. He was shot dead, the bullet entering from the back of his head, while being interrogated.

The officer, a rookie, has since been cleared of any wrongdoing.

Now you may be wondering: how does a police officer go free after he shoots a young man in the back of the head during a routine interrogation in a police station?

This is something I am still asking. There were no video cameras in the room. The only other witness to the event is dead.

We’ll never know. What we do know, though, is that police corruption and lies are not confined to the third world.

Nap time is over.

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A brief one here today.

Sometimes I think about writing a manifesto. I think about codifying all the brilliant and revolutionary (peaceful) ideas I have to change this country and this planet. I might start writing them here. Maybe.

I sort of already have, now that I think about it. I wrote about how labeling meat with the farming practices will raise awareness. People will be able to easily discern between ethically produced meat and factory torture. It isn’t right that the only option I have to avoid supporting the heinous treatment of living things is to become a vegetarian.

There, first policy announcement after I’m elected Prime Minister.

What about some other things?

I have some ideas on how to completely reinvigorate our education system. As I see it, the institution of public education has a major purpose: the leveling of the playing field.

By granting universal access to public education we are attempting to uphold a key democratic tenet. Equality of opportunity is essential to a strong democracy and fairness in the free market system. The problem arises when our education system fails to provide the balance.

Clearly, this has happened.

The hereditary nature of wealth is especially troubling because it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The poor would benefit most from improvements to the system but have the least amount of power to create change. The rich feel no pressure to revamp the programs and so nothing gets done.

Politicians, instead of being leaders, are followers. They suck up to public opinion and let the media help them frame the issues. They do not set the agenda or choose which battles to fight. They don’t make decisions that are the in the best interest of the people, they make decisions that are in the best interest of getting their party elected.

Self-preservation is the name of the game for most citizens and the politicians they elect. Making serious changes to a struggling system is beyond both these groups.

Maybe I’ll write another manifesto entry on that…

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Read Part 1 (Getting the Money) here.

Read Part 2 (Finding the Time) here.

This is the final installment of my three part lecture on how easy it is for you to take a multi-month vacation. You know, one of those four or six or ten month backpacking adventures that your buddy from college never shuts up about. You know the type. I sure do, I’m one of them.

But they really are as amazing as you think.

Think about it: You disappear from the life you know to spend months as a nomad. You meet people from across the planet. You travel by whim - nothing is booked ahead, you figure it out as you go - and when a particular city or village or beach seems perfect, you spend days or weeks longer than you expected.

You are completely and utterly free. You are limitless.

This portion is entitled Growing the Nuts, and is about confronting the fear and uncertainty that can accompany such a vacation.

Most of the time we book our trips far in advance - flights, hotels, tours, rounds of golf, etc. The thought of being in a foreign country without everything prearranged is intimidating and so we don’t take chances. Better safe than sorry, right?

Wrong.

I am adamant with friends who are considering this type of travel that they don’t book anything in advance. Okay, maybe a hotel for the first few nights in the region, but after that you play it all by ear. Guesthouses and bungalows are everywhere along the beaten backpacker path, and showing up and having a look around is a great way to pay less for more.

It works like this. When you book online or over the phone, they can give you their worst room at their worst rates because you have no clue what you’re walking into. By arriving and asking to see the rooms before you pay, you have the advantage in bargaining (I once got a bungalow on the Mekong for $1.50 a night).

Here are a few basics:

1. Plan a loose route: Find a path that will allow you to see the countries and landmarks that you want while minimizing backtracking. Retracing your steps costs time and money, and you’ll want to avoid it.
2. Find an entrance point: A major city works best for its international airport, large traveler scene (for meeting other adventurers, see below) and local transportation network. Some of the best East Asian entry points are Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo. Do some homework on where to start for other regions.
3. Go with the flow. Talk with other travelers and don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions. People love to share a beer, talk about their experiences help you decide what to see and what to avoid. By not booking in advance, you can take several different points of view and make decisions as you go.
4. Choose your means of transport wisely: You can save cash and experience the authentic scene by taking local transportation (trains, buses, taxis and boats) instead of planes. Some of my best memories after two years in Asia are from local buses and trains. Pressed for time, though, local flights can be found for cheap.

Knowing all these things doesn’t ward off the fear of the foreign place, though. I understand the worry people have, but it’s largely unfounded. Travel experiences are nothing like Babel.

Here are a few simple things to remember when on the road:

• Don’t be stupid: Traveling by yourself is an incredible experience. It forces you to have the confidence to meet people and it allows you incredible freedom to do what you want without compromise. Yet this doesn’t mean that solo strolling the back alleys of Rio at four in the morning is a great idea.
• Learn to speak: Memorizing seven phrases of the local language (hello, thank you, goodbye, delicious, please, how are you?, I’m fine) makes an incredible difference. It allows you to greet curious children and make them laugh, but also forces shop owners to take you seriously - and give you a better deal. I learned to say things like older brother, older sister, little one and it wowed the Burmese.
• Trust strangers: Something miraculous happens to people when they are backpacking and it results in a wonderful culture of trust and support. Whenever I felt lonely or confused, a walk around the touristy area of a town immediately produced a group of cool people who were looking to party. Here are a few pointers on meeting people abroad:
  • Look for a largish group from different places. If you hear several accents coming from a group of six or eight people, chances are they all met on the road and would be happy to add another to their crew.
  • Make eye contact with other solo people. Flash a smile and a nod, and if they respond with a smile just start the conversation. As eager as you are to meet people, that other solo person is, too.
  • Dance. That’s right. Dance.

I can’t really think of much else to tell you. I can assure you that for all the consternation that planning your trip might cause, it will melt away almost as soon as you step out the airport doors.

Don’t be afraid. Fear is a killer that stops us from doing the things we want to do. It is invented, false. It dwells only in your mind.

Get your confidence together, buy that plane ticket, pack that bag, charge your camera and get ready for an experience that you will thank yourself for over and over.

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Read Part 1 (Getting the Money) here.

People always express jealousy when I tell them about my seven month trip through South East Asia. Usually this is a result of several things they don’t think they have:

1. The Money
2. The Time
3. The Balls

Whenever they tell me this, I go on at varying lengths (usually dependent on how responsive they are) about how they have all of these things and just haven’t realized it yet.

Welcome to Part 2: Finding the Time.

Another big issue for people considering this sort of trip is finding the time to take such a long vacation. A week or two is easy. A month is possible. But six, eight, 12 months? Unless you work for a great company that values you highly, you’re pretty much quitting your job.

Getting the time off is probably less difficult than you think. I know people who have told their boss that they will be taking off for a six month trip only to be told that a job would be waiting upon their return. Don’t count on it, though.

So what you need to be willing to do is walk. Give lots of notice. Apologize. Express how happy you’ve been there (unless the job is shit) and how you understand they can’t keep a position open for you. You’d appreciate a reference, though.

Many people say they can’t do this, and it’s usually due to several pressures:

• Career-focus: That constant feeling that the position you have isn’t good enough and you need advancement. By leaving a good job that you’ve worked hard at for several years, you’ll lose all forward momentum. Your experience (and therefore your promotion-readiness) will be knocked back at least the length of your trip if not more.
• Resume Gaps: No one likes a big chunk of resume gap. When you come back home nine months later and start looking for work again, people will wonder why you’ve been unemployed for so long. This is a disadvantage, no doubt.
• Spontaneity: Some employers might look at your recent traveling as a sign that you’ll up and leave again, wasting the time and resources they spent on your training.

These are all legitimate concerns. You would have to be pretty talented, confident or stupid for these things to not affect your life decisions. That said, you need to consider some other perspectives:

1. A long time spent traveling is a very effective personal growth catalyst. Living abroad will allow you to immerse yourself in foreign languages, cultures and customs. This will put perspective on your own culture and society, which can help you become a deeper, more analytical thinker.

In our multicultural societies a culturally broadened individual is an asset. You can sell your sensitivity as a skill to be taken seriously by prospective employers. After all, when you are asked to head up a project and your team members are from Indian, Chinese, Polish and Peruvian backgrounds, you’ll need to balance cultural differences to get the job done.

2. I parried the resume gap questions by referring to my trip right in my cover letter. As mentioned above, I could argue that the time off is strengthening for certain positions - especially in sales or other areas where I would be dealing with Toronto’s extremely diverse population. This explains the resume gap without apologizing for it.

3. Reassure future employers that you have taken your trip and need to settle into something more permanent for a while. They would be unrealistic to ask for a guarantee of more than a few years, which is probably the exact amount of time you’d need to save up for next trip anyway. My current employer, a magazine publishing company, just wanted to make sure I’d be around for a year or two. I love this job and it’s paying me just enough to save.

That final financial hurdle to overcome is the what will I do for money when I get back? This is especially troubling for people who have outgrown the “parental move-back-in” manoeuvre.

Simply put, save a bit more cash and have a couple thousand waiting for you upon return. Crash on a friend’s couch or something until you have work and a place to live.

Or try subletting your apartment while you are gone - this pays the rent and allows you to move back in right away upon returning.

In the end, all of these things take figurative balls. You need to work up the confidence to just go for it, trusting yourself to make it all happen.

This will be discussed in Part 3 (Growing the Nuts), here.

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People always express jealousy when I tell them about my seven month trip through South East Asia. Usually this is a result of several things they don’t think they have:

1. The Money
2. The Time
3. The Balls

Whenever they tell me this, I go on at varying lengths (usually dependent on how responsive they are) about how they have all of these things and just haven’t realized it yet.

Here is the first of three parts on this topic:

Part 1: Getting the Money.

This is actually pretty easy for two main reasons: Travel is a lot cheaper than you think AND Saving is a lot easier than you think.

Travel is cheaper than you think in several main regions of the world:

• All of Asia (minus Japan)
• Central and South America (with the possible exception of Brazil or Chile)
• Africa
• Eastern Europe

So we can see already that avoiding Western and Central Europe, Australia, New Zealand, North America and certain other places (i.e. the over-touristed parts of the Caribbean) will allow you to travel for much longer on the same budget. While these places are no less interesting than the more affordable areas, perhaps you could see them when you are older and richer or when you have less time.

Taking SE Asia as a budgetary example, it is possible to travel there on about $20 US per day. This includes everything after the initial plane ticket. On a budget of five thousand US I traveled for seven months. Granted I was staying in some grungy accommodation with shared facilities, but even the more squeamish can get by on a slightly larger amount (say $10-20 a room nightly instead of $3-8) and enjoy a huge jump in quality of life.

Saving is easier than you think using one main principle: stop buying useless crap you don’t need. Stop saving for things and start saving for experiences.

Let’s break it down over a two year period of savings.

In twenty four months, you need to save $10,000 to get that comfortable six to eight month trip you’ve always dreamed of taking. I’m shooting for a few thousand more than you’ll need so you can do some shopping and stay in better hotels than I did.

When you do the math, this means you only need to put away $417 a month.

This can be done through will power without sacrificing your day to day enjoyment. I like using a form of personal meditation - essentially, every time I look at a new electronic toy or pair of shoes or whatever that I want, I close my eyes and picture myself off on some trip again.

When I get that image in my mind of me drinking on a palm lined beach or hiking some mountains with a local guide or taking photos of a foreign religious ceremony, I look back down at whatever it was that I wanted and laugh at myself. I walk away. No matter how fun and silly that little toy would be for a few weeks or months, it can’t compare to the experiences and memories that will come with months of backpacking. It won’t and don’t you even pretend that it could. Lots of people have that coat, that ipod, whatever; no one goes on the same trip and it will be yours alone.

Other simple things to try:

• Bring your lunch. Figure on $7-10 minimum for take-out, whereas making a lunch or even bringing frozen leftovers will cost $2-5. A five dollar savings daily equals $25 a week. Over two years, you are looking at over $2500 in savings. That’s two months abroad right there.
• Stop taking week long trips. Even though it’ll be tough to go two years without a week on the beach in Cancun, the airfare just isn’t worth it when you’re only off for a week. Take a trip within driving distance and save the thousand dollars you’d spend on the plane for the big adventure.

To summarize: Stop complaining about not being able to put together the money you need to do something you dream about and start making the decisions that will get you to where you want to be.

If necessary, open a second bank account (especially one that pays you to bank there, check out ING Direct) and start throwing a set amount (say $400 a month) in there. Don’t check it for a year. Surprise yourself after 12 months and see what you’ve got.

Read now:

Part 2 (Finding the Time)

and

Part 3 (Growing the Nuts) on how to take that multi-month vacation - we all need at least one.

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This is ridiculous. He should be ashamed of himself.

He’s embarrassing this country.

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With all due respect.

I hope I haven’t offended anyone, but the unassailable SUPPORT THE TROOPS rally cry just doesn’t ring true in this country.

That’s not to say that Canadians (including myself) don’t support our men and women engaged in Afghanistan. Regardless of whether or not you support our being there philosophically, you’d have a tough time undermining respect for the military in Canada. We love our small yet excellently trained people at arms and as vehemently lefty as I can be, I won’t argue that (barring the realization of the global disarmament fantasy) we should disband our military.

Basically: our military policy is ALWAYS open to strong political and ideological criticism and at NO POINT does this limit one’s ability to support the people doing the government’s bidding.

Because, after all, every war is fundamentally a political decision. It is about lines on a map, it is about fabricated ideals of freedom and territory and resources and preemption. Canada is at war right now because our government made the call.

Our Minister of Defence, Peter MacKay, recently accused his opposition critic, Denis Coderre, of being “un-Canadian.” Yet this is just a ploy to distract attention from his failings. He’s been complacent in a series of human rights abuses in Afghanistan.

Allow me to explain: the Canadian troops have been regularly handing over Afghan “detainees” to Afghan army prisons. These places are now notorious for their terrible conditions; something the defense ministry, it’s been revealed, was aware of while simultaneously denying it. Apparently even juvenile prisoners are being transfered to these prisons despite the horrendous reports by Canadian inspectors. One incident involved the dismissal of a prison warden due to rape accusations by young captives.

Mackay, instead of responding to these allegations, went on the offensive and claimed that Coderre’s criticism “does nothing to demonstrate that his party or that member support the troops.”

The argument looked eerily similar to 2003 rhetoric to the south.

Following 9/11 and continuing well into the invasion of Iraq, the American government and mass media were quick to denounce anyone who criticized the show of military strength as unpatriotic. Phrases such as support the troops and un-American were commonplace and stung celebrities and journalists careers so heavily that counter-arguments were effectively nullified.

What else could MacKay be attempting? His policies are being attacked, and while indeed they are carried out by our troops, they are ultimately ordered by the government. Our politicians should be discussing issues and policy, not the rhetoric of patriotism.

Ultimately MacKay did not choose wisely when he went with this line of argument. For him to echo the White House makes the Conservative government sound even more in bed with the Bush administration. This will not settle well with the majority of Canadian voters. It was frightening back then to watch our friends to the south as they tore into each other, undermining their own ability to criticize their government. Canadians will never stand for that sort of blind adherence to authority. After watching what it did to the U.S. and it’s democratic institutions, it won’t happen here.

After all, things have changed to the south, and it’s good to see that the Yanks are somewhat immune to the unpatriotic stinger. They’ve realized that patriotism and democracy aren’t mutually exclusive. Surely Canadians are too critical to fall for the same bait.

In the post-9/11 U.S., with the attacks still so fresh in the memory, a little loss of judgement was understandable.

Canada has no excuse.

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One thing I’ve always despised about paying for cable is knowing that for every minute of decent television I watch, there’s seventeen oil tankers full of absolute garbage. What a waste of my money and the world’s energy.

Think about it: If you have seventy channels, probably an average amount for a North American cable or satellite provider, you have a lot of television. I’ll be generous and give television the benefit of the doubt by saying there’s about ten hours of decent TV per day. I know that sounds like way too much, but just for the sake of argument let’s go with it.

70 x 24 = 1680 hours of TV.
1680 - 10 = 1670 hours of garbage.

That means for every hour of good TV, there’s 167 hours of crap.

Now, some of you might question my math - either through my number of channels or by suggesting that not every channel broadcasts 24 hours a day. Fair enough, but I challenge you to find 10 hours of even decent programming, let alone genuinely good, entertaining stuff.

All that said, I figure there has to be some good TV out there. I mean, with all these countries pouring millions into their idiot box broadcasts, someone has to doing something right, yes?

Enter the internet.

For the past few years there has been a remarkable increase in the availability of BitTorrent download sites. Just go out and grab a client program like Azureus or BitTorrent, pop over to some torrent sharing site like isohunt or bitsoup, and start browsing. I won’t get deep into the details of why this is so much faster than using a traditional file sharing program like Limewire, but suffice it to say that instead of downloading a song by your favourite artist, you’re gonna be downloading every album they’ve ever released in one go. Brilliant.

Television programs were much the same. I could go out and grab the entire first season of The Office and watch it, commercial free, at my leisure. But now even this seems outdated - after all, who wants to wait the day or two for it to download?

Thanks to streaming sites such as TV Links, a whole new world has been opened up to us. On a streaming site one can simply click the name of the episode or movie they want to watch, and the program will download as you watch it, meaning the program is essentially on demand. Unfortunately, TV Links has since been shut down and its operator arrested. In classic internet fashion, however, dozens of new sites are stepping into the void every time a big one gets knocked down. Check ‘em out.

Finally, the newest and potentially the best option: live streaming. So now instead of waiting for the newest episode of Entourage to finish so someone can post it online, you can just watch it live (if you are on schedule) right off HBO for free.

The most useful aspect of this is, of course, sports. As watching a big match rerun is never much fun, we all now have the option of watching a favoured sporting event no matter on what channel or where in the world it’s being broadcast.

A few ideas for this are SopCast, TvAnts, and others. Want to watch English Football live, streamed? No problem. Want to catch the All Blacks? You’re set.

Why pay for cable? Why sit around and wait for your favourite show to start? Click on it and away you go!

**This site does not condone illegal behaviour by anyone.

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