Watching US Politics from the Sidelines

It's a fascinating spectacle to watch what's happening south of the border this week. I'm sure next week will also be fascinating, but in a scarier, foreboding kind of way. I can't help but point out, however, the things I find completely bizarre from the perspective of someone living outside that reality.

Michelle Obama speaks very well, and I have to say that seeing and hearing her makes me like her. I can't help but wonder why the spouse of a candidate who is not running for office herself has such a prominent place in the political process. That doesn't strike me as being pertinent.

Hillary Rodham Clinton (and I did notice that on Thursday night that Obama added the Rodham back into her name) is also a good speaker, even if she talked a little too much about herself in promoting support for Obama. And the crowd just happened to have 'Unity' signs to wave amongst the 'Hillary' signs. How spontaneous! She did have a good line about the coincidence of Bush and McCain being in the Twin Cities next week, which was a good dig.

Bill Clinton may have had the best line of them all, which I will probably misquote (as I did earlier this evening on the phone with a friend): America should lead by the strength of its example and not by the example of its strength. I liked that one.

Joe Biden kind of scared me with all his military talk. He sounded ready to invade - er, send to troops to support the government of - Georgia. Isn't getting into wars part of the problem we're all hoping to fix in this election? What happened to the diplomacy talk that we have been hearing from Obama all this time?

On the militarism angle again, I was horrified by the line up of (admittedly retired) generals, admirals, etc. trooped out on stage to show their support for Obama. I thought the military only got involved in politics in countries on the edge of a coup. This kind of scared me, too. Not only that, but the general who spoke was really quite wooden and seemed to be very obviously reading from a teleprompter.

I'm going to have to recuse myself from commenting on the incessant flag-waving, since I do come from a rather flag-wavy part (for now) of Canada. Somehow the striped starry ones scare me more, but that is probably a function of history tainted by recent and mid-term memory.

The 'real' people they brought up to speak about their own experiences were okay. Certainly most 'ordinary' people wouldn't be able to speak quite so smoothly in from of a crowd of many thousands, so I'm not sure how many people in the audience thought this was anything other than staged and coached (and probably written for them). Not that it would be a good idea to just send some regular folk up on stage to say whatever they wanted, but still… The best line among them, of course, was Barney Smith, who wants a President who will put Barney Smith ahead of Smith Barney. Again, funny and clever, but who really wrote it?

Barack Obama is an inspiring speaker. I remember thinking 'this guy will be back' when I heard him address the Democratic National Convention four years ago, and many of his speeches over the course of this campaign so far have been really good. Of course, when he spoke four years ago, he actually spoke up for Muslim Americans, while he spends more time trying to distance himself from them now. (On a side note, the whole religion thing is quite strange to me. In Canada, politicians get treated with a degree of suspicion if they mention 'faith' or their religion, while it seems to be a required element in the US.)

I hope that we all get to find out that Obama is as inspiring at leading every day as he is at speaking now.

And a quick swipe at his opponent… Why is it that you get to be a war hero when the most notable thing you did was to get caught and imprisoned by the people whose country you were bombing? I would think the ones who didn't get caught would be the heroes, even if they were doing unspeakable things that in a just world would have been prosecuted as war crimes. I'm sure I'll have more to say about him after next week.

Opera … check!

Yay! My friend Michael and I bought our season of opera tickets on Friday.

That's them, above, with the promotional images superimposed on them.

Bye-election Next Door

On 8 September there will be bye-elections in three ridings, two in Québec and one in Ontario. The one that's been hitting me in the eye is the one in Westmount-Ville-Marie, which is the riding next door to mine, covering Westmount and the downtown of Montréal.

As an aside, I have to object to Elections Canada's having dropped the "e" of the "bye" in bye-election. What's up with that?!

I took some photos of the signs that are up for the four major candidates (haven't actually seen any other signs), so here they are with some comments. Forgive the quality of the photos, but I was actually on my way home from the Atwater Market with delicate raspberries and blueberries in my shopping bags, and the photos were taken one-handed while walking toward the bus stop.

First up (and worst quality photo), the Liberal.

Marc Garneau is best known as Canada's first astronaut. In political circles, he is known as the Liberal candidate who lost to the Bloc québécois when he ran in Vaudreuil-Soulanges and was snubbed by the current Liberal leader Stéphane Dion when he wanted to run in Outremont. (Those who follow such things will remember that Dion's hand-picked candidate lost that bye-election to Thomas Mulcair of the NDP.) Perhaps the fuzziness of the photo I took was prescient, or at least appropriate. ;-)

What strikes me about the poster is the stodginess of how the photo is included (in a box, not incorporated in the graphics) and the high-school-like web site address: votemarc.ca (French version votezmarc.ca). The posters are in two versions, English and French, and attached back-to-back around poles. I find this interesting, as the "two versions" approach (versus the "bilingual" approach) is usually the mark of the Québec government, whatever party is in power. The federal Liberals have usually taken the bilingual approach.

Next up might be Garneau's stiffest competition, the NDP.

Anne Lagacé Dowson is a pretty well-known radio personality (especially for those of us who have our radios permanently tuned to CBC Radio One). She has taken a leave from her journalist role to run, and is hoping for a repeat of the Outremont results in this neighbouring riding which includes another slice of a wealthy section of town (Outremont being a much more francophone wealthy area, Westmount being a little more anglophone and mixed).

You'll notice that I managed to cut off the NDP logo, hidden right at the top of the poster in the green area, but it certainly wasn't as prominent as the candidate in any case. And, speaking of green, I wonder if that splash of green at the top (doubtless to make a point and a swipe at the Green Party) also explains why these posters are much smaller than the other three party posters (about a quarter of the size).

Third up is the Bloc québécois.

I don't think Charles Larivée has any chance of winning, or any pretension that he will, but the Bloc will always run a candidate in every Québec riding, whether or not the anglos dominating the riding would ever consider voting for them. On this principle, I think the Bloc should start running candidates in Labrador, and maybe certain parts of the Ottawa Valley on the 'wrong' side of the river, but that's my own hegemony talking.

I laughed out loud when I saw the slogan on these posters: "Présent!" For those who don't grasp the meaning behind it, including Barry Wilson of the local CTV News, this is a very effective dig at the Liberals' practice of "opposing" the Harper government's legislation by sending in a small number of their MPs to vote against, but keeping enough of them absent so as to allow the legislation to pass and avoid an election. Get some principles, Liberals!

This poster is in French only (hey, this is Québec after all), but the Bloc website is, interestingly, also available in English and Spanish. I don't see any Spanish anywhere else!

Last up (and here's hoping this is predictive of his results) is the Tory.

I actually know very little about this candidate, apart from what is on his web site. It looks like he has been a behind-the-scenes actor in the Progressive Conservative Party and now the Conservative Party for some time, but without electoral success. If the Tories are going to win any of the three bye-elections, it won't be this one.

What's interesting about his poster is that it takes the federalist "bilingual" approach (see above) and it has a slogan that means nothing at all. I guess they're trying to suggest that Québec is getting stronger because of the actions of the Conservative Party, but it rings like an observation and you would really have to stretch to attribute any strength-getting to something that the Tories have done. Maybe it means relative to Ontario, which is due to the Tories' having attacked Ontario so much. I'm not so sure I'd be proud of that.

***

A final observation about web sites. With the exception of the Bloc candidate, each of them has set up a web site under her/his own name, which I find a bit disturbing. It used to be that Canadian politics was about the team and, yes, about the contribution that the individual would make to the team. VotezMarc.ca, AnneLagaceDowson.ca and GuyDufort.ca, whatever their actual content, are a bit too individualistic for my taste. As for Charles Larivée, his poster leads us to the web site of his party, but his party is obviously counting much more on winning the bye-election in Saint-Lambert, because that's where all the emphasis is for the bye-elections.

And yes, I will be glued to the TV on 8 September because I am a political junkie and a stats nerd and election results are almost as good as a baseball game for stats. And besides, the Olympics will be over by then and the new TV season not begun — I need something to keep me off the streets.

Jammin'!

After a few years of not doing so, I finally managed to find the time at the same time as I could find the fruit and made jam — twice in the space of a week!

On the left, the raspberry jam I made on 4 August. On the right, the raspberry-blueberry jam I made last night. Notice how the addition of blueberries makes it just a shade darker.

Here's a look at what the production looks like on the shelf above the remaining pickles that I made last year (plus some pickled peppers — not picked by Peter Piper — and a couple of purchased items I keep with them).

Martha Stewart might have dusted before taking this picture, but I have my limits. ;-)

Friday en français : une sortie bien attendue

Ça fait maintenant quelques semaines depuis que j'ai reçu les nouvelles : après vingt-trois ans ensembles, ma petite sœur et son amie se sont mariées et elles ont enfin annoncé leur relation à mes parents.

Ma famille a grandie et j'en suis heureux

Le mariage a eu lieu dans un petit village où elles demeuraient pendant plusieurs années et sans la participation des membres de la famille, sauf, bien sûr, des membres de leur famille choisie (des amis de longue date avec qui elles restent toujours en contact).

Revenons un peu sur l'histoire de ma famille. Après plusieurs tentatives en personne, j'ai fait ma sortie par lettre en 1981 à l'âge de 21 ans. Je craignais la réponse de mes parents car j'avais entendu des histoires d'horreur de la part de mon entourage et je n'avais aucun indice de la réponse qu'auraient pu avoir mes parents. Tous les deux élevés dans une petite ville en Colombie-britannique, mes parents n'avaient pas abordé le sujet dans ma présence. À la fin, je n'avais rien à craindre : ils m'ont téléphoné le jour où ils on reçu ma lettre pour me dire qu'ils m'aimaient et que rien ne mettait en question leur amour de leur fils. Quelques mois plus tard, ma mère m'avait même dit qu'elle regrettait les occasions à travers les années où elle avait sûrement du m'offenser par des paroles insensibles (pas à ma connaissance).

Il faut souligner cependant que j'ai vécu des années très difficiles avant cette lettre en 1981, mais que la réaction des mes parents a eu un effet très positif pour moi. Sachant que je pouvais compter sur eux, je n'avais aucune hésitation seize ans plus tard, lors de mon diagnostic du VIH-sida, à chercher leur soutien. Ils l'ont offert, comme toujours, sans réserve.

C'est pourquoi donc que ma sœur a du vivre les mêmes difficultés (ou bien des semblables) que j'ai vécu? J'aurais pensé que j'avais posé la geste difficile, de dévoiler ma sexualité dans l'ignorance de la réponse que je pouvais attendre. Elle aurait pu suivre assez facilement, non? Mais non, c'est un sentier que chaque homme gai et chaque femme lesbienne doit faire pour soi-même. Un grand défaut de notre société, selon moi, et un défaut qui mène à des dépressions, des suicides et des comportements destructeurs qui pourraient être si facilement évités.

Elle a commencé avec moi, son frère gai avoué, tout comme moi j'avais commencé avec la sœur qui était étudiante universitaire : des expériences qui devraient offrir la possibilité d'une ouverture d'esprit non pas garantie par une vie dans notre village, à l'abri des changements sociaux de l'époque. Par la suite, c'était mes deux autres sœurs qui m'ont posé la question à plusieurs reprises — « est-elle…? » Je leur ai dit de poser cette question à elle, « …mais vraiment, posez-la! »
Peu à peu nous sommes arrivés au stade où tous les enfants de la famille savaient, mais que personne n'était capable de deviner ce que mes parents savaient. C'est vrai que depuis vingt-trois ans mes parents accueillent son amie (maintenant sa femme!) comme leur belle-fille, et souvent mieux que leur autre belle-fille (mais ça c'est un autre histoire). Mais de temps en temps, mon père ou ma mère laissait échapper un commentaire qui nous faisait dire entre nous « Ils ne savent pas! Comment ça? » D'où la réticence de ma sœur et de ma nouvelle belle-soeur de faire leur sortie plus tôt.

S'il y a en tout ça une lueur d'espoir, c'est la normalisation du mariage entre personnes de même sexe qui s'installe à travers le pays. Un peu partout, dans des petits villages tout comme dans les grandes villes, il y a des familles qui se rassemblent pour participer à ces mariages comme observateurs, comme participants et ça devient du quotidien. Ce sont des événements familiaux et non pas des manifestations politiques, et ça, c'est l'évolution qui doit se répéter dans tous les aspects de la vie d'une personne gaie ou lesbienne avant que nous soyons vraiment égaux.

Dans le cas de ma sœur, je regrette qu'elle n'ait pas eu la présence de sa famille lors de son mariage, mais je suis content de pouvoir dire avec certitude que les secrets sont maintenant finis et qu'elle peut compter sur l'entier appui de sa famille. Si seulement on pouvait dire la même chose pour tout le monde.