I'm packing a bunch of Pooh Bear's old clothes, soap and other toiletries, and stationery supplies in an old messenger bag. I plan to leave it in a visible location in the Land Rover when we arrive at the camp - the dossier said that the locals' pride would not let them accept charity, but the aid workers have an arrangement worked out. They leave the donations in easy-to-steal bags in convenient locations, and the recipients get to tell their friends that they put one over on the foreigners.
The landscape is flat and grey and barren, with low mountains in the distance. There is a light dusting of frost or ash on the rocky ground. The sky is almost the same shade of grey, and there's a sharp, cold wind, whipping fine grit through the thin air. I don't understand what these people are doing out here. There are no cities, no rivers, and the land obviously isn't capable of supporting anything in the way of edible vegetation. Surely there must be someplace a little less inhospitable they could stay.
At this point, the dream starts to get a little strange. There are several small replicas of ancient temples dotting the plain. They are whitish-grey and appear to be made of local stone. There's a replica of the Parthenon, the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, Hagia Sophia, and (of course) Stonehenge. None of them is more than about seven feet high. There is also a pair of gigantic legs straddling the road. The rest of the body is nowhere in sight.
We arrive at the aid workers' base, which appears to have been set up in an abandoned air base. The workers' tents are inside the hangars, mostly for added protection from the wind and dust. A couple of other people in the Land Rover get out and demand to know where we are, because the base was definitely south of the legs and this is west. I have no idea what direction we came from, because everything looks the same, but quibbling about directions strikes me as a bit stupid, considering that this base is the only landmark other than the temples in the area anyway.
I walk out and go to the other part of the camp. Sullen-eyed people of indeterminate ethnicity watch me from shacks made of scrap metal from the hangar and tarps and tents from the aid workers. Apparently the stones here are flammable, because that's what they're using to cook the field rations they've "stolen". They wear colourful clothes in strangely shiny iridescent fabrics. I allow one of the kids, a little girl, to pick my pocket. She takes the handful of candy back to her gang a short distance away.
I woke up shortly after this.
3.10.08
2.10.08
Debate Report Summary (reconstructed)
Just finished watching the second hour of the English-language party leaders' debate on CBC.
Overall impression of the leaders:
Harper: Tired and beleaguered
Dion: Sensitive and desperate
Layton: Aggressive and smug
May: Blunt and knowledgeable
Duceppe: Just there to disturb shit
Steve Paikin (moderator): Pretty good at keeping the candidates within their time limits and preventing the debate from devolving into a shouting match.
That said - who the hell thinks 45 seconds is an adequate length of time to respond to a question? Seriously.
Layton's quote for the night: "Where's your platform? Under your sweater?"
I'm really glad someone brought up the culture question - I know a lot of people who are involved with the arts, and not one of them can afford to do it for a living, much less attend these mythical fucking galas Harper claims are going on all over the place.
Dion's quote for the night (on culture): "First, it's fun. It's bringing us beauty, emotions, a beautiful novel, a beautiful movie. We need to have more of that, certainly." I mean, it wasn't a great quote in and of itself, but it came across as disarmingly honest. Making a case for art as a purely aesthetic value in it's own right without saying how much it contributes economically or how it helps define our national identity is something I can totally get behind. And saying that your party is in favour of more fun is just plain cool.
Wow - that dude from Toronto who asked what the leaders were going to do about crime was totally and obviously a Conservative plant. Way to go Jack for calling attention to the huge rate of incarceration among young Aboriginal Canadians and what the underlying causes are (lack of education, lack of opportunities, shitty facilities on most reservations, to name a few).
Ooh - the Afghanistan question. This is one of the few policy issues I'm seriously ambivalent about. On the one hand, if we pull out and the Taliban take over again, life is going to seriously suck for half the population. On the other hand, the Canadian military don't have the money or the gear to protect our soldiers from jury-rigged roadside bombs, much less anything more substantial. Booyah to May for arguing in favour of a broader UN mission with more emphasis on humanitarian aid. And another booyah for bringing up the fact that a huge chunk of our foreign aid budget (such as it is) is being poured into Afghanistan at the expense of Africa and other seriously impoverished areas of the world.
Sealab 2021 moment: "Oh, that tears it! How many more times am I gonna have to hear the phrase 'kitchen tables' today?!"
The "building a shed" guy sounds like a plant too, but damned if I can figure out for which party. Maybe he's just making the most of his 15-odd seconds of fame among the small subset of Canadian voters watching this debate instead of the no doubt riveting trainwreck of the U.S. vice-presidential debate.
I'm really glad May brought up electoral reform, although it could be argued that it's kind of self-serving, as (sadly) it's the only way the Greens are likely to get enough seats to be taken seriously. Regardless of motivation though - hells yeah, let's get proportional representation in Parliament. I'm sick of feeling like my vote doesn't count (see earlier discussion of dressing up orangutans and running them as Conservative candidates in Alberta).
Duceppe quote of the night: "I know I won't be prime minister, and three of you won't be prime minister neither. Some of you know it, but you won't say it."
Okay - I know I've got some heavy screaming pinko lefty bias going on here, but even so it looked like May was the clear winner. She'd done her research, and unlike certain other party leaders (Jack, I'm looking at you), she wasn't constantly getting into slanging matches with Harper. Harper just looked like he had better things to do than be there. Duceppe really didn't need to be there. Layton came across as a better politician than any leader the NDP has had since Broadbent, but I'm not sure that's a good thing. That, and he was kind of acting like a dick, especially when he went after Dion for things previous Liberal governments had done. I just feel more sorry for Stephane Dion than anything. He's inherited a real basket case of a party (thanks a lot, Jean), and it's probably going to be at least two more elections before the Liberals get their shit together.
Overall impression of the leaders:
Harper: Tired and beleaguered
Dion: Sensitive and desperate
Layton: Aggressive and smug
May: Blunt and knowledgeable
Duceppe: Just there to disturb shit
Steve Paikin (moderator): Pretty good at keeping the candidates within their time limits and preventing the debate from devolving into a shouting match.
That said - who the hell thinks 45 seconds is an adequate length of time to respond to a question? Seriously.
Layton's quote for the night: "Where's your platform? Under your sweater?"
I'm really glad someone brought up the culture question - I know a lot of people who are involved with the arts, and not one of them can afford to do it for a living, much less attend these mythical fucking galas Harper claims are going on all over the place.
Dion's quote for the night (on culture): "First, it's fun. It's bringing us beauty, emotions, a beautiful novel, a beautiful movie. We need to have more of that, certainly." I mean, it wasn't a great quote in and of itself, but it came across as disarmingly honest. Making a case for art as a purely aesthetic value in it's own right without saying how much it contributes economically or how it helps define our national identity is something I can totally get behind. And saying that your party is in favour of more fun is just plain cool.
Wow - that dude from Toronto who asked what the leaders were going to do about crime was totally and obviously a Conservative plant. Way to go Jack for calling attention to the huge rate of incarceration among young Aboriginal Canadians and what the underlying causes are (lack of education, lack of opportunities, shitty facilities on most reservations, to name a few).
Ooh - the Afghanistan question. This is one of the few policy issues I'm seriously ambivalent about. On the one hand, if we pull out and the Taliban take over again, life is going to seriously suck for half the population. On the other hand, the Canadian military don't have the money or the gear to protect our soldiers from jury-rigged roadside bombs, much less anything more substantial. Booyah to May for arguing in favour of a broader UN mission with more emphasis on humanitarian aid. And another booyah for bringing up the fact that a huge chunk of our foreign aid budget (such as it is) is being poured into Afghanistan at the expense of Africa and other seriously impoverished areas of the world.
Sealab 2021 moment: "Oh, that tears it! How many more times am I gonna have to hear the phrase 'kitchen tables' today?!"
The "building a shed" guy sounds like a plant too, but damned if I can figure out for which party. Maybe he's just making the most of his 15-odd seconds of fame among the small subset of Canadian voters watching this debate instead of the no doubt riveting trainwreck of the U.S. vice-presidential debate.
I'm really glad May brought up electoral reform, although it could be argued that it's kind of self-serving, as (sadly) it's the only way the Greens are likely to get enough seats to be taken seriously. Regardless of motivation though - hells yeah, let's get proportional representation in Parliament. I'm sick of feeling like my vote doesn't count (see earlier discussion of dressing up orangutans and running them as Conservative candidates in Alberta).
Duceppe quote of the night: "I know I won't be prime minister, and three of you won't be prime minister neither. Some of you know it, but you won't say it."
Okay - I know I've got some heavy screaming pinko lefty bias going on here, but even so it looked like May was the clear winner. She'd done her research, and unlike certain other party leaders (Jack, I'm looking at you), she wasn't constantly getting into slanging matches with Harper. Harper just looked like he had better things to do than be there. Duceppe really didn't need to be there. Layton came across as a better politician than any leader the NDP has had since Broadbent, but I'm not sure that's a good thing. That, and he was kind of acting like a dick, especially when he went after Dion for things previous Liberal governments had done. I just feel more sorry for Stephane Dion than anything. He's inherited a real basket case of a party (thanks a lot, Jean), and it's probably going to be at least two more elections before the Liberals get their shit together.
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