*This post has been updated from an earlier version to capture the terror of the new 3D release of a 20-year-old movie.*

Jurassic Park: we meet again. It’s been almost 20 years since I stood in our neighbour’s driveway and listened to that kid up the street scream about having just seen a velociraptor rip a guy apart and how there was a boy and girl raptor even though all the dinosaurs were girls.

But there was no way I would be more scared than that kid. That kid was a wimp.  That kid wore a rat tail and always had something going into or coming out of his nose. Then I watched you, Jurassic Park, cried a lot, hid behind my mom and/or little sister, and swore off dinosaurs forever. Or at least until I could grow more stubble than Jeff Goldblum.

Well I’m back. I’m an adult now, I can grow a decent beard, and I’m not afraid of you any more, dinosaurs. Even though you’re back and in 3D, just like in real life. I’m here to conquer my fears. Let’s give this another try in 3D.

Within seconds, I learn that whatever is in that 3D box and has that 3D yellow eye is capable of moving thousands of pounds of future Terra Nova props and dragging a fully grown 3D migrant worker out of the clutches of a 3D Australian. Not even Crocodile Dundee could handle that shit.  But, check it: my blood pressure has risen only very slightly.

Cut to the dangers of science. In 3D Montana, a group of 3D paleontology students are standing around a dig site in cutoff shorts and bandanas – sober reminders of the perils of 90s fashion and the blind pursuit of knowledge. Then there’s the threat posed by fossils: Sam Neill is pretending to cut up Ducky from Full House with a 3D raptor claw! But this is manageable terror; it passes quickly.

Then the really scary stuff arrives: Hello, Newman.  Newman! He’s up to something, as usual, and this time it involves shaving cream and an uglier, older Ryan Gosling.

Wait … this isn’t so bad! What was the problem, 10-year-old me? This is just a hilarious comedy about a 48-hour challenge between a lawyer inexplicably wearing the top parts of a suit and frighteningly short shorts and the guy who does the voices on Planet Earth.  When we get to see dinosaurs for the first time, we learn the three appropriate human responses to seeing them:

“It’s a dinosaur.” “You did it. You crazy son of a bitch, you did it.” “We’re going to make a fortune.” In 3D!!!

Great, now we’re on a relaxing tour through a 3D dinosaur zoo. No problems here! What a cute movie!

Holy. Shit.

“Where’s the goat?!” Where’s the goat indeed, little girl?

Oh, there it is! Ha! Just its leg, actually.––– Wait. JUST ITS LEG.

Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod the T-Rex is outside of the pen! Run horribly unfortunate lawyer-man!!! No!!! He’s going for the toilet and the stupid kid has a flashlight and turn it off TURN IT OFF and its eye got bigger in the light and that noise what the fuck is that noise and now it’s flipping over the car turn it off I don’t care how sorry you are the dinosaur 3D  is trying to eat you through the fucking glass and it just popped that tire with its giant sharp teeth and it’s roaring again and drop the flare you idiot and get back in the goddamn car and forget the damn kids Goldblum that flare 3D won’t save you now and oh my god it ate that guy right off of the toilet holy shit holy shit and why are you screaming it is so close to your heads you assholes do not climb down that wall DO 3D NOT CLIMB DOWN THAT WALL when that evil piece of shit dinosaur is pushing the car right on top of you and now screaming to make sure you know that it could do it again if it wanted.

What do you mean you can’t get Jurassic Park back on line without Newman?

That’s lucky: here he is now! He’s just met a smaller and therefore much less scary dinosaur that – oh not again!!! Jurassic Park, you dick. What are those giant things coming out of its neck?! And what is it spitting at him? It’s in the car! It. Is. In. The. Car.

Well, thank god that’s over. Now I can enjoy a little bonding between this renegade paleontologist and a kid who idolizes him while they’re stuck in a tree. Seems like a reasonable time to have a nice chat about treehouses and fathers and how neither of them are loved by their fathers, or, it turns out, by trees, since here we go again and now in addition to not trusting cloned dinosaurs and frogs I can’t trust trees or jeeps or fathers.

What a horrible night that was. 3D!

But daylight doesn’t make anything better. Daylight makes it worse.  Daylight makes me witness the T-Rex in terrifying detail while it eats everything it wants: first the goat, then lawyers, and now other dinosaurs. But it’s not just the T-Rex, is it? No. The raptors have gotten out. THESE ARE PACK HUNTERS. THEY WILL TEAR LAURA DERN APART. But not before she turns on the electric fence! Climb, Timmy! Climb, you idiot! Oh, what does it matter? She’s going to electrocute you and then the dinosaurs are going to eat her and then they’re going to eat your charred corpses and then they’re going to take a helicopter and fly off this island and capture a larger dinosaur to put it on a boat to San Diego where it will eat a dog.

That’s it. I’m done.

If a raptor can kill an Australian then it could kill me and anyone else who isn’t better at being Australian than Patrick Goddamn Muldoon, which is everyone. You don’t stand a chance, kids! So why are you going into the kitchen? It can see you. It can see everything. But it can’t open doors, can it? What am I saying? Of course it can open doors! It can open doors and it can build a time machine and it can destroy future species that it has never heard of after planting the mosquitoes in the amber in the first place, knowing that we foolish humans will release it and fatten ourselves on sea bass and cheesecakes until that moment when it will strike.

Wait! There’s hope! As long as 3D our 3D species fills the world with stainless steel kitchens and walk-in freezers, we can befuddle dinoterrorists with our reflections and slippery floors. Only then do we stand any chance at all. Oh, nevermind. They can get past that too. There is no salvation.

No, the only hope we truly have is …another dinosaur! Finally a 3D hero! Chomp those raptors in half, T-Rex! Chomp relentlessly! The future of humanity depends on you!

But that can’t be right. Human spirit hasn’t overcome the evils of human endeavor at all; pure chance and chaos saved the day, not to mention Laura Dern. Which means that the moral of this story is that Jeff Goldblum is always right?

God help us.

The Prouse Family off to Christmas dinner, with disgusting heads and hands hidden by thick fabric coverings. Photo via pipnstuff, Flickr.

Twenty six years ago I received some goods from you that, in spite of great effort on my part, I have two considerable issues with. Since ‘tis the season of consumer complaints, I figured now was a good time to get these issues out in the open to talk about how we can work them out.

Firstly, I’m quite worried about my hairline. I always pictured myself inheriting Dad’s hair. You know: full, thick, and perfectly salt-and-pepper coloured? I will look very funny bald and would like some reasonable assurance that my hair isn’t, in fact, terrified of my forehead.

Secondly, what the hell is happening to my hands? Am I a leper? Is it scurvy? Why can’t skin grow on my thumb like a normal human being. If you tell me that you weren’t aware of this malfunction prior to delivery I will be satisfied, but I always wondered why you bought hand lotion in bulk and wore gloves inside, practices that I now find myself resorting to. People are asking questions.

I can’t put a price on these sort of things, but I’d like to know how you feel the situation could be remedied.

Love,

Bradley

P.S. can you send me your corn chowder recipe? I’ve been craving it lately.

Mom got your email. She couldn’t stop laughing so I had to take her iPad from her to find out what it was. You brought a tear to her eye on that one. Yeah, I think your grandfather and I lucked out on the hair gene. Most all the males on both grandma and grandpa’s sides of the family are challenged in the hair follicle department. I guess Dad’s brother lucked out too. I don’t think Mom’s side of the family had the problem other than age but both my cousins were completely bald by the time they were 30. It doesn’t seem to be the fashion blight as it was in the past with guys running out and getting rugs to cover up. Most now just shave and that seems to be the fashion now. Don’t get me wrong, I find my forehead getting longer too. I like to think my brain is getting bigger but Mom reminds me often that is not the case. I hope you don’t have that dry skin Mom has on her hands. You’re right, she buys the moisturizer by the truck load. 

Here is my corn chowder recipe:

1 Tbsp butter

1 onion (chopped) this of course in optional

3 cups milk (more – enough to cover all the ingredients because we add extra)

2 cups frozen corn

1 tsp. parsley

3 slices of bacon – chopped (we use 1/2 package of bacon)

4 potatoes diced (we use 6-8, this is where the extra stuff starts coming in)

1 can creamed corn

1 tsp salt

kielbasa (we use Mundare ham sausage we use about half a coil but you can but you can add what you want also you use whatever ham you want)

Heat butter in pan, add onions (optional of course) and bacon, cook until tender (or all the onions disappear). Add potatoes and cook over medium heat (5 mins). Stir in 2 cups of milk. Bring just to boil. Cover and simmer until potatoes are tender. Gently stir in the creamed corn, frozen corn, and remaining milk (to cover ingredients). Add meat and seasoning. Heat through.

It is good.

See you guys Friday.

Dad

The Bradley Prouse Battery Life Test in action. Adapted from a photo by Flickr user Alessandro Pinna.

19 Dec. 2012: Samsung

I have a complaint.

Normally when I complain, I like to point out some of the things I’m happy with first. This is to endear myself to you, in hopes that you will see me as a person and treat me as such. Unfortunately, I can’t put my finger on any one of the wonderful aspects of the Samsung Galaxy that my beautiful life partner (BLP) recently replaced her iPhone with. So instead, I’m going to tell you a story.

When I was 18, I did some number crunching and decided that a cell phone was more economical than a landline. Since cell phones were cool, and I wanted to be cool too, I took my dad’s old cell when he upgraded and bought myself a plan. That cell phone was the Samsung sch-n150. With its iconic “flip” thing, its blueness, and its battery that lasted more than 16 hours. The only games were Flying Tight, Run for Money and, my personal favorite, Playing With the Extendable Antenna.

This phone was smaller than anything out there, and damn near indestructible. In fact, I once dropped the phone into a friend’s beer when I disagreed with what they were saying. The next day the still-sticky phone rang to wake me up, and functioned well enough to get through a conversation about what an asshole I was. When the funk of old beer started to bother me, and I decided to buy a new phone, I tested the mettle of the little guy by lighting it on fire and bashing it with a hammer. When the smoke cleared, and I held the phone in just the right way, I could make a call. And the battery still held a charge.

I found this pretty impressive, so I bought the Samsung A870 as a replacement. If I could still get a CDMA carrier, and far better phones didn’t exist, that sucker would still be going strong. In fact, I’m sure if I pulled it out of my box of basement junk and flipped it open it would still be holding a charge. Some days I wish for simpler times, when I wouldn’t require my phone to win arguments for me in any other way than being dropped into a beer as an act of drunken belligerence. The A870 had to go.

At that time I really only had two choices, the Blackberry or the iPhone. I went iPhone, but if the Galaxy had existed at that time I would have bought the first model. So when my BLP was looking for a new phone, I steered her towards the only company I trust for cell phones. Now she has a phone that can do anything, So what’s my complaint?

Like any electronic device, the Galaxy is only useful as long as it has electricity. The Samsung sch-n150, the A870, the iPhone, and any other cell phone-like products all use a battery. Remember how long they lasted? Maybe it was because they weren’t powering processors capable of running the country, maybe it’s because they weren’t modelled after the voltaic pile. I don’t know, but please set my mind at ease and tell me that you’re working on it. I would settle for a crank-powered generator. Picture it: “One second, I need to make a call.” *Winds phone for two minutes*

I hope that when I light this iPhone on fire and bash it with a hammer, there will be a Galaxy endowed with a suitable battery for me to upgrade to.

That thing you put your Christmas cards into after deciding you don't really love anyone enough to just write them an email. Photo by Flickr user quosquos.

18 Dec., 2012: Canada Post

Look, if you’re not going to put any effort into this, neither am I.

Br-

A lovely Christmas roast turkey seasoned with rosemary, polytetrafluorethylene, and a bit of salt and pepper. Photo by Flickr user The Eggplant.

17 Dec., 2012: Canadian Tire

Two months ago, I was already thinking about Christmas. Walking up and down the aisles of your store put me in such a festive mood, I could already smell the turkey and scotch-soaked relatives. Maybe it was the fact that you were already playing Christmas music, maybe it was the stain remover I was next to that reminded me of the time Uncle Mathew stabbed his then-wife with the electric carving knife. We tell the story now as if it were an accident, but we all know what really happened.

When I saw your Cuisinart roasting pan with a non-stick Teflon coating, and at that price, I thought “this year is going to be different.” There would be no second-degree burns from trying to get the turkey out of an awful roasting pan without a non-stick surface. There would be no resulting lawsuits. The family could finally put our differences, and restraining orders, behind us.

I bought the shit out of that pan, because your store had me feeling festive and Cuisinart is such a respected brand. Now I’m not sure if it even was a trusty Cuisinart non-stick pan that you sold me or some lousy knock-off. I’m not saying that you intentionally misled me and my fellow consumers, but did you buy your stock out of the back of a pick-up truck in Vanier?

That pan is now ruined, after some gentle and reasonable use, the non-stick coating is now nothing of the sort. Even a small chicken can fix itself so securely to the bottom of the pan that, should it still be alive with feathers and no bits of bread and vegetables shoved up its ass, and should it have been able to fly when it was alive, it could have lifted the pan with it.

What’s that? You think that dead chicken illustration was confusing and poorly handled? My answer to that is that your service that is confusing and poorly handled. Please give me my money back, or teach me how to cook with more fat and wooden kitchen tools.

Yours in frustrated hunger,

Bradley.

Not expecting any kind of response. 

PayPal, pictured here at six months old. Photo by Flickr user beaker9.

16 Dec., 2012: PayPal

Dear PayPal,

What a pal you’ve been. When I needed to accept payments from friends and family for a charity rally, you were there for only 3 cents on the dollar. When I need to make a payment when shopping online for all of those weird things my brother asked for for Christmas, you’re there so I know won’t by left crying into my drink because I didn’t buy insurance. When hundreds of dollars were being stolen from my account, you responded quickly, and not just once! So imagine my shock when after all of these emails, after all we’ve been through together, you told me that I had to pay for your bad banking.

That’s what I assume it was, when you refunded me my $227 USD in such a way that I lost $9 CAD based on the exchange rates at the time. You already know that we’re breaking up. I’ve tried to tell you that I want my account closed, but it seems like you’re holding on to this one thing. Is it because it’s the only thing we have left? Don’t answer that.

You won’t anyway, because there probably isn’t a copy and paste response that reads: “Dear Bradley, It’s not you. It’s us.”

I guess I’m not really asking for the $9 back anymore. What I really want is closure. Can you give me that, pal?

I’d also take a credit to spend at Amazon.ca. You can buy anything there!

Awaiting copy-and-paste response.

Apple's iPhone 1, known for its spotty reception and that annoying way that you had to use a small key to wind it at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Photo by Flickr user Urban Don.

15 Dec., 2012: Rogers Wireless

Hello Roger, if that is your real name,

Two years ago, when I still believed in things, I purchased that iPhone 4 thing. It’s great! It makes telephone calls, takes pictures, and lets me win virtually every conversation I have. The nearly $100 per month I pay for it is a welcome expense, or at least a fair amount to offset how thoroughly excellent I have become as a direct result of owning this telephone. However, when I travelled to the United States for a conference last week, as people do, I learned just how deep you’re willing to gouge.

Now, I know it’s not important that I tell you why I travelled to the United States, but I want you to see me as a person, not as a ticket number to which you arbitrarily apply company policies. Maybe one day we could even be friends. You know how hard it is to make friends in this town. So, Roger, what do you say? Want to go take in a movie next week? I normally make chicken curry for the second date. Your place or mine?

Now that we’re friends, we should do things that friends do. In Canada, as you surely know, that means complaining about shoddy wireless service. I know it may seem like a conflict of interest, but hear me out.

Before I went to New York for my conference, I called you, but I spoke to Beth. Beth was very nice and together we tackled the problem of making sure I didn’t get violated by roaming charges. The unintelligible charges that come from the odd arrangements you have with American carriers like AT&T. I left that conversation liking Beth immensely. She had assured me that I could use my phone without having to sign away my future first- and third-born child to your company. The second-born, we all known, is reserved for ritual sacrifices at the parents’ discretion.

And so I went away to the United States of America, firmly ensconced in the belief that I could use my telephone communications device in precisely the ways that Beth and I had discussed. I did so, and even took special care to ensure that I didn’t even use my phone a lot when I was gone.

Now I have a $800 phone bill. I feel like it’s putting a strain on our friendship. I’m doing everything I can to not drunk text Beth and tell her she’s an asshole.

I know you think that it is unreasonable to ask for these charges to be waved, but I want to turn that around and ask if it is not you who is being unreasonable, Roger? It is you, after all, who charged me $800 fucking dollars for a week of light phone use. Remember that we’re friends now. Don’t be a dick, Roger.

Awaiting response. 

Iconic, sure -- but does it come with a calendar? Photo courtesy the San Francisco Public Library, Flickr.

14 Dec., 2012: The New Yorker

Hey New Yorker,

Every year during this festive season I buy a gift subscription for a special someone, and every year I try to time it with your cartoon calendar promotion. I can’t even tell you how much I love cartoons. Why, I love them so much, I am compelled to write an email explaining my situation, then begging for one of those calendars. But every year something goes wrong, leaving me saying, “Maybe next year, Bradley. Maybe next year.”

Well, maybe not, right? This year, yet again, I am missing out on the calendar. I used your nifty online tool to change my address and all was well until I got my next Visa statement. I had been charged for another year’s subscription without even asking for it.

That probably would have bothered me, but I have a superhuman ability of letting things go until that time of year when I feel compelled to write a series of letters complaining about the things that bother me. But also, I wanted another year’s subscription.

Since you’re the New Yorker, you’ve probably outsmarted me and jumped ahead of here and have already guessed my problem:

GOOD: The New Yorker is being faithfully delivered to my loved one at the correct address.
GOOD: This will continue for at least another year.
BAD: I WANT A CALENDAR.

Sorry for yelling. It was for effect. Can I please have a calendar?

Have a wonderful day.

We have received your correspondence, and it is being sent to a customer service representative for proper handling. If additional information is required regarding your inquiry, the representative will contact you directly. Please do not respond to this message.

Thank you for contacting The New Yorker.

An appropriately coloured, stationary, alcohol-serving, and festive bus for this holiday season. Photo courtesy Flickr user byronv2.

13 Dec., 2012: Transit Service – Reference # 8xxxxx

Language: English
Entry Date: 2012-12-11 08:24 AM
First Name: Bradley
Last Name: Prouse
Category: late/early
Category Type (fulltext of category): Bus Late/Early Incident Type: COMPLAINT!
Incident Description:

Good morning,

The 105 scheduled to begin its route at 0730 at Tunney’s Pasture didn’t arrive today. I ended up on the 0745 bus that was crowded, though otherwise delightful. Thanks for running such a wonderful 0745 route.

When I asked around the platform, there seemed to be an understanding that the the 0730 route is woefully unreliable, and it is common to wait for the 0745. In the interest of saving my time, I’d like to know how much stock I should put in the 0730 route. Also, if there are any other buses in the city that are marked on the schedule, but are “sort of hit or miss,” I’d like to avoid them too.

Have a great day.

Dear Mr. Prouse,

Thank you for contacting the Customer Relations unit of OC Transpo.

We regret to hear of the recent challenges you have had with your commute. The details you have provided have been documented as per the reference number above and the investigative process has begun.

Transit service is continuously monitored, reassessed and addressed as needed by the Transit Operations and by the Transit Service Planning & Design departments. Rest assured that the appropriate department has been notified of your concerns for their review.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and appreciate the feedback that you have provided.

For more information regarding OC Transpo, please visit our website: www.octranspo.com.

Regards,

John

He delivers a moving speech on universal health care while She zeroes in on the next person she wants to give a car to. Photo courtesy Joe Crimmings Photography, Flickr Creative Commons.

They were really something to behold, weren’t they?

Him, a black man who came from nothing; Her, a black woman who came from even less. Children of divorce, of hardship, and of funny-sounding names, soon—with more struggle than time—they each found their voice: Her on television, Him in the Senate.

But first, each found their way to Chicago, Her coming from the East and Him from the West. He wrestled with a mixed-race lineage and absentee father, and She with a history of sexual abuse and addiction to potato chips. In later years, each would chronicle the journeys of introspection and, ultimately, of redemption, that their youths launched—Him in a bestselling memoir, Her to a host of cameras—and always these journeys would inspire. Always, applause would fill the studio She owned and the stadiums He captivated.

They looked angelic even when confronting their demons, and never more so than when they made peace with them, as He forgave Clinton for trying to vanquish his bid for the Democratic nomination, and She forgave Cruise for taking his mid-life crisis out on her furniture.

And when these two found each other—finally, inevitably, found each other, because how could two entities so unique in exactly the same ways not find each other?—each gave the other what they wanted the most: an election-changing endorsement from Her, and must-see TV from Him.

The nation was enraptured, and along with the nation, the world.

For this woman and this man were no longer just a woman and a man. No longer just a talk show host and a politician. No longer just believers in the American Dream. They were its strongest symbols.

They were its greatest gods.

They were the Big Os from the Big Onion.

And they were unstoppable. She was declared the most powerful woman in the world, and He the most powerful man. Powerful enough that He could promise hope, change, and health insurance for every American; that She could promise happiness, fulfillment, and a car for every audience member. He urged America to rise together; She urged Americans to live their best life.

They urged, and Americans listened. How could they not? Her couch looked so comforting, His Greek columns so grand. But more than that, they touched a nerve: not just a political nerve, nor just a personal one—they touched a spiritual nerve.

Yes, the spirituality of these liberal gods was secular. And yes, their spirituality scorned the spirituality of American conservatism. But make no mistake: they were spiritual, and their spirituality animated an ideological vision with such force that a party was reawakened and a people re-inspired.

America’s Protestant roots run deep, and recently they’ve run in opposite directions—into the Tea Party movement on the right, and the self-help movement on the left. An ethos of fear and vengeance and separation on the one hand, an ethos of hope and reward and universality on the other. A resistance to change versus a love of it.

Americans chose to believe in the liberal gods, chose to dream that if they worked hard enough, that if they thought positively enough, that if they believed in something strongly enough, that if they spent enough time and money in the self-help section of Chapters, their dreams could come true.

Because the liberal gods not only preached this gospel. They proved it. They lived it. And we wanted to live it too, so made their triumphs our own, their ecstasy our ecstasy, the American Dream that they exemplified the American Dream that we dared to reimagine. We cheered when he won the Presidency and cheered when she said she didn’t need to win another Emmy. But really, we cheered for ourselves.

Until they dreamed a little too big. Until we all dreamed a little too big. He, of a wide-reaching health care system; she of a wide-reaching cable channel; the rest of us, of a life without consequences for the reckless decisions of years past, for overspending and overseas invasions.

So the American Dream collided with reality, and everyone crashed. And when they crashed, they pulled their Gods down with them. Suddenly her company is failing, his campaign floundering. They are accused of being false idols, and they seem all too human.

But if they were once Gods, it is only because we made them so. They bleed just like the rest of us—she’s bleeding money and he’s bleeding votes. And now they’re really something to behold, alright.

Recently resigned Ontario Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty prorogued the provincial legislature to spend more time walking slowly in hallways, holding the hands of his wife. Photo courtesy the Premier's Office of Ontario.

“Ho-hum, it’s politics.”

Within hours of the announcement last week that Dalton McGuinty has resigned as the Premier of Ontario, this was the refrain that rang out – no, sang out – no, murmured consistently – around Ontario. It’s politics. Of course it is. But it’s more:

McGuinty’s announcement means that a race for the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party is underway. And, luckily, to accommodate that race, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario has been prorogued until an unspecified date.

Ho-hum? It’s politics?! Where’s our anger, our outrage? We need more anger. But maybe we’re missing context:

McGuinty resigned and prorogued the Ontario legislature because of a mounting controversy, and pending contempt charge, over his government’s failure to release documents to a committee of the legislature. This is not the first time a head of government has prorogued a legislature to avoid a contempt charge stemming from a refusal to release documents. But the last time it happened people got very angry.

In 2010, Stephen Harper prorogued the federal parliament because a committee was about to return a finding of contempt for his refusal to release documents on the handling of Afghan prisoners. In short, parliament was about to assert its supremacy over the government. That was inconvenient for the prime minister, so prorogation became the fly-swatter with which an annoying opposition could be, well, swatted.

On 8 January, 2010, I attended an ad hoc meeting of concerned citizens to oppose Harper’s actions as part of the “No Prorogue” and “Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament” movements. The meeting had representation from supporters of all parties. It had representation from people who supported no party at all, but were angry their democracy was being attacked. In two weeks, the movement raised several thousand dollars and, on 23 January, hosted an over-5,000-person-strong rally on Parliament Hill in concert with 21,000 people rallying across Canada. People turned out in the middle of winter to protest Harper’s attack on democracy, his dismissal of accountability, and his abuse of power.

This month, Dalton McGuinty found himself needing a fly swatter. The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly had determined there was a prima facie breach of privilege over the failure to release documents related to the cancellation of two new electricity generating stations. Already on their heels with one contempt motion, the opposition was preparing a knockout punch with a second contempt motion against McGuinty himself. A committee was struck to investigate the first contempt motion against energy minister Chris Bentley and return a finding by 19 November.  There was a strong chance that committee would have found Bentley in contempt.

The house would have adopted that opinion. A government would be found in contempt. The checks in our system were about to bring about a balance, and quite possibly a snap election.

If allowed to occur, the damage to McGuinty and the Liberal brand would be swift and long lasting. In unparliamentary parlance: that shit sticks. Instead of facing up to his government’s mistakes McGuinty chose to delay the release of 20,000 more documents and lay the blame on public servants. Instead of adhering to values of peace, order, and good government (italicized to remind us of the presence of these words in the constitution), McGuinty chose to subvert the power of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition by hiding that a second search for documents was underway. Instead of doing the right thing McGuinty chose his lesser evil and pulled the plug on our democracy.

Democracy in Ontario has been damaged and put on hold. The executive branch’s power to suspend the legislative branch’s oversight powers damages our democracy over the short and long term. This continues a trend of suspending legislatures at the whim of a government: federally under Harper in 2010, in BC by Christy Clark in 2012, and now under McGuinty in Ontario. This trend is deeply disturbing. When there are no repercussions, future premiers will be tempted to avoid censure by dissolving the public’s official court of opinion.

Ho-hum? Quite the opposite.

Ontario is damaged, for probably the next six months, while the news cycle is dominated by the Liberal leadership race instead of by the rancorous institutionalized adversarialism that is our fundamental source of accountability. Our elected representatives no longer have a venue to press the government on its actions. For half a year, those who oppose the government will have to do it from outside the halls of power. Sure, I may not agree with PC and NDP MPPs on everything, but I value that someone can oppose the government on issues of the day.

The essential power of the opposition has been taken away, for months, because it is inconvenient for McGuinty to face an official opposition. Spinning stories in the media is much easier, as is operating behind closed doors. Proroguing the legislature has saved the Liberal brand from worse damage, but the cost of prorogation will be borne by our democracy. An economist might say the Liberals are externalizing the cost of their government’s mistakes by shifting the damage to our democracy as a whole. Millions of Ontarians will pay a small price, bear the burden of a small damage to their democracy, thus saving McGuinty and his government’s ministers from bearing the full cost of their actions.

I submit to you that the price is too high. I value my democracy more than that.

There is no simple solution to this. In decades past we relied on governments to follow the rules and respect the traditions of our system. Incrementally our governments have abandoned both, coincidentally in step with voters losing respect for politicians.

If we can no longer trust our governments to follow the unwritten rules of our parliamentary democracy we need to change the system that elects governments instead. Moving to proportional representation is a vital part of an overall solution. When parties cannot gamble on the chance to win a majority they have a motivation, an incentive, to find workable solutions and avoid brinksmanship politics.

Now a late disclosure: I’ve been, and hope to be again, a Green Party candidate in Ottawa. I’m the party’s deputy leader in Ontario. I admit a vested interest in supporting electoral change, but I’d wager that anyone who looks at our first-past-the-post system sees it as the anachronism it is. Why do we elect our MPPs using first-past-the-post when none of the parties use it to elect their leader? We need something better.

In 2007, Ontario held a referendum on electoral reform and voters chose to stick with the first-past-the-post system. Do not take that as a permanent and well-informed decision. Fair Vote Ontario considered the referendum flawed, accusing the Liberal government of delaying the process, executing an inadequate public education campaign, and setting the success threshold too high. I concur.

Ontario must revisit electoral reform in order to stabilize our democratic system. When the number of MPPs for each party better reflects their popular support, everyone has an incentive to compromise and find solutions. I have no problem with forcing MPPs to sweat the details a little more at work.

Stable coalitions also provide an effective bulwark against unaccountable, false-majority governments, Liberal and Conservative alike. It’s clear we cannot rely on backbench MPs or MPPs to balk when their leader goes too far. Electoral reform makes it more likely the government would be a coalition, with a smaller party and its leader with a firm hand on a deadman switch, ready to take down a government that gets away from itself.

Sadly, this thought is purely academic, at least until the NDP, Conservatives, and Liberals support electoral reform. Until then, we’ll continue to see a fight for the whole pie and increasingly frequent prorogations that shut down the whole kitchen when the head cook makes a mess.

The status quo is all too likely to prevail, ugly as it is, until our answer to “does prorogation make you angry?” is a definitive, shouted, “Yes!” and we make electoral reform a ballot issue.

*Updated 10:30 a.m., 22 October, 2012 to include correct spelling of BC’s premier’s name.

I once started writing a book called Plagiarize This! Like most undergraduate students, I’d been terrorized into compulsive footnoting by overzealous administrators bent on rooting out absconded Wikipedia entries. In a nerd’s ultimate act of rebellion, I began composing the book entirely of sentences stolen from classic literature and bad Billy Crystal movies.

That book now sits dormant on my hard drive because, as it turns out, I’m even lazier than most plagiarizers: they’re too lazy to write their own own work, but I’m too lazy to steal mine.

Jonah Lehrer isn’t known as a lazy writer. He’s smart and he’s talented. That’s why it was shocking when the newly minted (and now recently resigned) New Yorker writer was accused of plagiarism in June. Shocking, that is, until details of the accusation emerged: he’s so smart and so talented that he’d plagiarized himself. His articles for the New Yorker contained several phrases and arguments that had previously been published.

On 30 July, Lehrer was hit by another accusation that undermined his reputation for being both smart and talented: in his bestselling book, Imagine, he fabricated quotes from Bob Dylan.

Unfortunately, these two accusations—that Lehrer made some stuff up, and that he reused some other stuff—are being lumped together into one charge of poor journalistic integrity.

We need to disentangle them. Misrepresenting someone’s words is a serious ethical issue. Repeating your own words is not.

Writers of all types, and journalists perhaps more than most types, must meet certain high ethical standards. As a journalist, Lehrer must use his own words when they’re not someone else’s, and attribute words to someone else when they’re not his own. But failing to meet a publishing standard is not the same thing as failing to maintain an ethical standard.

Sometimes an author retains the rights to her or his piece and sometimes the publication owns those rights. But most people seemed indignant that Lehrer had reused pieces of his writing simply because those pieces weren’t novel, because they weren’t brand new.

We’re acting like he sold us a 2012 Aston Martin Vantage with 50,000 kilometres and pretended it was a 2013 Vanquish that had never been driven off the lot. But he isn’t a car salesman. He’s a writer. And our moral premium on newness is absurd for a profession that necessarily requires ideas to be perpetually edited, revised, and reintegrated into an evolving body of work.

Writers are not in the business of building silos. They design whole cities of work, laying pathways from one piece to the next. Often meandering, sometimes leading to dead ends, but always building on that work which came before–its spirit or its actual sentences. And while the brickwork of an author’s thought expands, its foundation usually remains the same.

This is why historians of philosophy have painstakingly traced the line of Machiavelli’s thinking, trying to account for the break between his famed pragmatism and his later republicanism, so rare is such a fissure. And it’s why one of Shakespeare’s most popular characters, Sir John Falstaff, had a recurring role in three plays.

But ours is the Gawker Age, not the Golden Age, and Lehrer is a contemporary journalist, not an Elizabethan playwright. He made errors, yes, though they are errors of different types. But perhaps the impetus for both can be found in one of Lehrer’s own pieces he was accused of “recycling.”

On 12 June in the New Yorker, Lehrer wrote in that people’s “decisions depend on a long list of mental shortcuts, which often lead them to make foolish decisions.” He marvelled, however, that according to recent findings in neuroscience, those most likely to “default to the answer that requires the least mental effort” are “smarter people.”

Sometimes a writer is lazy not despite being smart and talented, but precisely because he is so.

A mongol rally participant uses an umbrella to protect himself against burst tires and roadside bandits. Photo courtesy the Adventurists.

Six weeks, 10,000 miles, dozens of countries, and one little vehicle: this is the Mongol Rally. Teams from around the world pile into improbable cars and attempt the only-barely-probable – the long drive from London to Ulanbataar. There are breakdowns – emotional, vehicular – and mythical creatures that leap from the sand of the Gobi. Few people are brave enough or foolish enough to make the journey, but Thought Out Loud’s founding editor, David Moscrop, and our Wastrel, Bradley Prouse, are at least one of those things. They, along with three others (Amy Morris, Jordan Leichnitz, and Kiavash Najafi), are packed into a Piaggio and probably lost somewhere as you read this. Moscrop will be sending updates for the next six weeks, when time, Internet connectivity, and the team’s bandit captors allow. Check back for updates – newer posts will appear at the top.

Day One – Goodwood, UK – Calais, France – 278 km

Ed. note: this piece was originally featured as an editor’s pick on Guardian.co.uk and is reprinted here with the permission of its authors.  

It finally happened.

The soccer gods, the Greek gods, and the right foot of Giorgos Karagounis conspired to bring the two teams at the centre of the UEFA debt crisis face-to-face on the pitch. Five years ago it was discovered that the Greek team, having inflated its players’ salaries, was secretly deep in debt. Since then, tension has built between Greece and Germany. Germany, one of the most accomplished teams in UEFA, resents that it had to donate vast amounts of footballing provisions to Greece. Greece, meanwhile, resents that Germany resents Greece.

The 22 June match gave both countries a chance to settle their scores. Equally important, it gave pundits who like to explain the complex global economic system by way of over-wrought sporting analogies another chance to explain the complex global economic system by way of an over-wrought sporting analogy.

Gdansk Arena was packed. German supporters donned their traditional gold and black team colours while Greek fans followed the ancient tradition of wearing discarded wine barrels with leather straps at the shoulders.

German Manager Angela Merkel paced the touchline, waving a placard quoting Liverpool legend and economic genius Bill Shankly: “Football isn’t a matter of life or death — it’s much more a matter of convincing the opposing team to impose austerity measures on their players’ salaries in return for free shots at net.”

In response, Greek fans belted out that age-old slogan football fans have screamed ever since the first player insured his feet at Lloyd’s of London, threw thousands of dollars at police officers when they ticketed him for driving his Lamborghini too fast, and called his agent to discuss swapping clubs so that he could secure a pay raise from 140,000 pounds per week to 210,000 pounds per week. The Greeks shouted: “It takes balls to play football and to hide your team’s debt through derivatives designed by major banks!”

The game began on the whistle of Italian referee Mario Draghi, with the Germans kicking off. The team played in its traditional 4-3-2-1 formation, with Mario Gomez given license to roam across the front line and Sami Khedira and Bastian Schweinsteiger parked deep in the midfield. The Greeks controversially employed a newly designed 10-0-0 formation, lining up all outfield players on the edge of the penalty area.

But by the 12th minute, it became clear that the Greek line was in fact a picket line.

Prior to kickoff, the Greek players had been informed that their salaries would be cut, though they argued their poor performance was proof that they needed pay raises.

Draghi, trying to bring the game back on track, issued yellow cards to Dimitris Salpingidis for organizing a labour movement in the middle of play, Sokratis Papastathopoulos for having an impossible last name, and Kyriakos Papadopoulos for having practically the same last name as Sokratis Papastathopoulos. But the cards failed to calm the Greeks.

Exasperated, Draghi looked ready to issue red cards to the entire Greek team before the German team bailed them out. German Captain Philipp Lahm grudgingly explained to Draghi that the Germans wanted to play, which could only happen if the Greeks weren’t forced to forfeit.

So in a historic attempt to stabilize the international game, the Germans were asked to lend Mesut Ozil and Thomas Mueller to the Greek team. The referee also insisted that Germany place Manuel Neuer on the bench, leaving the goal open, on the condition that the Greeks stop picketing on the pitch.

Momentarily encouraged by the unfair playing field, the Greeks stormed downfield, swaggering with an inflated sense of national pride and bloated pensions. In the 19th minute, the ball fell to Georgios Samaras. With great speed he picked it up, promptly lay down on the pitch, and placed it under his head as a makeshift pillow. Reports later surfaced in Der Spiegal that his family celebrated their newfound wealth upon becoming the only family in town with a pillow. But these are unsubstantiated and more than slightly racist.

The Greeks having fanned out into their positions–minus the sleepy Samaras–the Germans ticked passes around. Merkel, the brilliant tactician, shouted orders from the edge of her technical area: “Ve need to give zem ze damn ball, ja?! Let zem have its!” From the 22nd minute through the 37th, the German team pinged 174 billion passes to the Greeks, who looked momentarily relieved before stuffing the balls into their pockets and adopting an air of confusion, asking each other where the ball went.

In the 38th minute, while Kostas Katsouranis was fumbling to pocket a ball, irritated sort-of German midfielder Lucas Podolski lunged in with a tackle. The Greek player lay clutching his junk–which, incidentally, is the status of his team’s debt rating. Katsouranis was carried off the pitch on a stretcher, smiling widely.

Germany entered halftime two goals to the good after dejected Greek goalkeeper Michalis Sifakis angrily threw two balls into his own net, shouting “No one will even notice! No one cares about me!” before collapsing in tears on the penalty spot.

The teams exited the tunnels for the start of the second half, the Germans looking focussed and determined following the PA announcement that the Greeks could only afford to field eight players, who filed out brandishing freshly painted picket signs. On the referee’s whistle, the Greeks broke into an unconventional circular formation, lighting their picket signs on fire. Team trainers wheeled a half-dozen 1981 Fiat sedans onto the field, flipped them over, and lit those on fire too.

The riot continued into the 68th minute, with the German team begging the Greeks to take even a single shot on their open net, until Greek Captain Giorgos Karagounis led a march on the dugout and called for the resignation of interim manager Panagiotis Pikrammenos. Pikrammenos looked relieved at the news and hurried off down the tunnel. Throughout the last 22 minutes of play, various Greek fans intermittently declared themselves manager and pushed each other over, while the referee was overheard muttering that the game was thoroughly fucked anyways. Shrugging, he allowed the Greeks to play out the remaining 12 minutes.

But by fulltime, the Germans and the Greeks had both given up, withdrawn all of their personal savings, and scattered Euros over the pitch, agreeing that the green wasn’t good for much else.

A gorgeous lapel, a political symbol, but woefully unaffiliated with a particular nation and, therefore, completely useless. Photo by Flickr user striatic, creative commons.

The world moves fast these days. The Internet. Cell phones. Up-to-the-minute news. Nip slips. Railways. Who can keep up? Thankfully, in a galaxy frenetically spinning in infinity there is a single stable constellation: the tiny flag lapel pin.

You’ve surely seen one pinned proudly to the lapel of one of our dear leaders. The pin, that tireless, sartorial workhorse, serves several roles at once.  The small piece of die-cast metal simultaneously supports a flagging manufacturing industry, covers unseemly holes, expresses patriotism, and reminds all within sight which country its wearer hails from.

The last of those functions is, of course, most important of all. Sure, everyone knows Stephen Harper is the Prime Minister of Canada. Or so they think. He could be the President of Gabon. Or the Pope. Or the Grand Marshal of the Rose Bowl. Or whatever they call the leader of Luxembourg. How can we be sure he’s the leader of the Dominion of Canada?

A tiny pin. That’s how.

Let’s play out a scenario for illustration purposes.

Several clicks and clacks sound down a marble hallway as a setting sun drowns regal walls in soft, fading orange light. A mop of grey hair emerges from a dimly lit corridor, followed by several aides-de-camp who scurry to try to match the swagger of the man with the industrial-molded hairdo. Standing at over six feet tall, confident and self-assured, the man is clearly in charge. The man is a leader. A leader of men. A leader of women. The boss of the line – the party line, the Arby’s line, any line. The man is a leader of a country. Of a nation. But which country? Which nation?

His lapel is a barren, unaffiliated hinterland. The several square inches of fabric – the finest marino wool, most likely a subtle nod to the man’s patrician sensibilities and extensive debt of gratitude to the Phoenicians – that extend from just inside the point where his shoulders meet his neck down to the middle of his torso are a Siberia of uncertainty, leaving a panicked and frightened populace searching hopelessly for answers in a time of global instability and national moral decay.

Terrifying.

Now, a counter-scenario.

Same clicks. Same clacks. Same hallway. Same man. Same hair (always, always the same hair.) But this time a quick glance from the top of the man’s head down to his lapel reveals a small pin. But it’s no ordinary pin. It’s a flag. And it’s no ordinary flag. It’s a Canadian flag. A flag. On a pin. On a man. In the hall. That’s Steve’s pin. Steve Harper. He’s the Prime Minister of Canada.

And I think he just saved the economy. And solved climate change. And restored family values. And unfilmed Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Better? Much better.

We can’t count on much these days. But we can rely on one thing: whenever there is a speech to be made, a vote to be won, a crowd to be wooed, a country to be saved, there is a man wearing a tiny flag lapel pin ready to get the job done – and he’s from the country represented by that flag.

It gives so much and asks for so little in return. The tiny flag lapel pin. So the next time you see one pinned prominently on the breast of one of our leaders, take a moment to reflect on all that it has done for you and your country, especially its role in reminding you of the national affiliation of your head of government.

Because otherwise, how would you know?

Photo of, and courtesy, Ryan Pyle.

Ryan Pyle is a Guinness World Record holder. He’s also a documentary photographer whose work has been published in Newsweek, TIME, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times; a presenter; an author; an entrepreneur; and the owner of a production company that makes “insane adventure films.” Just don’t call him a photojournalist.

Pyle is also a Torontonian, born and raised, and went to school at the University of Toronto. He played basketball and planned on becoming a banker. But then he took a trip to China and fell in love with the country’s vibrant and diverse culture. He is now based in Shanghai, where he has spent the last decade establishing himself as a freelance photographer.

One of his most powerful projects is a black-and-white photography series on the Uyghur people in Chinese Turkestan, one of the most isolated places in the world (watch the slideshow below).

When he is not behind the lens of his (analog) Leica, Pyle is planning his next motorcycle trip: last year, he and his brother became the first people to circumnavigate China on motorcycle, a grueling 65-day, 18,000 km journey documented in the upcoming film The Middle Kingdom Ride (www.mkride.com).

Brigitte Noel had coffee with Ryan during one of his recent visits to Toronto, then promptly harassed him with these four questions, which he answered by email.

Photo by Ryan Pyle.

Thought Out Loud: You don’t call yourself a photojournalist, but rather a type of anthropologist. Yet your photos give a voice to some of the world’s most underrepresented or misunderstood people, a noble achievement most journalists strive toward. How would you define the mandate of your work? What are you hoping to accomplish through your photos?

Ryan Pyle:  I try not to get too tied up in titles, but I can tell you as a photographer it is very important not to get too focused on being a journalist, as you’ll end up missing out on some image-making opportunities. Photography has a journalistic purpose but it is also a medium in its own right, and very much exists in its own space. My goal is pretty simple, to roam the lands of China looking for unique and interesting image making opportunities that share information about the way people are living and the way their lives are changing, or not changing. If that has a journalism element, so be it. But I feel the importance of the work and the long-term focus of these projects goes well beyond magazine and newspaper articles.

TOL: As news organizations tighten their belts, foreign bureaus are becoming somewhat of a rarity. This means an upsurge in “parachute journalism,” assignments in which reporters are catapulted into a country and expected to report on the goings on. As someone who is now integrated into Chinese culture and deems himself an expert on the country, what are your thoughts about this move away from resident foreign correspondents?

RP: Parachute journalism has a real importance in the world, because most parachute journalists bring with them, in the destination they are reporting, all the same baggage and stereotypes that their readership also possesses. And that’s why people like reading stories about Chinese people spitting on the streets and Chinese folks eating dog in restaurants. But it doesn’t take too much to see that there are deeper and more important stories going on, and as a long-term resident of China I feel that the important issues about how China is changing and developing are very much under-reported and this will only continue to get worse as budgets shrink and foreign bureaus close up shop.

Photo by Ryan Pyle.

TOL: A few weeks ago, radio program This American Life officially retracted an episode of their show, which was an excerpt from Mike Daisey’s theatre show “The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.” The episode was called “Daisey and the Apple Factory” and described horrid conditions at a Foxconn factory in China. Daisey has since come under fire for exaggerating the facts, though he maintains his work was theatre and not intended as journalism. This sparked a debate about the misconceptions surrounding Chinese working conditions and the country’s treatment of human rights. As someone who has been inside these factories and interacted with their workers, what can you tell us about the realities of the Chinese factory worker? What should people know?

RP: I can’t comment too much about Mike Daisey’s work, because I’ve never heard of him before. But unless he was inside one of these factories and actually spoke with some of the workers, I don’t know why anyone would take his report as fact. There are a lot of misconceptions about China, and as long as the country continues to grow and develop there will be a lot of people misreporting facts without seeing and experiencing events first hand; and even when some people see events first hand they need to have some basic knowledge and background in order to put those events in proper context. From my experiences factory workers in China work and exists in a variety of working environments that range from horrible to fantastic, and some work eight-hour shifts and others work 12-hour shifts, and some make shoes, and others make iPhones. When looking at the electronics manufacturing industry as a whole in China, Foxconn are one of the better employers and manufacturers in China; there are far more factories operating in bleaker conditions than Foxconn. It is tough for them because they get most of the attention due to their contract with Apple. If they made Nokia phones most people in the western world would never hear of them and wouldn’t care.

TOL: Your next project is another excursion with your brother, this time a motorcycle trip around India. Anything you’ll be doing differently than on your journey around China?

RP: Our motorcycle journey around China was an epic adventure and a fantastic brotherly achievement. We made a television series, wrote a book, and set a Guinness World Record.

Embedded inside all of that goodness were a lot of hard knocks, lessons learned, and personal growth. As we build our television program and expedition around India later this year, we’ll focus on many of the difficulties we had in China and we will adjust a lot of the filming and television aspects of our production. But to be honest, with all the complexities of film production and multiple month expeditions in remote countries, at the end of the day the single most important thing is to “keep the rubber down”. In other words, make sure you stay on your bike. As long as we are physically safe, all other challenges can be overcome.

A face in the crowd on 22 May during Canada's largest ever demonstration. Photo by Matt Staroste.

I got soaked in Montreal. In the centre of the crowd on 22 May, the 100-day anniversary of Quebec’s growing student unrest, I was drenched in rain and sleet and hippie. I was blown around by the wind, surrounded by shouts and cheers. I was invigorated and sometimes petrified.

But these are days of unrest, when Canada’s youth walk through the streets talking about love, power, and agency, drawing dusty outlines of hearts and squares in bus windows. And 22 May, by most accounts, has been the biggest day of our unrest – it was the largest manifestation of civil disobedience in Canada’s history, so substantial that it broke the city in which we marched. I went, I saw, and I captured a few photos for Thought Out Loud.