Media, Technology and Society

Kim Jong-Il Goes Nuclear in Pursuit of World Attention

Kim Il-Jung's government claims to have tested a nuclear bomb in complete and utter defiance of the international community - one which, this time, includes China (North Korea's principle trading partner). While everyone is loathe to give Kim Il-Jung any more negative attention, as he clearly stokes international fears in order to bolster domestic support and credibility, one wonders what else Kim can do short of actually committing an act of war, before the international community acts.

Kim Il-Jung is a very dangerous person in that rare 21st century society. He commands, apparently without rival, a genuinely totalitarian society in which state power is more or less absolute and militaristic defiance of the international community (especially the US) is ingrained into every citizen's belief system. Propaganda blares from loudspeakers in Pyongyang, constantly informing every citizen of the "Dear Leaders" holiness and their duty to do everything to protect him and the glorious communist state he claims to safeguard. Anyone whose watched any of the very rare footage taken from North Korea is often impressed and dismayed by the terrifyingly robotic hordes of marching soldiers, the discipline and servility with which individual citizens repeat trite slogans, and the utter poverty of the rural areas.

As some of the Chinese businessmen say, who travel to North Korea to conduct their trade - travelling into North Korea is like travelling back in time - to Mao Zedong's communist China.

While some hold out hope that North Korea will eventually collapse under the weight of its own poverty and economic hardship, Kim Il-Jung's military power appears undimmed. How can we counter this threat, without giving Kim the excuse to launch an attack on his neighbours? After all, it is South Korea and Japan that will likely bear the brunt of any military action North Korea might launch. To what extent will nuclear weapons be involved?

Should a preemptive strike with nuclear weapons be launched against North Korea? Can its weapons facilities be destroyed before a retaliatory attack can be launched? Given the earlier failure of its Taepodong missile silos during the summer, this isn't an impossible scenario.

Ultimately, one still has to believe that Mr. Kim's nuclear weapons are the regular person's equivalent of a Lamborghini or Ferrari. He's out to get attention, any way he can. Nobody will believe that you have a fast car if you can't test drive it once in a while, right? He may be a deliriously mad nutcase, but the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction has not gone away. Mr. Kim surely wouldn't give up his "Joy Battalion" (legions of young girls that are called upon to serve the Dear Leader in any way he can think of) just for the temporary delight of blowing up Seoul or Tokyo.

The best thing we can do for Mr. Kim is the same thing we would do with a spoiled child throwing a temper tantrum to get attention: ignore him.

Why are School Attacks Targeting Females?

Like many, it is easy, and often necessary to distance oneself from the often daily news of violent events and tragic incidents - if for no other reason than to preserve a modicum of psychological well-being. I often think in a dry, statistical way, about whether any particular killing or disaster is anything other than a statistical eventuality. Sometimes it is necessary to read a news story closely and look at the real context of the event in question. What would it be like to be a girl in a school house in rural Pennsylvania, to be seperated from male classmates, herded into a corner at gunpoint and shot? This is unimaginable.

Not only that, but it seems ridiculously improbable - and frightening - that 3 school shootings have occured in the past few weeks - in Dawson College, Montreal (in which 1 female student died, and 19 were wounded) - Park County, Colorado - and now, in Nickel Mines, PA.

"According to a witness, Morrison wanted only female students and forced the male students to leave the second-floor classroom at Platte Canyon High School on Wednesday afternoon in the small town of Bailey, about 55 kilometres southwest of Denver." from CBC.

Strikingly similar to the latest school shooting - in an Amish township of all places?

"The truck driver who opened fire inside a tiny Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania Monday, killing three students, sent the boys outside before tying up the girls and shooting them at close range, police say. The gunman, who shot himself to death, had three guns, a stun gun, two knives and a bag with about 600 rounds of ammunition, police said." also from CBC.

The incidence of female-specific targeting in the latter two shootings raises the spectre of Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique Massacre, in which a self-avowed "woman-hater" took his personal vendetta against "feminism" to an extreme - murdering 14 promising young engineering students.

That attack was a wakeup call for Canadian society, and for many schools across North America. It also highlighted the risks that women in particular still face when it comes to violence perpetrated by men. Why are they being targeted? These latter two stories ought to be fuel for deeper analysis about our culture, or particular male sub-cultures. Why did these men want to punish females in particular?

The "the Montreal Massacre became a galvanizing moment in which mourning turned into outrage about all violence against women." Lets hope these latest attacks remind us that more, not less outrage is needed. How many attacks do you hear about where armed women burst into a school, seperate the males from the females and systematically rape or murder the boys?

Blogs Epitomize Lazy Writing and Research

I was just reading a post by Matt Good on why the Afghanistan mission is a terrible, contemptible exercise in hegemony, blah, blah, blah, with an academic term thrown in, blah. Certainly, there was a strong opinion being demonstrated, as well as some kind of articulation (sorry, I'm as guilty as any of throwing in academic terms to spice up otherwise lazy writing) about why Canadian participation in the NATO forces there is useless and morally ignorant. Good argued that part of the reason why the Canadian forces and their Afghan army partners face a losing battle is that the "Taliban are better funded". This may be true. Intuitively, there might be some connection between a reported bumper crop in illicit Opium this year and funding for the Taliban. That said, there's no reference included, and thus, the statement that the Taliban are better funded than the Afghan army remains an unsupported statement. Is it true? We don't know. Can we bet that Mr. Good has done his research and actually has a credible source to back up this claim?

I admit that part of what draws me to Blog in the first place are the economics of effort vs. some kind of published comment about what's on my mind. The effort required to produce any kind of online statement is very low. Someone can opine about politics, economics, military strategy, gender, social structure, music, and on millions of other topics without having performed any significant study on an issue, or having any writing or critical thinking ability. The blogosphere is literally chock full of opinions, but very, very, few real arguments. What I am writing, and most of what I have written on my blog is generally opinion. When I first started writing, several of my articles were substantiated, but I've become much more lazy of late.

Realizing all of this, I know how terribly weak most of what I write is as an argument - as something someone might consider as something to sway a person's view on a subject, or develop an evidence-supported opinion (when I refer to "opinion" generally, I mean one which is not directly supported by evidence). Does Matt Good know how weak his arguments are? An argument can absolutely be made along exactly the same lines as he has outlined, but it would necessarily include a discussion of the merits and arguments that he dismisses out of hand.

Is the Canadian mission in Afghanistan a hegemonic exercise? Is it a doomed effort? What is the concept of hegemony, and can it be properly applied to the military actions of a couple thousand troops? What does it mean to "support the troops"?

I would contend that ideally, one can "support the troops" regardless of whether one agrees in the mission in question or not. One can affirm the dignity, honour and sacrifice made by each and every soldier while still believing the mission to be flawed, or entirely justified. Armies as we know them, generally cannot function without a strong sense of order, discipline and heirarchal control. Military forces are normatively neutral, with a potential to be used in unjustified conflicts (the German wermacht in WWII) or justified conflicts (the allied armies in WWII). Matt Good's argument that he "supports the troops" by wanting to see them returned to Canada with all limbs attached is, while touching, as problematic as many American conservatives view that "supporting the troops" implies complete subversion to the Bush administration justification and policy with regard to the Iraq war.

While most of the time I look at the blogosphere as a positive development - hey, its better to have millions of dogmatic monkeys typing on keyboards instead of on TV remotes - the frequency with which online posts are made (my own included) with little attention to what a balanced, academic argument would actually involve - threatens to send me scurrying back to my university library searching for an academic journal in which to bury my face....reading actual....arguments....with evidence....and references.

Here's a question for you. How much persuasive value should we attach to discourse outside that which takes place within academic journals? How does being peer-reviewed and needing to rigorously substantiate an argument lead to the development of understanding on an issue? 

Bush "I am the Law!" Admits to Secret CIA Prisons

First of all, I'm surprised he admitted to this travesty in the first place. What will he do next? Admit that his administration conspired to produce fake WMD evidence?

In what will no doubt go down in history as one of the most unassailable defenses of state-sponsored and completely illegal methods of detaining and extracting information from suspected terrorists, Bush admitted to the presence of secret CIA prisons. Bush's defense? I...uh...promise that if I hadna authorized secret torture and imprisonment, well, uh, the terrorists woulda...uh...attacked amarica.

I am no fan of turning a blind eye to extremists and the plots they inevitably concoct - however, the  stunning disregard for basic legal principles Mr. Bush displays is contemptible. Why not charge the individuals in question? If there is evidence, present it and make a charge! If these steps had been taken, there wouldn't be this uproar over Mr. Bush approving what are in essence, dictatorial actions with dictatorial justifications. Dictators, by definition do away with courts and legislatures when they "get in the way" of the "best interests of the nation". I'm not saying Mr. Bush is a dictator, but his machiavellian streak needs to end, before his popularity dives further.

That having been said, it is unlikely Bush comes up with any of the policy that he announces, so when I impugn Bush, I'm essentially criticizing the administration officials who have the vision and strategic sensibility required to formulate policy of this kind - however illegal.

Americans Beginning to Differentiate Iraq from "War on Terror"

You mean to say that Saddam Hussein didn't bomb the world trade center? A New York Times / CBC poll "...found that 51 percent of those surveyed saw no link between the war in Iraq and the broader antiterror effort, a jump of 10 percentage points since June." Bush has himself recently stated that there is no relationship between Iraq and the events of 9/11 - a different story than that used to sell Iraq as part of the broader 'war on terror' in 2003. Similarly, the oft-repeated but somewhat absurd statement that it is "better to fight them there than here" seems to have disappeared of late.

Having said all of this, if Bush had clearly differentiated between the different terror groups and the threat they posed to American interests, and that which Saddam posed, and had then persisted in making the case for war - that would be a different story. Those who oppose the Iraq invasion can't simply hold the moral high ground by default - what would the alternative be? Not having invaded Iraq may be more desirable than the civil war which is currently being fought, and the possibility of theocratic governance emerging despite American intervention - but Saddam was nonetheless a tumour in the region. Without constant oversight and sanctions, there is little doubt his expansionist tendencies would reassert themselves. Few people throughout the world were unhappy to see him toppled.

More Good News from the Middle East

• Four Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan. We honour and salute their sacrifice. Afghan civilians continue to suffer higher death tolls from the indiscriminate Taliban suicide bombing campaign.
• US generals predict "civil war" for Iraq. The unhappy alternative of cutting and running now seems just about as bad as staying the course.
• Israel continues to "excise the cancer" of Hezbollah by destroying the patient entirely: see before and after pictures of the Hezbollah quarter of Beirut. The medical terminology is officially in bad taste, as is the notion of holding 'support Israel' rallies. Innocent people, both Lebanese and Israeli, are dead. There's nothing to celebrate about it.

The Teenage Male: The Apex of Human Stupidity

It is no secret that a human being will never be more unintelligent than if that person is male, and between the ages of 15-19 years of age (some would extend the age range higher and lower!). During this time, the thought of throwing a rock of an overpass into oncoming traffic, doing ridiculously dangerous drugs, driving while intoxicated - all seem like good ideas.

During this time, brain function, self-monitoring ability, critical thinking skills and many other key components of sentient activity, are more or less nonexistent. That's more my assessment actually. In truth, men are more associated with risk-taking behaviours, teenagers are associated with a feeling of invincibility...combine those two and presto!

It is also true that there is an inverse relationship between individual intelligence and the number of teenage males together in a close proximity. This relationship is borne out in the latest statistics on teen crash rates and the graduated licensing program which has swept North America since the mid 1990s:

"graduated licensing has taken hold in at least 40 U.S. states and every Canadian province, at least to some degree. But it's not the full story. Teen drivers, especially boys, continue to crash at substantially higher rates than adults, a fact that shows up in insurance rates.

What's more, July and August are the two worst months for cars and teen fatalities...According to the National Highway study, a teen driver's risk of dying more than doubles with two or more male passengers in the car."

Obviously there are some young men that are the exception rather than the rule...but the rule...oh my. Just think of that statistic! Why are young men so dumb and dangerous in groups? Would any social scientist care to comment?

A Soldier's response to Canada's War Memorial Desecration

Of all the things not to urinate on during Canada Day, the nations war memorial would probably be it. The incendiary photographs of idiots desecrating the national war memorial has drawn condemnation from veterans and this insightful column from a soldier with an admirable record of service in our nations armed forces. If this were to happen in Arlington, Virginia, or for that matter, in Holland, I think the offending urinator would probably end up either member-less or dead...

Happy Canada Day!

Canada celebrates its 139th birthday, and all us Canucks are proud to celebrate this country and its accomplishments. Did you know that:

- Canada's Constitution includes the "Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms"? This document enshrines individual rights and freedoms and protects individuals from prejudice and unfair discrimination.

-Canada has a very "European" looking currency, with lots of colours and interesting anti-counterfeiting devices.

-Canada is a democratic constitutional monarchy? Canada has a parliament developed according to the British "westminster model of government." Although Canada has removed the last of its official governmental ties to the British government, it retains the same formal head of state - the Queen of England - as does Britain. The queen is very fond of Canada and she has many monarchal supporters here, including myself! The Queen's "royal city" in Canda, is the city of Regina, in the provice of Saskatchewan.

-The national name, "Canada" originates from the Huron-Iriquois term "Kanata" referring to a village or settlement. The name was picked up by a French explorer, Jacques Cartier, who used the term to refer to the "Chemin de Canada" (route to Canada). The name later appeared in 16th century maps labelling ever larger parts of what is now referred to as Canada.

-Canada is historically a resource and agriculturally based nation. Although it now has a highly advanced industrial and technological economic base, it still derives much of its economic product from resource-connected industries.

-Canada has a long and complicated relationship with its largest trading partner, the United States. Initially, this relationship became complicated because the US pre-dates what is now Canada by approximately a century. Canada came into being in 1868, while the US declared its independence in 1776.

More history...

After the American declaration of independence, the notion of US "manifest destiny" - a destiny to be nation encompassing all of North America - there were several American invasions into present-day Canada, which was primarily a land of independent first-nations peoples, and a large British and French colony. Over time, the invasions were repelled and in the late 19th century, John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister, articulated an extraordinarily ambitious vision - uniting a series of fractured provincial settlements with conflicting First Nations, British, French and sometimes American allegiances, into a single nation....Canada.

In a town close to where I live now, New Westminster, British Columbia, there are cannons located at key points along the river...to defend against a possible American invasion. So, you see, Canada has a complicated relationship with its neighbour. A sense of being vulnerable to the impulses of a much larger, and more powerful nation is a key part of the Canadian conciousness, although in its modern sense, it doesn't so much involve fear of invasion (although apparently there are pentagon plans to this effect, even today!), but rather fears over fair trade practices, diplomatic treatment, and so on.

-Canada has legalized same-sex marriage, joining nations such as the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, and the US state of Massachussetts in this recognition of legal equality. If you look at this map of "world homosexuality laws," Canada is an enormous blip on the radar, balancing out "red" countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran. 

- In closing, Canada may be a country to celebrate but it does have its flaws. For example, its immigration process often deports people who, as positive, contributing potential citizens, should not be deported. For example, the much publicized case of the Lizano-Sossa family, who are being deported back to Costa Rica after being in a legal limbo for five years - during which time they put down roots and established a prosperous life in this country. The jublilant celebrations will sound very hollow to this family as they leave the country on the nations birthday.

-Canada has a national public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which some people love and some people loathe. Its often referred to endearingly as "Canada's vegetable". Its good for you, but sometimes you just want to watch the television equivalent of processed food: US shows and content via Canada's private broadcasters.

-In terms of "culture," Canada's citizens are a mosaic of peoples, and its difficult to make any accurate generalizations about everyone. That said, anglophone Canadians tend to consume pop culture originating from the US, while francophone populations tend to have a stronger local cultural identity based on Quebecois film, music, art, and tv personalities. Much of this more vibrant local identity can be traced to the insulation the french language provides against the influence of a larger, external cultural mainstream.

The (Other) Solution to the France Riots

While sending in the troops would be my first instict - hey, I may be a "liberal" but even liberal poster-boy Trudeau sent in the guns and tanks when things got out of hand - that may in fact just make things worse. See Doug Ireland's more measured and thoughtful column for some of the context and possible solutions to this issue.