Is my indignation righteous?

In other news, covering your face at the wrong time in Canada can now land you in prison for 10 years. For example, if you are at a lawful protest that police decide to label a "riot" due to the actions of a few, for convenience, due to ignorance on the part of the police, or for political reasons... or if you are an innocent bystander trying to protect yourself from the violent actions of the police (pepper spray, tear gas, or smoke grenades) by covering your face... you are a target that the police can act against, and then it's your word in court against theirs. It's another sad day in this country under seige.

Wearing a mask at a riot is now a crime

The only hope is that someone is so arrested (thus having their life destroyed... not a particularly great scenario, eh?) and their case makes it to the Supreme Court of Canada. Until then, brace for the onslaught of empowered and overzealous police forces.

Mind you, that's pretty inconsequential when we're destroying the planet...

1 in 8 bird species threatened with extinction

Not to mention the fact such as 80 to 90 per cent of the population of barn swallows and purple martins have been wiped out in the last 20 years... canary in the coal mine much? It's no surprise that governments like the one in Canada (see above) are taking steps to prevent the public expression of the fury that we should all be feeling.

Sigh... at least I can still smile...

Although this may be more appropriate fare for my mood...

(no subject)

I was watching a DVD video collection by 80s Canadian new wave band "The Box" that I had picked up a few weeks back. Firstly, I can't believe that such a thing exists (I hadn't known before I saw it in the store); and secondly, I can't believe I randomly found a copy (oh, and it also had a "best of" audio CD as well). It is also amazing to think that a song like "L'Affaire Dumoutier" (about the murder of a young moman and subsequent finding of "not guilty by reason of insanity" of the killer) could become a radio and video "hit"... so much innovation and style! FYI, if you're not familiar with it (and if you weren't around and the right age in Canada in the 80s, it would be very surprising if you were), here is the video for the song:

Many of their other songs were considerably more "pop/new wave" than that and were also hits. In case you want to check them out: "Must I Always Remember" (with many scenes of Montreal), "My Dreams Of You" (with an old style cub scouts cap, heh), "Crying Out Loud" (I lurv this song... plus more scenes of Montreal and Quebec... Beep [my older daughter] commented: "only that guy could look so badass drinking Sunny D..."), and "Ordinary People" (a Cold War reconcilliation classic, "In the USA and the USSR...").

The friend (from Nova Scotia) I was watching them with knew almost everything on the disk and halfway through asked "How could such an amazing band just disappear?". I thought about it for a while, and suggested that they, like so many Canadian bands I have known, became successful based on their creativity and in pioneering new musical approaches (see the above for, imho, proof), and were then "groomed" for greater success by a swarm of producers, record company executives, and industry insiders. They were dressed up, polished and rounded off, and told how to play songs that would become successful on the radio and sell albums. And they became utterly forgettable — disposable pop culture. We were so enjoying the videos and music... timeless stuff... until the last few, which were dated, repetitive, and formulaic to the point of being deeply irritating. Watching those videos answered her question for her: they disappeared because they sucked (keeping in mind the stuff they did before that was, and remains, amazing). For "The Box", proof of this phenomenon is that the highest charting song of theirs was off their last album (do you see where this is going?) The Pleasure and the Pain, the song "Carry On". Yup, it made money. Yes, it shot up the charts. Uh huh, it was popular. But... it was pointless, and just like all the other pablum being fed to the public at the time. All of the creativity they had was crushed, any uniqueness was eliminated, and any reason for wanting to ever hear anything by them again was gone. Doing the radio show I do ("The Dollar Bin" on CKCU FM in Ottawa), I see this story over and over again in the albums I run across in the "delete bins". My profound love for innovative music sees this story over and over again even today (my latest being Esthero... she moved to L.A. to presumably "make it big", and her latest album... sounds exactly like it was heavily produced in L.A. ... sigh ... she was one of my favourite artists at one point and did the most amazing and innovative music and videos). The lesson? Dunno... it's hard for an artist to resist making money for a change (making a living as an artist in Canada is very, very hard), and there are always those who know how to do it for you once you've gotten over the initial hump on your own, but it's sad that the "establishment" only knows how to do it by killing the goose.

P.S. Here is some of the Esthero that I remember and love...