Politics and propaganda
My bookshelf tour continues with the rust shelf...
I've gone through a couple of extreme phases of caring and not caring about politics and the state of the world. I was raised by idealistic hippies, one of whom fled the United States during the Vietnam war to protest the draft and as a result I was born in Canada but raised partially in the United States.
So in a way, I've had the best of both worlds, with the perspective and idealism of having grown up in the US in the 80s and 90s, arguably some of the most optimistic decades of the modern era. Then I moved to Canada in 1996 and watched from a distance as my former country devolved into talk of a new Civil War, with extreme factions that can't even agree on historical facts or the truth of events that happened yesterday, even when they were live streamed from several different angles.
Book tour, part 6: the rust shelf
Alexander McQueen by the MET, NYC
Reflections on the Magnum Opus by Carolyn Vash
The Art of Henna by Pamela Nichols
Generational Patterns Using Astrology by Edwin Rose
Soul-Sick Nation by Jessica Murray
Aspects in Astrology by Sue Tompkins
Theatre of the Mind by Jay Ingram
Advanced Style by Ari Seth Cohen
Good Decorating and Home Improvement volumes 3 and 4
America the Book by The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Under the Influence edited by Preston Peet
Good Housekeeping Decorating & Do-it-Yourself
Propaganda edited by Tony Husband
The Encyclopedia of Art by Golden Books
Rand McNally World Atlas
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Being Canadian
When I first moved here in the mid-90s, I asked my Canadian dad who I should vote for. There are five parties in Canada and none of them sounded familiar to someone raised on red versus blue American politics. He explained that it's very simple here; there are five parties, one of them is French and the rest are all more liberal than the Democratic Party in the US. That did indeed make it easy. Around the same time one of my best friends shrugged and said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, "I always vote for the Green party!" She was a Gemini.
So I voted in local and national elections here, just like I always had when I lived in the US. But still, one of the best things about living in Canada for me was the blissful ability to not have to feel like the fate of the world somehow rested upon your decision at the Ballot Box... not that that's ever really been true of voting in the United States because of the Electoral College. If you don't know what that is and you're Canadian, don't worry, just Wikipedia it. If you're American and don't know what that is, this is part of what's wrong with the world today! I distinctly remember learning about it in school but I also remember every single election in the US was framed in the media as the most important decision of your life. Vote or the world goes to hell in a handbasket.
Leading up to the 2016 election, my friends from Canada and other countries would often ask me, they aren't really going to vote Trump in as president, are they? The implication being that would be crazy... like, they're not going to doom us all to Armageddon, are they? I confidently assured them that no, that could never happen. Just look at the polls, etc. And we all know how that turned out.
This time around, the question is both more and less complicated. The election is less than four months away and it's not even clear who the candidates are going to be! Alison Price and I recently did our first podcast episode about the US election, focusing on a couple of United States astrology charts, and we're planning to do a couple of episodes about the charts of the candidates. She had penciled in Biden and Trump about a month ago, and at the time I said, you know... let's hold off on that for a minute and see what happens. Now it's looking more uncertain than ever.
After the infamously disastrous debate a few weeks ago, the Democrats are scrambling to figure out what to do about Biden, who it's increasingly obvious is too old to run, and we still don't know who Trump's running mate is going to be because, in true reality TV show star fashion, he's saving the "big reveal" for the Republican National Convention.
There's a quote that goes something like, "if we don't get something good, at least we'll get something new." This year, it doesn't look like either is going to be on the ballot.
I wish I could muster even a little bit of care for Canadian politics these days but honestly, it just feels so much less consequential. Trudeau has worn out his welcome and there's supposed to be an election next year, but I couldn't name more than one of the other candidates. We vote for parties here, anyway, not the actual Prime Minister.
Vancouverism
It's not that I'm cynical and disengaged, it's just that the big problems don't seem to be affected by who's in charge at the national level. Local issues, at least where I live, seem to be much more relevant and, more importantly, responsive to the efforts of activists and the rules governing consensus reality. Meaning most people can agree that certain issues are a problem, like homelessness, inflation, the open-air drug market that is the downtown east side, etc. What should be done about those problems of course is another matter altogether.
We had a long run of mayors in Vancouver who I was very interested in, ending before the election of our most recent, whose name I'm ashamed to say I can't remember off the top of my head either.
One of the issues I've always felt passionate about is density. There's this protectionism known as NIMBY, or "not in my backyard," which represents much of what I disagree with in local politics. It causes people to consistently vote against things like building multi-family apartment buildings in single-family dwelling neighborhoods or opening up zoning regulations so, for example, a grocery store can be built in a residential area. It seems absolutely absurd to me that anyone would be against these things which make it clearly more livable for more people, but then I don't own a multi-million dollar McMansion, so what do I know?
I've always loved big cities, the bigger the better, so I want Vancouver to be a thriving metropolis, fully walkable, with all the amenities open 24 hours a day, and thriving with people from everywhere in the world living and contributing to an ever-evolving culture. It seems inevitable given a long enough timeline that all cities will be like this, but you still see people protesting high-rises over 50 stories and trying to prevent increased density even though housing is almost comically unaffordable. They don't seem to understand the relationship between scarcity and skyrocketing prices.
Vancouver is extraordinarily expensive but happily, the last 20 years has seen an incredible loosening of regulations in terms of density which is a great thing. The view from my window is a testament to a couple of decades of good city planning.
Which is not to say Vancouver doesn't have its problems. If my view faced north, in the distance you would just barely be able to see the edge of the downtown east side, which is a problem outside the scope of this blog post... or perhaps any blog post.
The problems San Francisco, Portland and Los Angeles are having with homelessness and public drug use in recent years have been issues here since at least the '80s. Luckily we've managed to avoid the epidemic increases in crime that plague comparable American cities, and violent crime is still much more rare here, but Covid made everything worse across the board.
One of the things I'm looking forward to is creative thinkers figuring out ways to make cities more affordable by retrofitting office buildings and other business real estate for residential dwellings. There are complications of course but with housing prices at ridiculous levels and density in residential neighborhoods such a controversial issue, it seems like a no brainer. I recently listened to a great episode of the Search Engine podcast about the issues involved, so at least it's an idea being considered.
Another city planning topic I find fascinating is the creation of city parks and biking trails, for example, over disused railroad tracks or city lots that can't be developed into housing, like the sites of previous gas stations, etc. There are many community gardens and trails in Vancouver with this type of history, like the Arbutus Greenway. I may not be able to predict the next election or muster up enough interest to vote for our next mayor, but I'm very fortunate live in a city where everything isn't going to hell in a handbasket.
