Posts By Crommunist

6 Kiva project: Loan update (January 13th, 2012)

January 13, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta · Kiva project

Hey Cromrades,

I received this e-mail last night:

This is an update on your loan to Godeffroy Edgar in Benin.

Thanks to you and 36 other Kiva Lenders, the $1,000.00 loan request in Benin has been 100% funded.

This loan will be used for the purpose of: buy 3 batches of oil and other items.

Over the 12 months of this loan, Kiva’s Field Partner in Benin, Finadev Benin, will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Thanks for lending to the world’s working poor on Kiva!

Best Wishes,
Kiva Staff

Good work all around. We have helped, in our small way, to help someone get a hand up on financial independence. Let’s keep the momentum going next month!

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter!

9 Movie Friday: Canada for President

January 13, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · funny · movie · politics

So this week I was pretty hard on my home and native land. I really do love my country, and am proud to be Canadian (although certain things are beginning to make me question that). Regardless of our current government’s assholishness, Canada is a wonderful place that does wonderful things. Yes, we have our flaws and must always struggle to do better, but we have a lot to be proud of too.

I caught this tweet from PZ:

And it made me think of the following video:

C’mon Americans – we’re not perfect, but we’re a whole lot better than pretty much any of your current options. You’ve been working so hard – why not take a nap and let Canada drive the car for a while?

Update: Canada has written everyone else a letter

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter!

13 A “fruity” personal anecdote

January 12, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · personal

Sometimes I worry that those of you who know me exclusively from the blog (who don’t, for example, follow me on Twitter – a medium on which I am exceedingly silly) think of me as a very serious, somber person. I try to balance my natural inclination toward jokes and frivolity with the fact that many of the topics I discuss here deserve a mature discussion. While I do my best to maintain a kind of balance, I am never sure how successful I am.

If you are interested in getting a better understanding of who I am outside the blog, I am going to relate an anecdote from my personal life. I keep a bowl of fruit on my desk at work because I get hungry and it helps break up the day. My favourite fruits are apples and bananas. Because I am a ridiculous creature of habit, I always have a banana in the morning and an apple in the afternoon (it’s nothing at all like OCD; it’s just a thing I do because I am borg and fear change). Usually I go shopping on a Monday and buy exactly enough of each to last me through ’til Friday.

What this means is that on Thursday afternoon there is always 1 banana and 2 apples in my fruit bowl. And every Thursday afternoon I position the apples on either side of the banana and LAUGH MY ASS OFF.

This is who I am. I am a giant 6 year-old making cock-‘n’-ball sculptures out of my food.

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter!

6 Whose revolution is it, anyway?

January 12, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · Occupy · politics · race · racism · skepticism

Anyone who has been paying close attention to the Occupy movement knows that “the 99%” is, in fact, several different groups. While it might make for good news reporting, #OWS is not a group with a unified message about corporate greed and income inequality. There is some truth to this narrative, but it is most certainly not the whole story. #OWS can more accurately be described as a collaboration between several different protest movements who have, for the moment, agreed to focus their attention on the overlap between politics and finance, because eliminating the problem will benefit all groups in some way.

There is an easily-drawn parallel between the affiliated causes of #OWS and the atheist/skeptic/freethought movement. They (we) are not a monolithic group with a singular goal – we are better described as a voluntary association of a number of disparate causes. There are freethinkers who wish to see the eventual disappearance of religion; there are others who simply wish religion was out of the public square. There are freethinkers who are activists because of the way religion treats women; there are others who fear for the security of the planet if fundamentalists control nuclear weapons. We do not have a single common goal, but we focus on religion (or, more generally, pseudoscience) because it is a common enemy.

The similarity does not end there, however. Just like religion does not harm all freethinkers equally – think of what an Iranian atheist faces compared to a Norwegian one – rising income inequality may be a universal problem, but there are some fractions within the 99% that, to put it bluntly, have more cause for concern: … Continue Reading

34 Racism in Canada: the myth and the reality

January 11, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · crime · forces of stupid · law · police · race · racism

One of the things I find particularly irksome about the stereotype that Canadians have about themselves (ourselves) is that we are a fundamentally “nice” people – so nice, in fact, that we don’t really have a problem with racism. It is the case that Canada’s history of racism is not as obvious as it is in, say, the United States. We do not have the descendants of slaves making up a significant portion of our population, and have managed to keep our national racist shame out of the headlines for the most part (at least until quite recently).

As a result, Canadians have managed to convince ourselves that racism is some else’s problem – that Canada is a bastion of inclusion and a safe haven for all people. Or if not so extreme as that, we at least believe that, deep down, racism isn’t that big of a deal here. The reason this is particularly frustrating for me is that, as someone who discusses race and race issues, I find myself having to run uphill to simply get someone to acknowledge that racism can exist here. Once that’s done, then comes the harder battle of convincing them that they have a role to play in addressing it.

Like any national myth – American exceptionalism, British imperialism, French superiority – the myth of Canadian racial benevolence is quickly shattered by even a cursory glance at the evidence: … Continue Reading

1 Participation deserves more than a ribbon

January 10, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · civil rights · Occupy · politics

When I first heard of the Occupy movement, I was overjoyed. “Finally,” I thought “some people who have been paying attention and have decided this shit is enough.” As someone who follows politics, it’s often disheartening to speak to my peers and realize that they are, far too often at least, completely clued out about what happening in our system. I can’t claim to be an expert, but I at least scan headlines to keep track of the major stories. Not so my friends.

It was encouraging, therefore, to see a group of people energized and passionate about not simply one issue, but the entire political process. They were gearing up to try and tackle the system as a whole, not simply agitate for the flavour of the month – be that pay increases or blocking a given legislation. As long as I’ve been following politics, it has begun to become abundantly clear to me that the problem with our political system is not the corruption of those who participate – it is the apathy of those who do not.

Democracy can only work to serve the people if those people are actively represented. In some cases, that representation comes from a heroically-benevolent elected official who understands and sympathizes with the issues facing hir constituents, even in those times when ze does not necessarily agree. Those kinds of examples are what people have come to expect, but because of the natural corrupting influence of power, they are rare. What is a much better system is to have full and rigorous scrutiny of the elected by the electorate. In order for that to happen, however, the electorate needs to be actively paying attention.

I am, thankfully, not the only person who thinks this: … Continue Reading

4 Why we #Occupy

January 10, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · news · Occupy · politics

I realize I haven’t written about the Occupy movement in several weeks. Unfortunately I have fallen victim to the same syndrome that I criticize in the major media outlets: once the novelty wears off, it becomes more of a struggle to find interesting things to say. Of course, because I get most of my content from those same outlets, their lassitude becomes mine. In my defense, I am a blogger, not a newspaper or a cable network – I do not share the same level of responsibility in reporting what is going on in the world.

Feeble excuses aside, I have certainly not done my job in defending the Canadian incarnation of the Occupation. An Occupation, I hasten to point out, that has not disappeared simply because its camps were razed. The Occupation lives online and in small committees that periodically plan (and execute) acts of protest. While the physical occupation is gone, Occupy Canada is very much alive.

I’ve had more than a couple of discussions with people who claim not to understand why Canada needs an Occupy movement. After all, they say, many of the banking sector reforms demanded by the Wall Street Occupation are already in place here. Money doesn’t infiltrate politics to nearly the extent that it does south of the border. Unemployment is lower, our social safety net is more comprehensive, and our right-wing politicians are about where the American president (a.k.a the vanguard of creeping socialist extremism) is. What exactly do we have to complain about?

Well, maybe this for starters:

22 Oh-so-phisticated

January 9, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · critical thinking · crommunism · religion

One of the most common complaints that “moderate” believers have about anti-theists is that we are criticizing a version of god that nobody actually believes in. The kind of sky-dwelling patriarch that visits wrath on his own imperfect creation is a convenient target for derision, but it is a straw deity argument. Theology has developed, through careful examination of the scripture (and, presumably, guidance from the holy spirit), a much more ‘sophisticated’ and nuanced understanding of what YahwAlladdha actually is. Atheists should be criticizing this new and supremely amorphous deity, since that’s what people are praying to for a cancer cure.

There is no shortage of reasons why this argument is completely false. First of all, outside the hallowed halls of theological academies, the average person is not taught, and does not believe in, a quasi-deistic benevolent creator who is an embodiment (but not a corporeal one) of all that is good in the universe. While people are quick to jump on the bandwagon of “I don’t recognize that god” whenever an atheist criticizes belief in the bloodthirsty Canaanite war god (an act that is amusingly similar to the apostle Peter), they are oddly ignorant of the legions of neo-Calvinist churches crowing with triumph every time an earthquake or a tsunami destroys some gay heathen mecca.

The list of reasons why the “sophisticated god” argument is nonsense abounds, but what doesn’t seem to filter into the discussion at all is how self-defeating it is. It is an argument that, if followed through to its logical conclusion, proves itself to be either false or insulting to the deity it is supposedly defending. … Continue Reading

14 Our first loan(s)

January 6, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · Blogmeta · Kiva project

Cromrades,

We have done a great thing today. We have stood in the face of great economic disparity, and unflinchingly taken a tiny step toward reducing it. The cry went up, Cromrades, and we answered it to the tune of 2 Kiva loans.

The first, to Gulshan Mammadova in Azerbaijan:

Gulshan needs 2000 AZN to purchase new merchandise (cleaning solutions) for sale. She sold only food products at her store, but now wants to also sell cleaning solutions because these goods are in demand among customers. Gulshan is married and has three children. She is an IDP (Internally Displaced Person) from the city of Fuzuli and now lives with her husband and children in the Fuzuli region. Gulshan is 32 years old. She has had this food store for six years.

And the second, to Godeffroy Edgar in Benin:

Godeffroy is married and has three children. He specializes in making and selling soap in Cocotomey. To distribute the soap, he takes it to pharmacies, supermarkets and sales outlets. In order to meet client demand, he is asking Finadev for a loan so he can increase his working capital and contribute to household expenses.

Two loans of $25 each were made on behalf of the Crommunist Manifesto. The loans are scheduled to be repaid in 20 and 12 months respectively.

Thanks to everyone who helped pick these loans. I’m looking forward to doing this again next month.

Like this article? Follow me on Twitter!

8 Movie Friday: No One’s Gonna Love You…

January 6, 2012
by Crommunist
· blog · movie

So I’ve been having this stupid fight all week in various places, and facing the same ridiculous accusation at each turn. My objection to Cee-Lo Green’s adaptation of John Lennon’s Imagine is absolutely not me saying that nobody should ever change songs. That’s stupid. Artists are supposed to put their own spin on musical expression – it’s the whole point. There is, however, an ethos among musicians that has a lot to do with artistic integrity. If you are going to use someone else’s artistic creation, you have to either remain faithful to the original in terms of intent, or find a radical new way of presenting the same material.

To wit, Cee-Lo does an absolutely outstanding cover of a tune by Band of Horses:

This is one of my favourite covers of all time, which is saying a lot because I listen to a lot of music. Some say it’s better than the original – I think that’s a tough call to make (unless the original is no good – every cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah is better than the original because Cohen, genius that he is, can’t sing for beans). Regardless of which one is better, this cover does not take liberties with lyrics, does not invert the intended expression, doesn’t fuck with the song. Cee-lo fucked with Imagine. In a conversation on Reddit I likened what he did to re-writing Bohemian Rhapsody to give it a happy ending, or adding a verse about how totally acceptable it is to be white to James Brown’s anthemic Say It Loud (I’m Black and Proud). While the intention may be noble, it violates the creator’s expression and is inherently disrespectful, regardless of intent.

Now it is entirely permissible to violate any and all of those things if it is the service of repurposing the work of art to give an entirely new message. One of the most brilliant examples I can think of in recent history is when Alanis Morissette did a cover of My Humps by the Black Eyed Peas: … Continue Reading

Page 76 of 151