I have a Blog?

Okay, seriously. i know no one knows this thing exists, but seriously - I need to get on this shit. It's ridonkadonk.

Fire Eye'd Boy

I'm probably going to start telling people about this blog, as it occurred to me that at this point I'm essentially writing a diary on the internets about Tyra Banks, which is a little creepy and a little - I don't know. Fanboyish.

So, apparently Douglas Coupland has not only released a somewhat-well-reviewed book in the past month that also happens to have an accompanying website that can only be described as NERDULAR. Nerdular is a term I have invented to describe all that is right and good in the world.

Also nerdular is Inesia on a scooter. I've decided that a Moment of Zen for me is most likely to feature coffee from Yemen, David Bowie and profteroles.

We are the goon squad and we're coming to town

There's an interesting article on Slate today about the result of the latest round of ANTM. The article is essentially a critique of Tyra Banks, who spent a large portion of the show's final episodes imploring the eventual winner Danielle to change her hony-tonkin' way of talking. The jist is that Tyra (the first black woman to appear on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue) was practicing a sort fo indirect racism by demanding that Danielle alter her diction (which is essentially the way that a young black woman from Arkansas would talk) to a form that was more appealing (read: more white). When we were watching the last episode, Tara remarked that Tyra's comments were classist; I'm inclined to agree.

I think that Danielle's race wasn't really the basis of the criticism that Tyra was levelling at her. The issue was more to do with the difference between Banks (a multimillionaire with enormous social and economic clout) and Danielle's humble upbringing. I think that Danielle's comfort with her accent actually irked Banks because while Danielle has managed to achieve a measure of success while retaining her essential nature, Banks has effectively forfeited her claim to "sisterhood" with Danielle by affecting the behaviors and practices of the majority. She has been co-opted by the dominant paradigm, and she is encouraging Danielle to do the same. Danielle's inability to do so makes Tyra feel like an Uncle Tom. Maybe its more race that class after all. Then again, I ain't exactly black.

I've been thinkin about this issue with different generations of minorities a lot lately. The suddenly imprtant issue of border control in the United States is absolutely incomprehensible to me. I suppose its a bit silly for me to expect relatively sedentary populations with established roles to simply accept immigrants (illegal or not) as equals. After all, there's no question that people who speak a different language than you are undoubtedly out to steal your job and marry your daughter. I mean, the Polish, Irish, Italian, Chinese, Czech, Ukranian, Japanese, Turkish and French communities have systematically infiltated North America and totally debased the society therein. Oh, wait. No they haven't! They've pretty much just contributed to it to the point where predominantly English-descended populations have elected people with last names like Chin and Wazankowski and Hong to represent them in Congresses and Parliaments.

The only population that has really raised any sort of shit in the past 100 years have been the Quebecois. They have a pretty legitimate reason to whine; after all, they were there before the goddamn English, until they lost a war. Funny; its the same deal with the Hispanic population in the Southwestern United States. If the American Government keeps trying to exclude the Latino population from accessing the greater rungs of the societal ladder, they're going to end up with a situation far worse than what Canada experiences with the Parti Quebecois. It only took one Rene Levesque to mess up Canada's shit for 30 years. My guess is that there's about 65 Levesques in any square mile of Southern California, and if they weren't working 60-hour weeks for slave wages only to risk their lives crossing the border, they'd probably be burning about half of Los Angeles down right now. Speaking of which, I'm going to listen to Rage Against the Machine for a little while.

There's a brand new dance, but I don't know its name

I've (clearly) decided to start blogging again after a 6-month hiatus, mostly because I'm reentering the hallowed halls of learning for one last semester at UVic before I abandon this stinking island for better things. It's not that the island stinks, per se, but that it imbues all who live upon it with the scent of dessicating fish. You can smell someone born in Victoria, even after they've left. Lean up real close and underneath the perfumes and deodorants and colognes and hemp-based conditioner its still there. Broke-ass FishyStank. That's the technical term. Studies have been done by illustrious scientists like Dr. Brandt and your Mom.
nice tangent, Colin
I've started again because I know I'm going to want a forum to express my many and various ideas and I'm quite simply tired of livejournal. I have no idea if Blogger is even marginally less focused on various degrees of emo-tude and self-aggrandizment, but I've noticed that most of the blogs I read on politics are from here and quite frankly that's enough for me to opt for a change. I'm sure that this site will degrade into my usual rants about Apple owners and hipster music, but since my entire mp3 collection was recently deleted I'm pretty much stuck listening to music from High School. Yes, I own Korn and Limp Bizkit cds. I'm not proud.
I'm actually a little bit proud
It's my day off the Bux and I have to go buy lightbulbs and complete other tasks that are less boring but more secretive.