"Canada is like an old cow. The West feeds it. Ontario and Quebec milk it. And you can well imagine what it's doing in the Maritimes." ~ T. Douglas

Former Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas, said that on June 29, 1983. Tonight Canadians picked him as The Greatest Canadian.
And The Dude's head just exploded.

This whole greatest Canadian contest really opened my eyes about some pretty amazing Canadians. I never knew what impact Frederick Banting's life had...And Terry Fox still inspires me to this day. Trudeau came in third which surprised me. I voted for Lester B. Pearson.

All in all I think this contest taught us all a little more about Canadian history (always a good thing) and gave us a glimpse into the lives of some of the incredible people who have shaped our country.

Song Du Jour: World on Fire ~ Sarah McLachlan

The world's on fire, it's more than I can handle
I'll tap into the water, try and bring my share
Try to bring more, more than I can handle
Bring it to the table
Bring what I am able....

*Your* University of Alberta Panda, #88, A. Danielle Bourgeois

Leading Scorer (23 points)she tops the conference in goal scoring...woohoo! 

"You looked inside me..." ~Griet from Girl With a Pearl Earring

So Smith says don't bother spending your student loan money on the movie Alexander...I say don't bother renting Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Personally I will see a movie just because Colin Firth is in it, but this one I should have skipped over. It is one of those movies that finishes and you have that moment, when the credits start to role, where you wonder to yourself, "That's it? That's the end?...Did I miss something?"
Brutal.

On a more positive note, The Bears Hockey team won both games against the Dino's this weekend. Taunting The Dino's goalie made for funtimes last night. The Pandas Hockey team bitch-slapped UBC, 5-0 and 9-0. They are now 91-0 overall. My cousin Danielle rocks...

Song Du Jour: Lie To Me ~ Depeche Mode

"Truth is a word
That's lost its meaning
The truth has become
Merely half-truth
So lie to me
Like they do it in the factory
Make me think
That at the end of the day
Some great reward
Will be coming my way"

"Although the word 'God' is used, the University has not attached any religious significance to the term" ~ Carl Amrhein

Normally I don't find the GFC agenda remarkably funny, but I almost snorted ginger ale out my nose laughing at a response to a query Alex Abboud made about the convocation ceremonies. And yes this is all Paul Welke's fault, I am sure.
[Edit: I have been informed there is a webboard thread about this]

Question from Alex Abboud, Vice-President(External):

"A Graduating student recently raised a concern with me regarding the Admission performed by the Chancellor at the end of the convocation ceremony, which finishes with the line "I charge you to use them for the glory of God and the honour of your country." This student feels that as an atheist, the inclusion of this offends his personal beliefs. As the University is a public, not a religious institution, what is the rationale for the inclusion of this line as part of the ceremony?"

The response from The Provost:

"The University of Alberta adopted the wording for "The Admission" as the standard from McGill University in 1908.(McGill Got it from Oxford University)...Although the word 'God' is used the university has not attached any religious significance to the term and it can therefore be defined however the student sees fit given their personal circumstances. It is not intended to have any specific religious connotation."

That made me giggle...I guess when I hear the word God I think of, you know, the man upstairs, the head of the Catholic faith. So why don't we say Allah? Or Buddha? Or Zeus?

From Encarta:
"God
1. Supernatural being: one of a group of supernatural male beings in some religions, each of which is worshiped as the personification or controller of some aspect of the universe
Thor, the Norse god of thunder

2. Figure or image: a representation of a god, used as an object of worship
the little bronze god standing in a niche above the altar

3. Something that dominates somebody’s life: something that is so important that it takes over somebody’s life (informal)
worshiping the false god of fame

4. Somebody admired and imitated: a man who is widely admired or imitated(informal)
he was one of the rock music gods of the early Seventies'."

I think there might be a way to fix this. At the Presidents Standing Committee on Convocation meeting (this item is now on their agenda for further discussion) perhaps it could be suggested that we alternate the word god with other 'gods'...
When I graduate in April 2006 I hope that the Chancellor uses the name of a certain rock God...I can hear it now, "I charge you to use them for the glory of Bono and the honour of your country."

Or better yet, in Greek mythology, the god of the heavens, husband of Gaea and the father of the Titans who personified the earth, was Uranus. That would certainly make for an interesting convocation ceremony.
Too funny.

Song Du Jour: Willow Weep For Me ~ Billie Holiday

"Sure, luck means a lot in football. Not having a good quarterback is bad luck." ~Don Schula.

Ahhh..Luck..My Aunt always says if it weren't for bad luck I wouldn't have any luck at all. I guess it is all what you make of it, right? I get to give a presentation on perseverance tomorrow at the SU's High School Leadership Conference and rest assured I won't be talking about how *luck* got me where I am today.

Today I wish I was in America celebrating Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to any Americans reading this. It would be a day off today and I wouldn't have a bazillion things to do and I could just have spent the day watching the NFL. I picked the Bears to win...But I also picked the Colts so let's just call it even shall we?

Last night the Roadrunners had a great 3rd period (about 12 minutes of incredible hockey). My new best friend Raffi Torres scored 4 goals. It was beautiful. I never knew that Jordin Tootoo was such a brawler. So far he's got 63 penalty minutes...Frick, and here I thought he was all about scoring goals. Rocky Thompson has 63 minutes too...I certainly would never have compared those two players together.

I'm loving the AHL...it's helping me get through the NHL withdrawl.

This is also incredibly cool to any U2 fans out there. Wish I could have been there to see that....

Song Du Jour: Still The One ~ Orleans
(This song is now firmly trapped in my head...curses! Don't you just hate it when you can't get a terrible song out of your head? Please, somebody help me...)

“It is what we make of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”~Nelson Mandela

Thanks for the comments on rights...The Duke brings up some good arguments in the comments of my last post. I think He and The Dude agree, and I realize my approach is more idealistic. Negative and positive rights, or The Freedom "from" something, and the right "to" something. How much should the state intervene? How much political will is there to back up these "rights" up? I took Human Rights (Political Science 396) with Dr. Jiang and by the end I was more confused than when I had started. It seems that everybody has a different idea of what a right is. (Feminists and Chomsky argue our set of so called Universal Rights are set down by rich, white men and have failed to produce a fuctioning set of rights that are truly universal) I realized that I viewed human rights from a standpoint that is rather patriarchal and biased. After that class I reassessed what I thought about rights given my limited understanding of them. Education should be a right because it allows for men and women to grow and become self-reliant and students become a commodity in our economy. I think that education should not be commodified because it produces a better society and a better global community.
I like the way the Irish educational system was set up in 1966 and wonder why governments got away from implementing free-post-secondary education? After WWII didn't most governments in Europe have systems set up like that? I should check that out...

Speaking of good Irish things...did anybody catch U2 on Saturday Night live?

"Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously." ~G.K. Chesterton

Mmmmm....Education.

So I think education is a human right. Yup, I think that if "society" was smart it would realize just how important a liberal education is to our society and would stop commodifying it.

So I got to meet Ralph Klein on Friday. He's the rather embarrassing premier of my province. Sadly, he doesn't share my opinion on education and I would also say a lot of Albertans don't share this opinion either, so this upcoming election on the 22nd will most likely benefit Mr. Klein and his party and that makes me sad. What surprised me even more was his size. He's so wee. I had no idea...it caught me off guard and I marveled at it. I've been studying history and my prof likes to highlight the height of tyrants. Something could be said about powerful men and their stature...Hitler, Kim Jong Il , Napoleon(but I certainly won't make that comparison here). I just thought of how many wee men have taken their inferiority complex...This "short man syndrome" to a whole new level. (Apparently David Suzuki is also wee and look at what he's done with his power...) Things that make you go Hmmm....

I finally got to see the movie Boys on The Bus (Thanks to Lancaster). It is a movie about the Oilers in the cup winning days. It was pretty funny to watch and Gretzky is hilarious. "I want the puck...the rest of you can get your own..." I got my fill of sad 80's mullets, too. It was heartbreaking to revisit the infamous Smith Goal, although the movie makers were smart to only touch on it briefly, not really showing it at all, and move on as fast as they could. Oh and the sequel "Back on The Bus" is terrible...although seeing Kelly Buchberger at such a young age was pretty cool. He's the assistant coach with the Edmonton Road Runners now...

So there you go, I had an interesting weekend, a brush with the most powerful man in Alberta and a glimpse back into the lives of the best hockey players in the world. Now if only we could send Klein back to the 80's or trade him, like The Oilers did Coffey, at the very least...

"Knock, knock"
"Who's there?"
"Paul"
"Paul who?"

exactly.

"We still have a long way to go, but the step we have taken this afternoon is a very important step in the right direction," said Olusegun Obasanjo

The UN Wire reports today (link above):

Rebels, Sudan reach agreement on Darfur After two weeks of talks, and under threat of sanctions by the United Nations Security Council, the Sudanese government has agreed to disarm the Janjaweed militia, create a no-fly zone over the Darfur region and help the hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced by the conflict.

If the Sudanese Government and the Janjaweed militia were *reportedly* covertly working together in the past what is it that makes this step different? When I read that I am skeptical but perhaps this means an end to the atrocity in Sudan. Am I jaded and cynical if I say I won't hold my breath?

Raise your hand if you read Harpers Weekly by Roger D. Hodge!! I was interested by the reports about last week's presidential election:

"Lines at Ohio polls were extremely long; one was estimated at 22 hours. Election software in Onslow County, North Carolina, miscounted the votes for county commissioners. Some voting machines in Broward County, Florida, started counting backward once they reached 32,000. An electronic voting machine in Ohio added 3,893 votes to President Bush's tally in a district that had only 800 voters. Four thousand five hundred and thirty early electronic votes in Carteret County, North Carolina, were lost. Votes were also lost in Palm Beach County, Florida, and in Tampa.
Journalists were still trying to figure out why exit polls -- which projected that John Kerry would win in Florida, Ohio, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and Iowa -- turned out to be completely wrong. "Exit polls are almost never wrong," wrote Dick Morris. "Exit polls cannot be as wrong across the board as they were on election night. I suspect foul play." It was noted that anomalous voting patterns in Florida (where a disproportionate number of Democrats apparently voted for George W. Bush) were all confined to counties where optical-scanning machines are used to read paper ballots. Such votes are tabulated by Windows-based PCs that are vulnerable to tampering."

Hrm. That is kind of scary, no? So much for democratic and free elections. Also, for those of you who are interested, Lewis Lapham is coming on January 21st for the revolutionary Speakers series on campus.

What is really strange is that I came here to blog about Saskatchewan fans and the Hardy Cup Playoff game on Saturday but I had all this Darfur and election stuff on my mind....Clearly my priorities are out of wack.

At the Debt Sentence Bake sale this morning I found out that Erin, advocacy director of the SU, is also a Huskies fan! They are everywhere! I see that we are going to have to be louder in cheering on our Bears to drown out the Huskies fans...I can't wait for the big game! Salmon was named CIS Offensive Player of the Week! Go Salmo!

Song Du Jour: Le Tigre ~ New Kicks

I've been listening to a lot of punk rock lately (thanks to The Dude) but this morning Hudema had this CD playing in his car and New Kicks is on it...love it!!

"A friend is one who knows all about you and likes you anyway" ~Christi Mary Warner

What a week. Bush got re-elected but I have nothing to say about that really. I certainly was not surprised. The Duke became a Father. The Pandas won both games on the weekend and the Bears Football team won too. The Smos on the other hand, lost. I took it badly and was a poor loser. I had made plans to go out after the game with some friends and one of them is an obnoxious Riders fan. I thought I just might have to punch him in the nose...

After a few beers I decided that The Roughriders fans have always been pretty decent about losing, so I better be a good sport about the whole thing.
After sitting with a riders fan with green and white paint all over his face I have to admit it was probably better that I went out, instead of going home to throw a pity party.

What is it about sports? How is it that I can take it so serious and yet fully understand that in the end it really means next to nothing in the grand scheme of things. The Fins lost, again. To Arizona! Jesus.

Seeing as I am filling the gap the NHL has made in my sports watching schedule I have a pretty tame week ahead. The Bears football team plays Saturday at 2 p.m. Golden bears, Go Golden Bears....

This might mean I actually take the time to get caught up in my school work...but not bloody likely. I have been invited to play "Punk Rock Bingo" on Tuesday night and there is birthday party on Wednesday night...I think instead of just giving us 2 days off this week, we should get the whole week off. At this rate I'll just have to pretend I have the whole week off...

"2005 is our chance to go down in history for what we did do, rather than what we didn't do. This campaign is critical...." ~ Bono

Millennium Development Goals. Ever heard of them?

United Nations Millennium Declaration - September 2000
1.) Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2.) Improve maternal health
3.) Achieve universal primary education
4.) Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
5.) Promote gender equality and empower women
6.) Ensure environmental sustainability
7.) Reduce child mortality
8.) Develop a global partnership for development


In 2005 the so called 'international community' can really make a change for the better and I am proud to say that my new job will allow me to make a difference here on campus. International Week will focus on Making Poverty History (that's the theme, which we adopted from the campaign) and we will focus on the issues of Debt, Aids, and Trade. If you know me, you know that those three subjects are very important to me.

As I was running across campus back and forth from SUB to HUB today I was thinking how lucky I am that I finally have a job that I really love. It is a first for me and I have to say what a wonderful feeling it is!
I feel empowered today...

One day you will look...back
And you'll see...where
You were held
By this love...while
You could stand there
You could move on this moment
Follow this feeling


Song Du Jour: Evening Falls ~ Enya (lyrics)

EDIT: If you read The Economist, and you should, there is an article about Jeffrey Sachs:
Jeffrey Sachs and saving the worldOct 28th 2004

"When you are asking for $75 billion a year, you need a good reason. Jeffrey Sachs has one. He thinks that if aid to poor countries were increased by this sum - ie, more than doubled — and kept at that level until 2015, extreme poverty could be halved.."

I tried to link to the online version, but you have to be a subscriber to read it.