Avatar

A couple of weeks ago I went to see the movie 'Avatar' with my oldest daughter. It was a stunningly beautiful movie. But that aside - it had a great message to it of respect, environmentalism, etc. The plot was one that is familiar but I can forgive that as their isn't a lot of originality in Hollywood blockbusters these days.

But I began seeing blogs the last week or two claiming the movie is 'Anti American', 'Anti Canadian', etc because it is 'Anti Corporation'. This baffles me. The movie was about a corporation so greedy it was willing to wipe out a native species and their home to increase the bottom line for their shareholders. This is a particular type of corporation: Evil. So being against a corporation with evil practices is anti-Canadian? When did this happen?

Should it not be the reverse? All Canadians should be against corporations with practices like this. In fact, I would posit that we Canadians are more like Avatar's native 'Na'Vi' tribes than the corporation in the movie with our great abundance of natural resources and environmental beauty. And like the Na'Vi our resources, etc are always under the radar of the Corporation that would take all and leave a wasteland.

The question is when do we, like the Na'Vi, rally to create positive change in our country? The answer is right now. We don't even need to go to war to do it. We only need to vote. (Vote Green)

Proroguing it!!!

If it has rogue in the title - that's nearly all you need to know. If a missile went 'rogue' or a super spy went 'rogue' we would know its a bad thing. This time its parliament. Mr. Harper has decided to prorogue the government....effectively shutting it down until March 3rd. Realize that any acts that were in motion...even if they were 2 seconds from clearing....are now wiped away by this action. This is really not a good sign.

While proroguing parliament is not a new thing per se, the use of this in the last 2 years is slightly disturbing. Its use, in recent times, seems solely for self serving purposes for Mr. Harper and the Conservative party - not for the good of the country. Its politicizing at its finest...so we should all be wary and scathing of this move.

Besides - its like declaring a snow day for a third of a year. We should collectively ask Mr. Harper if he and the rest of the Conservative MP's would kindly put 1/3 of their MP salaries back in the federal coffers so compensate us for this absence.

Copenhagen

I have some thoughts on Copenhagen. They are this: The countries of the world are behaving like children.

Seriously. We know that things need to be corrected in this planet. We know that it is within *our* power to make things better. And what do we do? We act like schoolyard kids.

"I won't do it if Timmy won't do it"

"You do it first chicken!"

"No you do it!"

"Make me!!"

etc.

Even when I was a school age kid - this kind of behaviour made me slightly vomitous. But there was always a kid with some cool to him (or her) at these things that would step up and say "I don't care what the rest of you losers are doing - I am doing it"

Why can't we (as a country) be the cool kid. Who cares what the other countries are committing to? I mean really....Who cares? Let's be the cool kid and step up to bat. Let's make our own internal commitment to do whats right!

I guarantee that as soon as we step up to bat and announce that we will do the right thing regardless - make cuts in emissions to pre-1990 levels - the other kids will fall in line and do it too.

This world needs a country to lead the way - to show them how its done. Canada could be that leader and should be that leader...but instead we are an international laughing stock.

Do you really want more Conservative MP's that support this behaviour?