two poems

call:

Beards beards, they come and go

Beards for fun and beards for show

Like the friends you always keep

Beards can end up in a heap

in the sink

Response:

Sideburns, goatees, soul patches, and beards

All the things that we hold dear

So much potential; your face was the best

Now it’s just a regular face

Dick

AG, SS, SE

Posting Frequency on Yeller’s Build-A-Barn

We really don’t post much when we’re not all in Thornhill. I just realized that now.

Also, SS should take photos of the logos we drew and put them up here.

SF

On “Illinois” by Sufjan Stevens

It’s the kind of thing that, you know, it’s midnight and you’re getting a ride home from a friend and you’re really drunk. You listen to a couple random tracks from the album and a smile comes across your face. Because yes, this album was made. This music exists. It’s beautiful and nearly flawless, and you can blast it in your friend’s car and you both have a sense of…completeness.

SF

From Change Your Country: Election Debates - The Game

From Change Your Country, http://changeyourcountry.tumblr.com

Disclaimer: The age of suffrage being 18, it is necessary for me to state that this game is mostly appropriate for those 19 and up (although 18 in some provinces) with a drink of some kind - alcoholic OR non-alcoholic. Enjoy!

The Election Debates are coming! April 12 at 7:00pm-9:00pm EST on CBC, CTV and Global in English. Le 14 Avril 19h00-21h00 HNE à CBC (Radio-Canada) et TVA en Francais.

Now, the best way to truly enjoy the debates is to listen closely and be critical of all the responses! But here’s a way to make it even more exciting:

Drink when you hear any of the following words:

• Coalition
• F-35
• Deficit
• Immigrants

Have some shots ready, because these won’t come up as much…take a shot when you hear:

• G20
• Twitter
• Student
• 2015

Now, you get to give someone a drink if your the first to see any of the following:

• Layton does a face-palm
• Harper takes his glasses off
• Ignatieff tries to smile
• Duceppe attempts to join in a conversation about anything but Quebec

Pour le version Francais, surveille:

• Anyone BUT Duceppe messes up in French (there really isn’t anything else worth saying, you’ll be drunk in ten minutes)

And that’s it young people! Watch the debates! Enjoy!

Federal Government Falls - March 25, 2011

Ladies and Gents, we Canadians return to the Federal polls on May 2 or May 9. Tomorrow, Stephen Harper (who, based on Canadian politics, cannot be referred to as Prime Minister at this point) will go see Governor General David Johnston tomorrow to officially dissolve the parliament. 

Today, the government fell in a vote of non-confidence, threatened constantly, but only used 4 previous times in Canadian history. This is historic stuff! But this time, specifically, the government has fallen because the Liberals, the NDP, and the Bloc believe the Conservatives are in contempt of Parliament. CONTEMPT! This is the first time this has happened! But you know what’s crazier, this could be the first time that a Government held in contempt of Parliament could be RE-ELECTED! And you know, it could be another minority too!

Here’s what I have to say about that:

First, when the government falls in this fashion, it’s a crazy time for Federal workings. For a couple months, we have no government. None. There is no leading party, the MPs don’t do any work other than campaigning, and we have no Prime Minister. The Governor General, as figure-head and viceregal for the Dominion of Canada, becomes our leader until the election. This is a crazy thought. It has been a really long time since we’ve operated without a government (prorogation doesn’t count) - this means if there’s a massive calamity or war, we can’t - legally - do anything about it. This puts us in a strange position as a country: Japan still needs assistance and the conflict in Libya requires our national attention. For 2 months, we are a self-governed nation of aimless wanderers, rushing head-long into an election the media tells us we don’t even want. So on to that…

My second thought: voters and voter apathy. The last federal election saw less than 60 per cent of the voting population vote. This is the lowest EVER. Our national partisan system leads to a wide spread of votes that has shown us that even more people DO vote, everything gets spread out: the Tories, the Grits, the New Democrats, the Bloc, and even the Greens spread votes. No leader currently commands the parliamentary attention (Trudeau, anyone?) and no party seems to be the best option across the board. The NDP foils the vote between the Reds and Blues in English Canada, and don’t go trying to touch the Bloc in most of Quebec. So people aren’t voting, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of incentive to make people vote.

Which brings me to my last thought:
People have said that we may have a consistent minority government for a long time. Basically we haven’t had a full majority since Jean Chretien was Prime Minister. I don’t agree with this: in the UK, there’s no such thing as a minority, the government becomes hung. This means re-election or, better yet, coalition. The last one was historic; the Conservatives and the Lib Dems (basically the UK equivalent of the NDP) coalesced to make what has been in less than a year one of the strongest UK governments in recent years. Clearly this doesn’t seem to be an option for Canada, since Harper just stuck his head between his legs last time a coalition came up as an option. 

So I have this to say:

This is an important election. An extremely important one. We can’t let a government fallen in contempt be re-elected. We can’t let our government putter by in a minority fashion barely passing legislation. We need to vote. We need to get people to vote. And for once, I think the time has come to vote in a partisan fashion: maybe your local MP isn’t the absolute best for your community, but the colour of our nation needs to change. We need to have a majority - we need to have a government that can make decisions. I won’t tell you which colour to vote, but if the Conservatives are in contempt (in the words of Ignatieff: “spending money on jets and julias”) don’t re-elect them. Elect the party - the leader you believe in.

And above all else.

I don’t care who you vote for.

Just vote.

SF

Together (my first free write)

we coddle our bodies so much that in the face of long walks we cower, late nights become grand journeys that we plan to recover from, and the medicine that stretches the fibers of our stamina makes modern enemies out of fellow bacteria.

our strength is just a reflection of our combined ideas, and without mass communication we would fall by the wayside; for collaboration is the backbone of our existence.

SS

Here’s an awesome cliffhanger I invented

During my time on this intensely intense planet, I think I have definitely learned one fact. By definitely, I mean that it definitely happens in 100% of cases. So, what I mean to say is that I have learned one thing that is an absolute fact. Everyone needs to do something different every morning in order to get through the rest of the day. I’m not trying to be cute or glib. It’s definitely true. It’s the definite truth. Some people have coffee, some people need to do push ups, and some people need to kill a man and bury his heavy and bloodied body in the desert. I don’t need to do that last example. And for that matter, I don’t really need to do the other examples either. Coffee makes me queasy and I’m totally okay with being an almost weakling. No, I don’t need to do any of those activities because I do something every morning that is infinitely and definitely more productive than those commonly common morning activities. Every morning I need, no I don’t think I put the right stress on that word. I fucking NEEEEEEEED to

AG