andrewfrank.ca

I’m one of those people who at the end of a party or an evening with friends, starts recommending funny videos “you have to see!” Anyhow, I thought I’d bring this party trick/online media viewing habit to a larger audience.

Zach Galifianakis has been making me laugh hard for weeks now. I’ve slowly been working through his underground stand-up and Absolute Vodka commercials. You probably saw him on “The Hangover” but you need to see more of him.

His “Funny or Die” series, “Between Two Ferns” is pretty hilarious, and his stand-up at the Purple Onion is great:

Finally, and reluctantly, I post this cat video montage, found by my cousin Tim. I include it here because it damn near killed him, and perhaps it’ll do the same for you. He hates cats. The video has it’s moments, especially a clip where a pissed-off cat chases a black bear. The introduction is awful and cheesey and definitely YouTube at its “best.”

This is an oldie. Same vein as “That’s my boy.” Country meets big city – cognitive dissonance ensues.

Rinsing Concrete

A slick wet film,
watched and washed.

A tear in his eye,
a mop that won’t dry.

From twenty floors up,
and twenty floors down
A fine performance,
but the divers drown,
in a sea of concrete
along the street,
where the pigeons shit.

And a one, two, three, and away we go,
It doesn’t matter which way the winds blow,
that’s the job.

That’s the job.

And six feet before the twenty foot radius,
Shamu splashes down and the tourists get wet
…they were warned, while the herring were fed.
And the calculator cries out,
“Newton’s apple was red!”

While that sucking noise at tax time definitely sucks, it’s also a great time to exercise a little social activism. You might as well get some representation with your taxation.

Last year, I took part in a symbolic exercise with Consience Canada, withholding a portion of my taxes and depositing it in the organization’s “Peace Tax Trust Fund,” which allows people to divert the military portion of their taxes, to be held in trust until there is a law respecting conscientious objection to military taxation in Canada. The whole exercise was a good chance to get in touch with my elected “leaders,” and to create some dialogue on the issue of conscientious objection – you can bet the government takes notice when its lifeblood (tax revenue) is impeded in some way.

Even though I intended to ultimately pay the tax, I was able to register my dissatisfaction with the status quo as tax representatives and their managers were forced to take notice and at least be aware of a different viewpoint. Aside from a few tax notices from the government and my own filing of a “Notice of Objection” (easy to do online and which results in an automatic reassessment), I didn’t incur too much inconvenience or any monetary consequences. There was some time required in mailing a cheque to Conscience Canada, and sending a copy to the government, but I’m glad I did it. Having done it, this year I may just stick to filing another Notice of Objection when my assessment comes back (gives you the opportunity to explain your grievance) and writing to my elected representatives on the issue.

In a similar vein, at tax time, we have the opportunity (when we can afford it) to invest in RRSPs. You’ve probably already heard about socially responsible investing, but it’s not in the news near enough. Parking some RRSP cash in an investment like the Ethical Funds (or even a socially responsible high interest account, like Vancity’s “Jumpstart” account) is a decent way to not only earn some investment income, but to also register your “vote” in the marketplace (your local credit union should be able to recommend some investments). Ethical investment funds often have shareholder activism programs, actively pushing companies through the tool of shareholder resolutions, to adopt more socially responsible business practices on issues ranging from human rights to climate change. These programs are strategic and long-term, often resulting in active dialogue over a number of years with individual companies on various issues. At a minimum, these resolutions force corporate managers to become conversant with the issues, and in some cases, often result in tangible positive changes in the marketplace. Basically you’re earning money on your investment while also bankrolling shareholder activism.

Here are some recent climate change resolutions and their results.

It is possible to have representation at tax time – maybe not quite as much as we’d like – but definitely lots of opportunities to “represent.”

This is bitter root, also known by locals as “rock rose.” It’s probably one of the prettiest flowers in the South Okanagan, a drought-tolerant succulent that produces an incredible flower from what often appears to be barren, dry land. The roots were used by local First Nations as a food source, and were traded with other bands, often for dried salmon.

This is a poem my nana wrote, comparing bitter root flowers to dancers, performing a “minuet” on an old hardwood floor.

Minuet

As primly gay
As sweet old-fashioned ladies
In ruffled skirts — hooped dancing skirts
Of pink and frilly white –
The rock roses grow
Over the long brown flats.

As daintily
And prettily they stand
As if they paused a moment
In the minuet,
On an old hardwood floor
Of long ago,

Wrap’t in the music
Held with a note of the violin.

Only the wind,
Whistling clear through the pines
And soft and low in the sage
Is their music now.

Here’s a link to an op-ed appearing in The Tyee that I recently helped write. Key message: British Columbia needs to conserve 50% of it land base if it’s going to effectively fight climate change while protecting the creatures and plants that make our province so unique.

The blossoms are out way too early this year, and I don’t know if anyone is ready for spring this soon, but since they’re here, with petals already hitting the ground, here’s another poem from my nana as part of my “Woodfires” series of posts.

Finding solace in nature is a pretty classic theme in human literature, but it’s neat to hear my nana exhorting us to “chill out.” I wonder what some of her daytime cares were at the time of this writing, and of course what a beautiful motif, using blossoms and their quiet landing on the grass at night as a soft reminder of the beautiful progression of time and the often trivial nature of our daytime cares. Enjoy.

As Lightly as Fall the Blossoms

The almond tree has loosed its bloom
Where slow winds pass,
With a sweet cascade of petals
On the grass.

The misting night has dropped its cloak
Of dark again,
With a glimmer of white starlight
Through the rain.

So may the cares of the daytime
Drift from your sight,
As lightly as fall the blossoms
And the night.

Just read a very cool article by David Backes where he proposes using biosocial theory as a framework for studying environmental communication.

Biosocial theory is just a formalized version of the widespread recognition that there are reciprocal relationships between society and the environment. Bonnicksen summarizes this formalized theory as follows:

The coadaptation of social systems with their physical environments is predicated on the reciprocal operation of two processes: the first of these consists of innovations and successive adjustments in the structure, behavior, and resource use practices of organizations in response to changes in the material, energy, and information they receive from other organizations and their physical environments; the second consists of successive adjustments in the structure and function of ecological systems in response to the material, energy, and information that is transferred to them through the resource use practices employed by organizations. (Bonnicksen & Lee, 1982, p. 52)

Backes further and more simply reduces Bonnicksen’s summary as follows, “Individuals and groups in society intentionally or unintentionally affect their physical environments, which respond to these actions in some manner, and this response when perceived by individuals and organizations, encourages them to continue or change their actions.”(Backes, p.150)

Backes sees biosocial theory as a useful framework for researchers wishing to explore the relationships between mass communication (part of the social system) and ecosystems through the linkages of human perceptions and behaviour. It also has a useful open-ended predictive function: “Biosocial theory predicts that effects may be expected not only in the direction of mass communication-human perceptions/ behavior-ecosystem, but also in the reverse direction.” (P.150).

To test the use of biosocial theory for mass communication research, Backes uses a case study reviewing environmental communication over 50 years as it pertains to a wilderness area (the Quetico-Superior) straddling the border of Ontario and Northern Minnesota. Based on his review, Backes derives five empirical generalizations that he provides evidence for, with important implications for environmental communicators:

G1: Mass media construct images of place and disseminate them to audiences.

G2: The more dependent a person is on the mass media for information about a place, the more important the mass media will be in shaping the person’s images of that place.

G3: The images people have of a place will affect that place’s biophysical environment.

G4: The level of social conflict over use and management of a place varies according to the extent that the dominant media images of the place contradict each other.

Among other interesting findings, Backes found considerable social conflict over the issue of controlled burns. In an effort to “balance” the ecosystem (following protections that banned logging) conservationists advocated controlled burns, while the general public, heavily influenced by the U.S. Forest Service’s own highly successful “Smokey the Bear” fire prevention campaigns, felt that forest fires were a negative phenomenon to be avoided, let alone intentionally produced.

Backes also found a correlation between mass media depictions of the area as a fishing paradise, a subsequent rise in fishing tourism, and a subsequent crash in fish populations. Backes also found conflict between mass media depictions of the area as the aforementioned fishing paradise and later as a spiritual wilderness area (as communicated by groups like the Sierra Club). Ultimately the mass media depictions of the area as a quiet, spiritual place to be protected grew dominant, with the area eventually protected from logging and motorized water recreation, with fishing lodges purchased and torn down.

While mass media couldn’t be the sole determinant of the areas’ transformation, it has undoubtedly been one of the most powerful, especially considering that society’s knowledge and beliefs about acceptable practices in the area (given its remote location), and subsequent utilizations, were mostly derived from media depictions.

A biosocial approach to evaluating Canada’s own domestic and international social conflicts with respect to environmental land-use decisions in the tar sands might be useful to those advocating for a slower, cleaner approach to their development. It also explains why mass media depictions of the tar sands, are so important, and why environmentalists need to shift from images that demonize, towards images and symbols that chart a new future for the area.

Black Sage

Greasewood trees are always old
And gnarled and twisted, where
They crouch along the hilltop
With ragged limbs in air.

Greasewood leaves are dusty green
And dull and tiny, still
Greasewoods carry cheer enough
To brighten all the hill.

Greasewood bloom is neat and gay,
Life elf-lamps burning high;
Like little yellow candle-wicks
Alight against the sky.

Greasewood trees are always old
And gnarled and twisted, so
They crouch along the hilltop
With ragged limbs bent low.

Growing up in the Okanagan, my nana was fascinated by Okanagan First Nations culture, drawing and copying pictographs from the rocks and cliff faces in the Vaseaux Lake area, and adapting Okanagan Indian legends into plays that were performed at the Inkameep Indian School in association with Anthony Walsh (a teacher at the Inkameep Day School in the 1930’s). One play, “Why the Ant’s Waist is Small,” was produced in 1939/40 at Hart House in Toronto and in Banff, Alberta.

While not an unproblematic cultural association, Anthony Walsh is still credited by the Okanagan First Peoples as being a rare teacher who encouraged Okanagan visual art practices within the confines of the educational system at the time: “It is through Anthony Walsh that the young Aboriginal children were able to continue learning and further developing Okanagan art practices and non-Aboriginal education.”

http://www.okanaganfirstpeoples.ca/visual_arts.cfm

While my nana was helping to tell stories that weren’t naturally her own, the cultural hybrid they represented at the time, and the new audiences they reached were, I think, a valuable creation that created new understandings and forms of respect between peoples, and were a unique art form in their own right.

I’ll reprint “Why the Ant’s Waist is Small,” in a future post.

Indian Paintbrush

On trails where once the Indian roamed
His crimson paintbrush grow -
Gay symbol of forgotten things
That no white man may know.

Spirit of all his singing fires
Long since grown cold and grey,
Once more in them the beauty lives
We thought had passed away.

A house is such
A little thing to hold
So much of happiness
And dearer things than gold.

Build it with spaciousness,
With windows deep and wide,
Let them encompass
A great countryside;

Let them look out upon
Tall trees and straight,
Contentment and serenity
Will enter as you wait;

Let them be open when
The first bird calls,
You will not be bothered
By hemming things like walls;

It will be big enough
And fine enough to hold
A whole world of happiness
And dearer things than gold.