©
Getting up at 3:00 a.m. for a business trip—with only three hours of sleep—is bad enough. Being grilled at the US border a half hour later when you’re still groggy really sucks.
I can appreciate that US border guards have a more challenging job since 9/11. It perhaps explains their interest in my business trip, which had to do with a consulting project overseas. It took a while to explain it all to the guards, and of course, the more one tries to explain, the more complicated things get. In the end, it all worked out and I was on my way.
But it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Not for the first time, I realized that I was entering a foreign land, where I was an alien presence not to be trusted. Several of the border guards were, in my opinion, more intimidating than the situation warranted. Put plainly, the treatment was authoritarian and rude. And to add insult to injury, one of them bent my car key so badly I couldn’t get my car started. I had to go back in, and one of them, an older guard I recognized, dug out a pair of pliers (while the other guards joked loudly in the back room), straightened the key and got me on the road again.
The drive to Boston was uneventful enough, and despite the delay at the border, I arrived at my first meeting a few minutes early. My next meeting was only a few minutes away, across the bay in Cambridge, but as I tried to hit the right exit, I got cut off and missed the off-ramp. I ended up taking a different bridge and getting lost in the bowels of old Cambridge somewhere. I finally ended up in a scruffy downtown area of some sort, and pulled up in front of a small bank to ask for directions.
It was drizzling rain. I rolled down the passenger window and asked the guy standing in front of the bank for directions. As he came up to the car, I could see that he’d been injured. There was a deep scar gashed into the middle of his forehead. I asked him how I could find my way back, and he leaned into the car. As he tried to talk, he began drooling into the car. He was obviously severely compromised. My first impulse was to say, “forget it” and move on. Instead, I concentrated on what he was saying, thanked him for his help, and followed his instructions. I appreciated his effort, and couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have to live with that handicap in that harsh urban landscape, the “other America”.
His instructions turned out to be right on the money. I was on the right road, suffering through a long traffic jam. The area was pretty seedy, with run down businesses, auto scrap yards and decrepit houses. Twenty minutes later I arrived at my next destination, still early for the meeting. It was like entering a whole new world. I was surrounded by modern high-rises filled with offices and a streetscape filled with pretty designer shops and smartly dressed professionals. This was the America the rest of the world envies.
You might get the idea that I’m a bit conflicted about our neighbour to the south. And you’d be right. Up here the environment feels more uniform, more homogenous. Down there it’s a study in dramatic contrasts—with very visible strengths and weaknesses. Everything in the States is bigger and bolder, blacker and whiter.
I’m not alone in feeling this. I picked up Canadian author Ronald Wright’s book What is America? last week. He writes about the hidden history of the US and the effects of that history on its modern culture. He draws some extraordinary conclusions about American history. For example, he goes to great lengths to explain that the Europeans did not arrive here to carve a new society out of the wilderness. What they actually found was a thriving agricultural society that was at least as advanced as the Europeans were, and far wealthier. In the year 1500, a quarter of the world’s population, or 80 to 100 million people, lived in the Americas. Within fifty years, over 90% of this vigorous indigenous culture had been wiped out by smallpox and other viral diseases, not to mention outright genocide, and the emptied farmland repopulated with European immigrants and African slaves over the next two centuries.
The Incan gold mines created the real wealth in Europe that allowed, for the first time, a cash surplus that eventually led to the Industrial Revolution. American foods, such as maize, potatoes, sweet potatoes and cassavas revolutionized the world’s eating. Marginal populations could now flourish on the new high-energy foods, allowing agricultural land in Europe to be redeployed. In Britain, this triggered the privatization of public lands, and ushered in large-scale sheep farming for the wool industry, with new mechanical milling and weaving machines.
Displaced peasants were either relocated in Dickensian factories or shipped to the conveniently depopulated American colonies. The rest, as they say, is history. The modern era had begun. Over the next 400 years, Western culture was forged into the urban society we know today.
The troubling bit for Wright is the disparity between actual American history and their mythology. Americans see their country as something they’ve built from scratch, rather than what actually happened—the conquering of an existing empire. And, in fact, American history is littered with empire-building notions. I think what Wright is saying is this. The underlying American sentiment is fixated on empire. This explains the subtitle of his book, A Short History of the New World Order.
These days we’re all feeling the effects of this new world order. The US housing bubble created the financial meltdown on Wall Street, which has dragged us all into a global recession. It’s no secret that the US the most powerful commercial empire on the planet, but the question is, for how long?
Wright is struggling to come to terms with America’s two opposing dynamics—the enlightened, intellectual America, and the fundamentalist, conservative America. Of course, with diminishing natural resources globally, the only hope for the future is enlightenment.
For me, even a short day-trip to the States can bring this duality into sharp focus.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
We all live in an NYC suburb
©
Last month I flew to LA. This month I’ll be off to Boston. This year I’ve been to London, New York and Toronto. I don’t think that this makes me in any way special—or unusual. A lot of people travel for business. Nor do I particularly like travelling, and I’m not even a frequent flyer.
But naturally, when I have to travel, I think about my own particular geographic choice of a home base, and I’ve found that living here in St. Stephen—or St. Andrews—isn’t much of an imposition to global travel. It just adds an extra hour in commute time to the Saint John Airport. Once there I’m just another international traveller who has to make sure all his personal grooming stuff is in tiny bottles and fits into a small Ziplock baggie so you can clear the security checks.
You get to learn other tricks too. Like not wearing metal through the metal detector. Believe me, that trick seems to elude a surprising number of people. Another is wearing slip-on shoes, because you have to take them off to clear international security. I’ve found that wearing a sport coat is handy, too, since they make you take it off and run it through the X-ray machine. That means you can put your watch, change and other metal objects in the coat pockets before you walk through the dreaded metal detector.
Enough of the travel advice. The point is, you can live and work almost anywhere on the planet these days, as long as you have a client or two willing to pay the bills. But even if you don’t do any long distance travel at all, you’re still living in a suburb of some big metropolis. We all are. When we go shopping, we go to the same box stores that we’d find pretty much anywhere in North America. The local Sobey’s store is probably nicer than the ones around Halifax. Across the river in the US, the Wal-Mart is another clone of the Sam Walton’s corporate DNA. The Burger King and McDonald’s are other clones. The only difference with our particular suburb is that it’s a bit smaller than most. But not a lot.
Which brings me to the real point—the idea of suburbs as living spaces. Overlooking the curious notion of St. Stephen being a suburb of any place, how—and why—did so many of us choose the suburbs as our main headquarters for domestic bliss?
You’d have to go back to the modernists back in the 1920s and 30s, guys like Meis van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright. It was Wright in particular who promoted the idea of completely designed communities, and penned the model homes to fill them. The entire business, of course, was predicated on the emergence of the automobile as the primary mode of transportation, and one that could “free” ordinary people to live much further away from their workplaces.
Today, the border town of St. Stephen is experiencing the last gasp of this phenomenon with the completion of its portion of the new four-lane highway that will one day connect Saint John to the US. Soon, commuters could live here and work in the big city—if gas prices stay low enough. Which is a big “if.”
Despite high fuel costs, suburbs are likely here to stay. After all, invention is the mother of necessity. Once you’ve had the comfy and affordable large house and big back yard, why would you want a cramped condo in the city?
And the thing that could sustain the suburb is not the car but the Internet. Today, a good portion of our social contact, shopping, information gathering—and yes, work—can be done online. You don’t even need to get out of your pajamas to do a good day’s work. Which means that St. Stephen is as good a place as any, especially if you love the local environment.
So what’s missing in this ideal picture? Well, the chief characteristic of a suburb is its bedroom quality; it’s a good, safe place to raise kids. But suburbs tend to lack vital, viable downtowns. They also tend to lack diversity, offering instead a predictable uniformity of both architecture and residents. So when you put it all together, suburbs are often arid cultural deserts. Sure, you can offset this with DVDs, satellite radio and TV, surfing the Web and taking the occasional cultural trip to the big city.
Of course, some suburbs and small towns have flourishing downtowns—and do offer more of the social diversity we crave. But even then, there’s not enough going on to keep our young people satisfied. Their hunger for cultural experience draws them away to big cities.
Still, I don’t suppose there’s anything inherently wrong with suburban living. That’s to say I’m not complaining. But it doesn’t seem to be a particularly responsible lifestyle for those of us who have to do a long distance commute to work on a regular basis, given dwindling oil reserves and growing greenhouse gas emissions.
So what’s the answer? Two come to mind. One is the need for even more focus on building a better Internet. I did a Skype teleconference with some folks in India last week and the connections were appalling. We need to build a bigger, faster pipe—and offer it at much lower monthly rates. I’m talking about investing in fibre-optic cable to the doorstep. It’s the equivalent of building the transcontinental railways a century ago. The second is solution is the return of the railway itself. Just over 30 years ago most of the rail system connecting our small towns was ripped out of New Brunswick. We could really benefit from reclaiming those roadbeds and relaying that track. To make it really work, we could turn our major highways into toll roads and deep discount rail transport.
It’s pretty simple. If we don’t invest in better transportation and communications infrastructure (and I don’t mean more highways), our suburbs are destined to become ghost towns while our larger cities like Saint John become congested nightmares. Fine for New Yorkers, but I’m not sure we’d enjoy it too much.
Last month I flew to LA. This month I’ll be off to Boston. This year I’ve been to London, New York and Toronto. I don’t think that this makes me in any way special—or unusual. A lot of people travel for business. Nor do I particularly like travelling, and I’m not even a frequent flyer.
But naturally, when I have to travel, I think about my own particular geographic choice of a home base, and I’ve found that living here in St. Stephen—or St. Andrews—isn’t much of an imposition to global travel. It just adds an extra hour in commute time to the Saint John Airport. Once there I’m just another international traveller who has to make sure all his personal grooming stuff is in tiny bottles and fits into a small Ziplock baggie so you can clear the security checks.
You get to learn other tricks too. Like not wearing metal through the metal detector. Believe me, that trick seems to elude a surprising number of people. Another is wearing slip-on shoes, because you have to take them off to clear international security. I’ve found that wearing a sport coat is handy, too, since they make you take it off and run it through the X-ray machine. That means you can put your watch, change and other metal objects in the coat pockets before you walk through the dreaded metal detector.
Enough of the travel advice. The point is, you can live and work almost anywhere on the planet these days, as long as you have a client or two willing to pay the bills. But even if you don’t do any long distance travel at all, you’re still living in a suburb of some big metropolis. We all are. When we go shopping, we go to the same box stores that we’d find pretty much anywhere in North America. The local Sobey’s store is probably nicer than the ones around Halifax. Across the river in the US, the Wal-Mart is another clone of the Sam Walton’s corporate DNA. The Burger King and McDonald’s are other clones. The only difference with our particular suburb is that it’s a bit smaller than most. But not a lot.
Which brings me to the real point—the idea of suburbs as living spaces. Overlooking the curious notion of St. Stephen being a suburb of any place, how—and why—did so many of us choose the suburbs as our main headquarters for domestic bliss?
You’d have to go back to the modernists back in the 1920s and 30s, guys like Meis van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright. It was Wright in particular who promoted the idea of completely designed communities, and penned the model homes to fill them. The entire business, of course, was predicated on the emergence of the automobile as the primary mode of transportation, and one that could “free” ordinary people to live much further away from their workplaces.
Today, the border town of St. Stephen is experiencing the last gasp of this phenomenon with the completion of its portion of the new four-lane highway that will one day connect Saint John to the US. Soon, commuters could live here and work in the big city—if gas prices stay low enough. Which is a big “if.”
Despite high fuel costs, suburbs are likely here to stay. After all, invention is the mother of necessity. Once you’ve had the comfy and affordable large house and big back yard, why would you want a cramped condo in the city?
And the thing that could sustain the suburb is not the car but the Internet. Today, a good portion of our social contact, shopping, information gathering—and yes, work—can be done online. You don’t even need to get out of your pajamas to do a good day’s work. Which means that St. Stephen is as good a place as any, especially if you love the local environment.
So what’s missing in this ideal picture? Well, the chief characteristic of a suburb is its bedroom quality; it’s a good, safe place to raise kids. But suburbs tend to lack vital, viable downtowns. They also tend to lack diversity, offering instead a predictable uniformity of both architecture and residents. So when you put it all together, suburbs are often arid cultural deserts. Sure, you can offset this with DVDs, satellite radio and TV, surfing the Web and taking the occasional cultural trip to the big city.
Of course, some suburbs and small towns have flourishing downtowns—and do offer more of the social diversity we crave. But even then, there’s not enough going on to keep our young people satisfied. Their hunger for cultural experience draws them away to big cities.
Still, I don’t suppose there’s anything inherently wrong with suburban living. That’s to say I’m not complaining. But it doesn’t seem to be a particularly responsible lifestyle for those of us who have to do a long distance commute to work on a regular basis, given dwindling oil reserves and growing greenhouse gas emissions.
So what’s the answer? Two come to mind. One is the need for even more focus on building a better Internet. I did a Skype teleconference with some folks in India last week and the connections were appalling. We need to build a bigger, faster pipe—and offer it at much lower monthly rates. I’m talking about investing in fibre-optic cable to the doorstep. It’s the equivalent of building the transcontinental railways a century ago. The second is solution is the return of the railway itself. Just over 30 years ago most of the rail system connecting our small towns was ripped out of New Brunswick. We could really benefit from reclaiming those roadbeds and relaying that track. To make it really work, we could turn our major highways into toll roads and deep discount rail transport.
It’s pretty simple. If we don’t invest in better transportation and communications infrastructure (and I don’t mean more highways), our suburbs are destined to become ghost towns while our larger cities like Saint John become congested nightmares. Fine for New Yorkers, but I’m not sure we’d enjoy it too much.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Obama's candy for tough times
©
Somebody in the coffee shop somebody told me recently that, despite the bad economy, the Ganong candy factory here in St. Stephen is doing quite well. Apparently, they’re running three shifts flat out. I don’t know if that’s true, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
When times get tough we all seem to turn to cheap, instant comfort. Back in Great Depression, our grandparents flocked to the movies. It’s no different today. I heard on the radio that since the financial meltdown lotto-ticket sales are down but liquor sales are up. Why take a gamble on tomorrow when you can get an instant buzz on today?
I get the appeal. When we were travelling across Maine last week and stopped for gas, the kids followed me into the store. I went on treat patrol, cruising past the potato chip rack with the $3 bags, past the jumbo $2 chocolate bars, finally stopping in front of the penny candies. The kids and I surveyed the gummy bears and licorice cigars until the tiny corrosive thought of dental bills woke me up. But still, the idea of happy kids on 50¢ worth of candy was pretty seductive.
The cheap candy approach isn’t just restricted to family life. I think the US election is stuck hip deep in sugary notions. On the right, McCain promises the American public lower taxes at a time when their government is running out of cash—due to two decades of deregulated corporate plunder and now two costly wars. And Obama is pushing mountains of sugary hope to unprecedented heights.
It’s déja-vu all over again. The media, in the same way they fuelled the rush to the Iraq war, have been building up Barack Obama. Because of that, I don’t quite buy into all the media enthusiasm for Obama. I keep listening to his speeches hoping to hear something to justify the hype. So far, what I actually hear is rhetoric.
This is an important election to those of us who live next to the world’s longest undefended border. So, as Canadians, our interest in Obama is natural. I watched a PBS documentary on Obama and McCain last week, trying to shed some light on the man who will likely be the next president by the time you read this.
So what did I learn? Well, Barack has been giving the same speech of hope since before he went to Harvard Law. He has a history of appointing himself mediator between two conflicting sides. He doesn’t seem to have ever had a real job, and he learned fairly early on how to charm people and work the political system. Like his careful, non-offending voting record in the Senate, he’s has taken the small “p” political approach to building his career. In short, he’s never taken a firm stand on any issue other than opposing the Iraq War as far as I can tell, which must make him the perfect politician. He was also fortunate in marrying a politically compatible partner.
John McCain, by way of contrast, is a perfect train wreck of bad career choices. After Vietnam, he divorced his first, long-suffering wife, leaving her for a wealthy younger woman—and later admitted that he’d been a jerk. He was implicated in the Keating Five savings and loan scandal and had to publicly back away and apologize. He opposed George W. at a time when most other Republicans were still on side. Then he made a tense peace with George to reunite the party—just in time for Obama to savage him as another Bush lackey. Talk about an anti-careerist.
But we do get a sense of who McCain is. He just kind of blurts it out. But what about Obama? There’s one clear signal we do keep getting. He’s the guy who reflects the leadership and the hope we need. He’s very carefully positioned himself as the blank screen—inviting us to project all our hopes and aspirations on him. Race equality? Projection displayed. Supporter of the underdog? Absolutely. Bipartisan peacemaker? Yes again. Financial saviour? Yep, that too.
Students of psychology understand the dark side of projection. When we fall in love, we project our ideal of the opposite sex onto some poor, unsuspecting victim. This projection is really nothing more than a figment of our imagination. And after two or three years we wake up in shock wondering how this total stranger ended up in our bed. Poof, there goes that projection.
Chances are, the same thing will happen to our neighbours in the south. Some morning a year or two after the election, everybody (including the media) will wake up wondering just how this stranger ever landed in the White House. Ironically, the new peacemaking president could get caught up in a global military conflict that would have been better handled by the old warhorse nobody wanted. Poof, the screen goes blank—and a harsh new reality sets in.
We’ve had a few projections here in Canada, too. Pierre Trudeau was our first real political celebrity. Like Obama, he ran on the youth ticket, again acting as a projection screen for their hopes. A few years later he shattered those illusions when he enacted the War Measures Act to quash the separatists in Quebec. And his policies are with us today. On the social front, his multiculturalism still obscures the Canadian identity. On the economic front, his oil nationalization created an east-west divide that is still with us today—and ultimately led to the election of our current prime minister.
Decades ago, before the political “saturation bombing” effect of television and the Internet, our politicians were judged on the force of their ideas, arguments and stage presence. Seen and heard at a distance, our politicians didn’t have to be telegenic. It would be impossible to elect a John A. MacDonald or a Lester B. Pearson today. Yet we can’t imagine our country without them.
I worry that we’re dismissing real leadership talent in favour of constructed media images. Instead of grounded leadership, we’re in danger of electing such untested media trifles as Trudeau’s eldest son. Unfortunately, no matter how sweet, candy is never enough.
Let’s hope there’s more to Obama than we’ve seen —and wish him luck.
Somebody in the coffee shop somebody told me recently that, despite the bad economy, the Ganong candy factory here in St. Stephen is doing quite well. Apparently, they’re running three shifts flat out. I don’t know if that’s true, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
When times get tough we all seem to turn to cheap, instant comfort. Back in Great Depression, our grandparents flocked to the movies. It’s no different today. I heard on the radio that since the financial meltdown lotto-ticket sales are down but liquor sales are up. Why take a gamble on tomorrow when you can get an instant buzz on today?
I get the appeal. When we were travelling across Maine last week and stopped for gas, the kids followed me into the store. I went on treat patrol, cruising past the potato chip rack with the $3 bags, past the jumbo $2 chocolate bars, finally stopping in front of the penny candies. The kids and I surveyed the gummy bears and licorice cigars until the tiny corrosive thought of dental bills woke me up. But still, the idea of happy kids on 50¢ worth of candy was pretty seductive.
The cheap candy approach isn’t just restricted to family life. I think the US election is stuck hip deep in sugary notions. On the right, McCain promises the American public lower taxes at a time when their government is running out of cash—due to two decades of deregulated corporate plunder and now two costly wars. And Obama is pushing mountains of sugary hope to unprecedented heights.
It’s déja-vu all over again. The media, in the same way they fuelled the rush to the Iraq war, have been building up Barack Obama. Because of that, I don’t quite buy into all the media enthusiasm for Obama. I keep listening to his speeches hoping to hear something to justify the hype. So far, what I actually hear is rhetoric.
This is an important election to those of us who live next to the world’s longest undefended border. So, as Canadians, our interest in Obama is natural. I watched a PBS documentary on Obama and McCain last week, trying to shed some light on the man who will likely be the next president by the time you read this.
So what did I learn? Well, Barack has been giving the same speech of hope since before he went to Harvard Law. He has a history of appointing himself mediator between two conflicting sides. He doesn’t seem to have ever had a real job, and he learned fairly early on how to charm people and work the political system. Like his careful, non-offending voting record in the Senate, he’s has taken the small “p” political approach to building his career. In short, he’s never taken a firm stand on any issue other than opposing the Iraq War as far as I can tell, which must make him the perfect politician. He was also fortunate in marrying a politically compatible partner.
John McCain, by way of contrast, is a perfect train wreck of bad career choices. After Vietnam, he divorced his first, long-suffering wife, leaving her for a wealthy younger woman—and later admitted that he’d been a jerk. He was implicated in the Keating Five savings and loan scandal and had to publicly back away and apologize. He opposed George W. at a time when most other Republicans were still on side. Then he made a tense peace with George to reunite the party—just in time for Obama to savage him as another Bush lackey. Talk about an anti-careerist.
But we do get a sense of who McCain is. He just kind of blurts it out. But what about Obama? There’s one clear signal we do keep getting. He’s the guy who reflects the leadership and the hope we need. He’s very carefully positioned himself as the blank screen—inviting us to project all our hopes and aspirations on him. Race equality? Projection displayed. Supporter of the underdog? Absolutely. Bipartisan peacemaker? Yes again. Financial saviour? Yep, that too.
Students of psychology understand the dark side of projection. When we fall in love, we project our ideal of the opposite sex onto some poor, unsuspecting victim. This projection is really nothing more than a figment of our imagination. And after two or three years we wake up in shock wondering how this total stranger ended up in our bed. Poof, there goes that projection.
Chances are, the same thing will happen to our neighbours in the south. Some morning a year or two after the election, everybody (including the media) will wake up wondering just how this stranger ever landed in the White House. Ironically, the new peacemaking president could get caught up in a global military conflict that would have been better handled by the old warhorse nobody wanted. Poof, the screen goes blank—and a harsh new reality sets in.
We’ve had a few projections here in Canada, too. Pierre Trudeau was our first real political celebrity. Like Obama, he ran on the youth ticket, again acting as a projection screen for their hopes. A few years later he shattered those illusions when he enacted the War Measures Act to quash the separatists in Quebec. And his policies are with us today. On the social front, his multiculturalism still obscures the Canadian identity. On the economic front, his oil nationalization created an east-west divide that is still with us today—and ultimately led to the election of our current prime minister.
Decades ago, before the political “saturation bombing” effect of television and the Internet, our politicians were judged on the force of their ideas, arguments and stage presence. Seen and heard at a distance, our politicians didn’t have to be telegenic. It would be impossible to elect a John A. MacDonald or a Lester B. Pearson today. Yet we can’t imagine our country without them.
I worry that we’re dismissing real leadership talent in favour of constructed media images. Instead of grounded leadership, we’re in danger of electing such untested media trifles as Trudeau’s eldest son. Unfortunately, no matter how sweet, candy is never enough.
Let’s hope there’s more to Obama than we’ve seen —and wish him luck.
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