This is pretty good, funny interview with Rainn Wilson:
youtu.be/XfqtoD1VHo4

put it in the hopper if you like

American Gladiator dropout

I'm kind of assuming here, but I'm guessing most of what you hear about in Canada is Trump, not not so much about Sanders or Clinton. Hell, off the top of my head all I can think of when I think Canadian politics is Rob Ford. It's not that I'm not interested, but it just doesn't pop up on the news as relevant down here so only the entertainment gets through, i.e. Trump. Hell, sometimes it feels like that down here in the states.

fyi, Win Butler is American. The more you know!

Meerkat, didn't know that and now I do. Things are getting better everyday!

IZ, Canadian politics does't really "pop" that much. We've got nasty scandals just like the states, but they're not sensationalized in the same way. I figure that's because our most influential media source is still the CBC, which is government subsidized and maintains a predominantly left and nativist set of influences/tendencies. The push to maintain a Canadian identity in media is still a thing and so both generators and consumers of media here are apprehensive towards sensationalism because it's seen as "American" in nature, or at least detrimental.

In the case of Trump myopia, I figure it's not so different here as it is down there. Millennials consume their information from sources like Reddit, where Sanders is a saint and Hillary is a shill. Trump is Trump. However, older folks still consume traditional sources of media, where Trump is Trump and maybe there's some Hillary.

I think about years ago when for a while I did tour logistics stuff for folk singer Vance Gilbert (mostly route planning and booking rooms, I was assistant to his tour planner at the time through a not very interesting twist of fate). The first time I actually met him he was just back from Canada and the conversation turned to his experience as a black American going to Canada. He said the first time he went up there in his early 20s it was incredible, for the first time in his life he would walk down the street and not feel eyes on him, people treated him the same as everyone else. Then within two or three days he started to realize there was as much racism against the native population up there as there is against the black population down here, and it was a kind of a major, eye opening experience for him to realize that no matter what society you're in you still, to use his exact words, "choose your nigger."


Then I think about last time I was in downtown Montreal, right after a ajor hockey game had just ended and people were streaming out of the bars. There were cops walking down the streets stopping all of the people who were obviously of native descent and ignoring everyone else, even if scuffles were breaking out.

All in all it's a good reminder that as fucked as relations between ethnic groups in the USA get, at least we aren't alone.




No offense to Canada, I love it up there, if I didn't have family down here I'd seriously consider trying to emigrate. Not for political reasons, I just always enjoy it when I get up there. Probably because it's usually in February and I like winter.

Can't they both be awful, crasspm?

Old Zircon, that's awesome. I have like three Vance Gilbert CD's, from when he came to the Winnipeg Folk Festival a while back. That may be the same occasion he mentioned; Winnipeg is horribly racist towards first nations people (but not black people).

There are reasons for it (people always remember the worst examples of everything -- I have all sorts of stories); but that does not excuse it. The problems spring from poverty, lack of education, and substance abuse, usually transferred to the children by the parents -- a vicious cycle.

This is a cycle we have created for ourselves and which we justify in the name of "equity" -- we put the natives on reservations so we are responsible for looking after them, but looking after them on reservations prevents them from integrating into modern society but that's not their fault so we have to look after them.

That's cool (OZ's story of course, not the racism). I've only been to Victoria and Vancouver and if I noticed any racism at all, it was the unspoken "nice" kind of racism that you get in other PNW cities like Seattle or Portland, like "isn't it nice to see such racial diversity on MLK blvd (and certain other streets)." People don't say it but they're thinking that; it's human nature for a lot of people, especially those who came from most other major cities where a street like that quite literally represents the divide between white and black geographically.

As for Win, yeah I guess his intentions were good, and I'm doubtful that most Americans who watch ESPN are familiar with Arcade Fire, so hearing a sentiment from a Canadian (once American) citizen would spread to a larger audience than fans of indie rock. But yeah it's a sportsball game. There's a reason why news reporters don't talk about who they want as well, just like there's a reason why you don't talk politics during the Super Bowl.