Month: March 2012

 “When Zack Taylor of the University of Toronto Cities Centre did a little number crunching recently, his worst suspicions were confirmed: It seems some parts of the city are a whole lot more democratic than others” – thestar.com

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1140794–fixing-toronto-s-democratic-deficit

This news article calls into question democracy as it is practiced in Toronto, and then by extension the rest of Canada. Its main concern is that some city electoral wards vary wildly in the number of people that constitute them.  For example, Ward 29 in Toronto has double the population of Ward 23. The consequence of this is that some people are over-represented while other are underrepresented. When competing with the votes of 50,000 people as opposed to 25,000, your vote carries less weight and is not as directly involved in choosing a representative. This makes the article go on the conclude that;

“There’s nothing especially democratic about any of this, of course. If one person/one vote is your measure, clearly Canada and Toronto fail badly.” -thestar.com

Should this be our measure? surely this is a noble ideal, but it often isn’t as practical as one would imagine. Even in Canada we circumvent this logic. Our senators are appointed in a purposefully disproportionate way, so as to guarantee equal representation from each province. Often to correct social and geographical injustices, some small communities deserve their own representative to cater to their specific needs regardless of how few voters there are. Contrast that with a city where wards are often divided along inconsequential lines, two representatives being more or less indistinguishable from each other. From a personal perspective, yes, this is unfair, it makes some votes worth more than others. At a systemic level, however, one can use this type of restructuring to achieve a goal which pure democracy itself can. Equality doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing for everyone, it can also mean different things for everyone to ensure that all are given an adequate voice.

To do this assignment, I poked around mostly Canadian political blogs, but the thing that struck me the most was the amount of American politics which permeated them. For most, the ratio between Canadian and American issues was nearly 50/50! Why is this? Is it because American politics are more important, or simply because they are more interesting to write about? If I were to guess, I would say the latter. The posts on viewing American politics from the outside were far more cynical and humorous, presumably because as Canadians, we can laugh at the state of American politics without having to be subject to it. Schadenfreude! 

As a reader, i tend to prefer to look at a bunch of different sources instead of having one single source tell me everything I need to know. I often get lost in long readings or posts, and stop caring after the first little while because I want a change in scenery. I also enjoy humor and something that doesn’t shy away from political incorrectness. Something that will likely offend someone else makes me very interested. I don’t want to offend people, per se, but I think it stimulates better debate.

The first blog I looked at I really did enjoy. It was short, sweet, and snappy. The title says all, small dead animals, was the name of the blog. An award winner for best conservative blog in Canada apparently. Here a link: http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/ . I particularly enjoyed the post about Rush Limbaugh’s verbal attack on a college student for wanting insurance provided contraceptives. He called her a slut and prostitute on the radio and the writer of small dead animals was having none of it. In a post cleverly titled God’s Gift to Democrats she makes fun of the fact that Limbaugh had just made every contraceptive taking woman vote democrat. “idiot“. The woman being called a slut wasn’t spared either, questioning her motives for attending a university with the express purpose of battling its insurance policy. this type of post makes me want to look at this topic more, and i’m able to do it elsewhere because small dead animals makes me laugh and doesn’t waste my time.

Canadian Cynic on the other hand turned me off almost instantly. http://canadiancynic.blogspot.com/ Looked at the title of their first post, The hunt for Patrick Ross, Yeah its On. and i didn’t know who he was and didnt really care. next post. well, i tried to go to the next post by scrolling down but it took me forever. the partick ross post was over 5,000 words long!!! so i read a bit of the post and find out this is a personal vendetta against this man from the blog writer himself!! If you’re going to write a political blog, keep your own personal legal affairs out of it because i don’t care. and especially don’t make it 5,000 words long. The writing is snappy enough, it attacks this Patrick Ross character in a pretty funny way, but again. I don’t care about your personal life. talk about the stuff that would bring me to a blog called ‘canadian cynic’.

So i realize i’ve broken my own rules and wrote a beast of a post. almost 1/10th as long as Canadian cynic’s! so ill put an abridged version for any readers who are as ADD on the internet as i am.

Small dead animals = short posts, funny and clever, makes me read more about a topic elsewhere

Canadian cynic = don’t care about your personal vendetta against some random guy, way way too long