The Urban Condition with B-Town

Canada’s “New” New Government

Goodbye Emperor Harper, hello Prime Minister Japhilles LaDieppe of the Bloc Canadien.
It looks as though the current Parliament will change… not through another grinding and expensive election, but through an unprecedented constitutional crisis.
The makeup of Canada’s Minority Parliament has meant that if the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois work together they effectively have more seats than the two-term minority ruling Conservatives. The NDP and Liberals under the negotiation of former 1980s NDP leader Ed Broadbent and 1990s Lib PM Jean Chretien have brokered a 30 month agreement to become a coalition party. Their combined 114 (77 Lib 37 NDP) votes would be held up by the Blocs 49 votes. This will give the coalition association 163 votes to 143 Conservative and 2 conservative leaning independents.

What does this mean… in the short term?

A Governor General that Earns her Money:
The Governor General, Michelle Jean, as the official head of the Canadian State has little to do but get free flights, dinners, galas and read a throne speech written by someone else. It is only in these minority parliament situations that a Governor General as representative of the Queen of Canada must make actual decisions even legal precedents about the dissolution of parliament into a new election, which grouping of MPs will make up the next government, or whether or not to force a government to stand after a non confidence vote. This situation is seen by some as a constitutional crisis, but it will likely come to her siding with the Government towards this coalition. Since voters in Canada do NOT vote for a 'government' or a Prime Minister but for an MP, there is no constitutional crisis. This shift will actually present a precedent of Canadian Parliamentary democracy at work.
Another Election:
If the Conservatives’ arguments that a) their party by having the largest share of MPs in parliament is the only rightful governing body, or b) the inclusion of a openly separatist party as the governing body is not in the best interest of confederation, are successful, the Governor General may choose to call a general election. An election in this situation would likely happen in January and be blamed on the opposition. They would pay dearly in the election that would send a majority of Conservative MPs to Ottawa.
A Prorogue of Parliament:
If Stephen Harper decides to prorogue parliament, essentially shutting it down to a later date likely in January, it would be damaging to all sides. It would be the public that would most likely be hurt. While many are upset that the opposition parties are distracting from the economic crisis at hand by threatening this constitutional crisis, if Harper suspends a democratically necessary parliament at that time of crisis it could be politically disasterous for him. On the other hand, the suspension could buy him enough time too seed a feeling that this coalition business is an attempted bloodless coup and a waste of valuable time for the Canadian public.
A Dissolution Reversal:
The place where this coalition could blow up is mainly with the Liberals. While under Stephane Dion Canada’s Liberal Party has made a shift to the left and it was generally those liberals that were elected, some are vehemently opposed to the socialist policy of the NDP and even more opposed to the Bloc’s nationalist core. These right wing or extremely federalist Liberal members may find themselves disillusioned by this coalition. They might in the coming days, weeks, or months be compelled to break away from the Liberals as independents or even cross the floor and join the Conservative caucus. It would only take 9 of these floor crossings to bring parliament to a tie. An action of this type could bring us right back to where we were at October 14th.
The first parliament in 25 years that represents the majority of voters:
The vote tallies for the Bloc, NDP, and Liberals combined is effectively 55% of all counted. The last time a government broke the 50% popular vote mark (not counting the NDP propping up Martin’s Libs here and there in 2004) was Brian Mulroney’s 1984 pounding. It usually takes only 40% of the vote to give a party a commanding majority.
Prime Minister Dion:
The 30 month agreement is currently under the direction of Dion, who has been given the lowest mandate to govern by a Liberal leader since John Turner in 1988. This should have spelled political death for the man, but he has a few maneuvers left in him. Stephan was undermined and billed as a weak leader firstly by his language barrier, but by secondly his insistence that there be consensus within his party and between other parties. It is this second weakness that may have initiated this coalition and may be what keeps it together. He has officially resigned and will leave after a scheduled leadership convention in May, so the future Liberal leader may not share his sense of cooperation, but for now all of the potential candidates are in on it.

What does this mean… in the longer term?
A New Conservative Leader:
If this coalition is successful for more than a month the knives will be out for Harper within the Conservative caucus. Calls for resignation would follow, as many of the fissures concerning the takeover of the Progressive Conservatives by the Reform Party can be traced to Harper. He will go or the conservative alliance may be broken.
Crisis for Confederation or Quebec Nationalism:
The Bloc Quebecois is threatening to go federalist or at least soft on sovereignty with their renewable agreement to hold up the Canadian Federal Parliament for at least 18 months. To some on either side of the sovereignty debate this will be seen as a betrayal. Their inclusion might either introduce legislation further legitimizing a Nationalist agenda or may induce a more cooperative nature of Quebec politics within Canada. It might even reduce the sovereigntist attiudes of Quebecers through such inclusion. It is a risk that Gilles Duceppe has seemingly taken on by signing the shared agreement. If he is incorrect support could quickly bleed to the NDP, Liberals, or a more adamantly Quebec nationalist party.
A United Left:
This coalition could represents a new era in Canadian Parliamentary democracy where cooperation leads to action for the common good. An alternate long shot is that the coalition could lead to a new party in Canada that represents social democratic and progressive ideals within a big tent. It may need a charismatic figure to raise up the hopes and cooperative nature of Canadians in the coming tough times. It may be an Obama figure that comes out of the Liberal leadership convention or farther down the road, but that leader could broker cooperation between these left of centre voices into a future election. I don’t see that person yet, but they could be on the horizon.

Labels: Federal, Government, Parliament, Politics

posted by B-Town @ 1:32 a.m. 0 comments

Coming Again Soon

Soon I will be making posts again. Things have been brewing. 

posted by B-Town @ 1:12 p.m. 0 comments

There Ain't no way I'm getting out of this one without smelling like theses

I'm in the begining throws of my final masters project work.
So again I'll hope you guys will understand why I'm not updating all that much lately.
But soon, I'll make some posts and a movie night or two.
Soon I'll post pieces of a paper on Noir and Urban Design, but not today. Today, I'm finishing my internship for the City.

Movie Night soon: Hanzo the Razor II: The Snare (1973) and Hanzo the Razor III: Who's Got the Gold (1974)
Both Samurai Dirty Harry sexploitation flicks with a Funk Soundtrack. Hanzo is crude, violent and loads of fun.
I'll keep you updated when I find a venue and a time.

posted by B-Town @ 1:25 p.m. 0 comments

BAD F*****' DUDES RIDING PUBLIC TRANSIT!!

SUNDAY MAR. 11th

The following post I gratefully recieved from BJ. Oddly enough his movie choice closely matches my and other planning geeks love of subways in film. So this sunday the B&B Proudly Presents:

7pm


THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3



A group of armed men take a subway train full of people hostage and declare that they'll kill a hostage a minute if their demands aren't met. The transit cop there to deal with the hostages and the beauratic red tape is Walter Mathau, who we love simply for being being Walter Mathau, and it's always grand to be loved for just simply who you are. Leading the hostage takers is Robert FUCKING Shaw. Now there are not many actors you can refer to and and honestly throw a 'fucking' in their name without cheapening it, the icon status has to be tough as nails. Even James Cagney, one of the toughest, meanest little bastard of the gangster golden age, made queer little movies like Yankee Doodle Dandy (writer's confession: have never seen Yanke Doodle Dandy, but it's a musical, musicals are for sissies, like Ewan McGregor, a sissy with a big schlong). John Wayne was too much of the protector. No it's rare actor that qualifies to have their name interrupted by a cuss (common though cussing is now, but hell it's been constant throughout my living history, so...), they have to be tough as nails and capable of doing anything. Any one of these actors could play a phenomenal Punisher, and I'll tell you it ain't Thomas Fuckin' Jane. To tell the truth I don't think there's a living working actor right now who'd deserve it. I got a short list of all time here:

LEE FUCKING MARVIN
CHARLES FUCKING BRONSON
HENRY FUCKING SILVA.

And Robert FUCKING Shaw. I haven't seen that many Shaw films, hell only two. He was the heavy/mark in The Sting and he was motherfucking QUINT in JAWS. If he only made one movie and it was Jaws, he'd still be Robert FUCKING Shaw, maybe with a purer 'fuck'. And Mathau, he doesn't need a cuss in his name, his very presence gives you, at least, the slight inclination to rent Hanging Up, even though you know you'll hate it.

9pm

Bullet Train



It's Speed, but on a subway! Some nefarious no-gooder has planted a bomb on a high-speed train which will explode if it goes below 80km/h. And SONNY FUCKING CHIBA is in it.

Labels: Movies, Transit

posted by B-Town @ 3:31 p.m. 1 comments

B&B Presents: Ecological Apocalypse II: Nature’s Revenge

I had so much fun the last time around, I have decided to do a second round of Man Vs. Ecology Pictures.
Again, it is going to be a documentary saddled up next to a Cheesy B-movie.

7:00 pm

Manufactured Landscapes (2006) Canada

I usually do not do this, but I will use the text out of the studio’s promotion to give you an Idea. It is just that eloquent.
“Manufactured Landscapes is a feature length documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Burtynsky makes large-scale photographs of ‘manufactured landscapes’ – quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines, dams. He photographs civilization’s materials and debris, but in a way people describe as stunning or beautiful, and so raises all kinds of questions about ethics and aesthetics without trying to easily answer them.
The film follows Burtynsky to China as he travels the country photographing the evidence and effects of that country’s massive industrial revolution. Sites such as the Three Gorges Dam, which is bigger by 50% than any other dam in the world and displaced over a million people, factory floors over a kilometre long, and the breathtaking scale of Shanghai’s urban renewal are subjects for his lens and our motion picture camera.
Shot in Super-16mm film, Manufactured Landscapes extends the narrative streams of Burtynsky’s photographs, allowing us to meditate on our profound impact on the planet and witness both the epicentres of industrial endeavour and the dumping grounds of its waste. What makes the photographs so powerful is his refusal in them to be didactic. We are all implicated here, they tell us: there are no easy answers. The film continues this approach of presenting complexity, without trying to reach simplistic judgements or reductive resolutions. In the process, it tries to shift our consciousness about the world and the way we live in it.”

To give you a further idea of the quality of this Doc., when I was in T.O. during the Toronto International Film Festival in September I was in an elevator with a bunch of film makers who were raving about how visually astounding this film was. When I checked it had been sold out almost right away.

9:00 pm

Gojira tai Hedorah AKA Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster (1971) Japan
For a bit of fun at the end of the evening I want to show this classic and campy Kaiju monster battle. It had not been released yet during the last Ecological Apocalypse night.
The Gojira series, especially the original, is one of the best for popularizing concern over threats to the Earths Balance. Lost in the 1950s American Version is that Godzilla started out as an anti nuclear testing statement, especially due to the activity in the pacific during the Cold War. This 1971 version directed by Yoshimitsu Banno was more intended for children and the ecological statement is fairly weak. Keep in mind that weak usually lends to more laughter. In this version: Gojira, defender of the Earth, has become a national phenomenon, akin to the Loch Ness Monster, especially for children. The monster has been ingrained into the Japanese consciousness. However, the Japanese citizens and industrialists still do not realize that destroying the balance of the Earth will summon the millennia-old protector. The story follows a young boy who finds a creature, which thrives on toxic waste, naming it Hedorah, a pun on the Japanese word for sludge, hedoro. This monster sucks on smokestacks, oozes at the screaming populace, and belches poisonous fumes. In his dreams, the boy wishes for Gojira to defeat Hedorah and for people be persuaded to stop polluting the earth. Gojira, as the great protector of the planet’s balance, fights the monster in a rage against humanity’s destruction of his ecology.

If Manufactured Landscapes is unavailable, I will alternate with:
The Day After Tomorrow (2004) USA a blockbuster disaster flick about climate change.

Labels: Disaster, Ecology, Movies

posted by B-Town @ 3:59 p.m. 0 comments

B&B Presents: Wack History Month

This Sunday we present an alternative to the innane speeches of the Oscars. Most of my friends are geeks who focus on either film, politics, or history, this Sunday we get to have a surreal mixture of all three

7:00 pm


C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2004 / 2006 ) (- it took a while to be distributed and was eventually picked up by Spike Lee)

What if the South had won the War?
Directed by Kevin Willmott in the voice of a BBC documentary film crew, this mockumentary is a must for the historically or politically inclined. The hilarious, yet chilling, version of history posits what the last 150 years would have been had the Confederates won the American Civil War. The most frightening aspects are the ties to actual events both past and present in American policy and culture, replete with commercials.


9:00 pm


Wild In the Streets (1968)
Max Frost, a 24 year old charismatic rocker, has just successfully lowered the voting age to 14 (Something I’ve been in support of for years), and he’s now rolling the wave of popularity from a babyboom majority right to the American Presidency. Following the 60s edict of “Never trust anyone over thirty”, his first presidential edict turns the new hippie state to a totalitarian hell for anyone over thirty by requiring them to live in retirement homes where they are force fed LSD.
This psychedelic exploitation flick riled a generation and it has Richard Prior in it as a character named Stanley X.
I wanted to show some Blaxploitation Flicks focussed on the Black Nationalist movement to match up with the CSA, but instead Wild in the Streets seemed to be a much better fit with the themes of CSA. If I can't get wild in the streets, fear not... I will book it with My first choice. The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973) about a Black CIA agent who works throught the system to set up the Nationalist cause behind the backs of his own agency.

Labels: Documentary, Explioitation, Movies

posted by B-Town @ 3:54 p.m. 0 comments

B&B Presents: Samouraï Noir

February 11, 2007
This Sunday night we present two films about non-Japanese hitmen obsessed with the Samurai Code of Bushido.

7:30 pm

Le Samouraï (1967) France
Jef Costello is a perfectionist hitman who never gets caught. After a hit gone wrong with surviving witnesses and an ever elusive alibi, Jef is backed into a corner. His code of solitary honour predisposes him to complete his task, yet under an air of the inevitability of death. Jean-Pierre Melville’s use and deconstruction of the American Noir Genre in this picture has heavily influenced other film makers. John Woo noted that everything about Le Samouraï is perfect, and was a central inspiration for The Killer (1989).

9:30 pm

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) USA

Acclaimed writer and director Jim Jarmusch was also heavily influenced by Le Samouraï in the development of Ghost Dog. The story follows an African American hitman, played by Forest Whitaker, who is self-retained within the local New York mob and strictly follows the Bushido code of Hagakure: The Way of the Samurai. When he becomes expendable can Ghost Dog maintain his code of honour and still confront his mob superiors? Jarmusch’s films often capture and are based around moments, yet his slow direction style in this picture is balanced by a beat heavy soundtrack compiled and composed by Wu Tang Clan’s the RZA. This is one of my favourite films, even though I haven’t seen it since it came out. I’m exited to see it through new eyes along with its French inspiration.

Labels: Movies, Noir

posted by B-Town @ 12:37 p.m. 0 comments