JD Halperin2013-05-26T04:42:10-04:00JD Halperinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=JD-halperinCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for JD HalperinGood old fashioned elbow grease.Why I'll Still Watch NHL Hockey (and You'd Be Stupid Not To)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.24250652013-01-07T12:18:55-05:002013-03-09T05:12:01-05:00JD Halperinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/JD-halperin/
No, because this isn't at all a good parallel. There is no personal connection between me and the NHL, just a throbbing love for the game they play. The league itself I view with cool detachment. I understand and accept that owners are just people making money off the game. They don't have to care about me or hockey, and they don't, and I'm fine with that. I don't care about them. Anyway, I was nearly totally indifferent to this lockout. It really surprised me. One or two Saturdays I felt a muted pang, wondered what it was, recognized it, and drank hockeyless beers with a smile nonetheless.
Now that I am older than the league's best players, I view them differently too. They aren't simply older Timbits players there for of their purity of heart. They are the best skaters, stick-handlers, shooters, and hockey visionaries in the world, and this won't change because of the lockout. I admire their abilities, not them. Those who put a celestial trust into the hearts and minds of strangers are incredibly naive, and ought to be disabused of the notion that players, nevermind owners, care about them. Do grown ups really feel this way?
We are not entitled to hockey. Hockey doesn't enter this world the way forest, mountains and rivers do. A lot of boring, legal framework stuff that I am completely and wilfully ignorant about needs to be there, and when there is a disagreement at this level, which seems to happen twice a decade, I do something else.
But the NHL is back now. Is it that the owners and players finally sympathize with the hearts of fans? Is it that they could no longer go without hockey, the game they love? No, maniac, of course not. I'm sure the players actually do love hockey, or did anyway. But the players have a profession and the owners have a lucrative hobby (some of them, not all).
I have grown out of regarding hockey players in supernatural terms, something especially easy to do when you're a Leaf fan. The lockout was undoubtedly stupid, but the fact remains that the most skilled players on Earth will get to play again, their skills not a bit diminished (maybe rusty) for the ugly lockout. If you loved hockey before, there's no reason why you won't love watching the same sport again. If you've gotten used to life without hockey, fair enough, but taking the lockout personally is the result of viewing your relationship to the game in unhealthy terms. Those who claim to take revenge on beloved hockey by ignoring it are in effect prolonging the lockout out of spite, and I suspect this crowd will tune in soon, their misplaced pride notwithstanding.
Hockey players are just strangers doing great (or horrible) stuff with a puck, and there is no gun to our head demanding we view. Love of NHL hockey, hockey played at its best, must not be contaminated by money, even if the latter is required for the former's existence. Now that it's over, I can finally get back to feeling heartbroken whenever our questionable goaltending and porous defence does its work. Lupul and Kessel are exciting. I hope Kulemin rises again (he is deserving), JVR is useful, and all Phaneuf's hard work improving the accuracy of his slapshot, hours of aiming carefully at the side of a barn, pays off. These are question marks that, however they turn out, I will watch get resolved.
]]>This Holiday Season, Let's Ignore the Popetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.23605422012-12-26T08:44:17-05:002013-02-25T05:12:01-05:00JD Halperinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/JD-halperin/National Post published several articles responding to a poll they commissioned determining Canadians' religiosity versus their spirituality, among other things.
Perhaps not surprisingly, it showed the older generation is more religious, with a pronounced drop among the youth. The youth are spiritual, but they avoid the dogma of formal religion. How encouraging! In response, churches are trying new things -- anything -- to draw people in. I wish the church the worst of luck.
Father Raymond J. de Souza's article responding to this poll is typical of what I find is religious people's inability to understand how someone can be spiritual without being religious, which is to say it was condescending and obtuse. Though I agree with de Souza from time to time on other issues, on this topic he is apparently allergic to rationality, and rather than break out in hives or a rash, he has developed an article. But at least he wasn't as bad as the Pope, who in a neighbouring piece (which apparently isn't online, but this story is basically identical) rebuked world leaders for their attempts to introduce same sex marriage.
After describing Christopher Hitchens' type of secular spirituality -- "encountering beauty in art, music and architecture" -- Father de Souza still seriously doubts that it is even possible to be spiritual without being religious. A god fearing person himself, he can't bring himself to imagine what it's like for people who take for granted that there is no god (at least not the one from any of the so-called holy books). Once god is eliminated, being religious becomes impossible for honest people, yet we're no less hard-wired for spirituality than before.
Blind evolutionary processes have made us prone to "spirituality," which I define as the sublime, thrilling indescribable feeling that washes over us when looking at an imposing mountain chain, "encountering beauty in art, music and architecture," or what some people get from imagining god. It can be explained chemically, it does not require anything supernatural. It is no less wonderful or awe inspiring because of this.
That people from around the globe and across time have independently (before these pockets of people communicated to each other) created their own religious myths, or built up those of their predecessors, suggests that our species has an innate tendency to make up and believe any story, no matter how absurd, that give us meaning, purpose, and hope. But reality and popularity are not the same thing. Actually, perhaps the strongest evidence that these divine stories are fictional is their universality. The best ideas usually come from a single person, which in turn causes a whirlwind of repression and bloodshed before their truth is taken for granted by everyone else.
Father de Souza speculates that spiritual, but not religious, people are perhaps "thoroughgoing materialists," or we have turned our back on philosophy. Perhaps in some cases, and I do think it's vile that advertising has replaced religion in giving society guidance, status, meaning, morals, and generally something to do. But that doesn't make de Souza correct on the bigger point. He will laugh at me when I tell him that I feel the same rapturous shiver his god gives him any time I hear Coltrane at his best (who felt he was under divine influence, but wasn't), or read my beloved authors, or eat a fresh bagel with lox and cream cheese.
And what else is an orgasm? He will consider this blasphemy, perhaps, or think I'm vulgarly exaggerating. No, I mean this quite literally. From his perspective, the divine heights he worships are immeasurably higher than these lowly pleasures, but from my perspective his rapture comes not from heaven but solely from someone else's ideas residing inside his own head.
Nothing begs the question like god declaring god's existence. Minus divinity, his notion of spirituality falls apart. In my favour, nobody doubts the existence of Coltrane, sex, or smoked salmon. More to the point, humans would have died out ages ago if we didn't experience indescribable joy when eating, mating, and sharing stories that give us survival tips and existential satisfaction. The sublime joy ("spirituality") accompanying these things led us to do them. We couldn't have got here without being spiritual, but religion has nothing to do with it. Booyah, de Souza.
"Spiritual realities are realities, and religious truths describe what those realities are," de Souza says. I'm with Nabokov who finds the word "reality" one of the few words utterly meaningless without quotation marks around it. Is Santa Claus "real" to a boy who plays with the fire truck the former has apparently left under a tree? In a sense, yes, of course. It would be impossible, and also cruel, to shake him from the innocent euphoria he feels as he puts out make believe fires with his real truck given by a "real" Santa Claus. But this boy is less endearing when he grows up and writes in a national newspaper that my rejecting the premise underlying the source of his spirituality makes me either not as introspective as him or simply a vulgar materialist.
He does point out the beneficial things religion can do for communities. Well, ok. I am not one of those atheists who find it necessary to eradicate any trace of religion, and actually I am sorry more people aren't acquainted with religious texts, which are wonderfully beautiful and brilliant so long as they are not taken literally.
I am for Homeric hospitality, but not because Zeus will be angry if I fail to burn for him choice offerings. I am for certain tenets from the new and old testament whenever they coincide with reason and decency, which I admit happens occasionally. But whatever good comes from religious texts does not make the existence of a supernatural supreme being any more real.
And de Souza fails to mention the considerable drawbacks. In some circles, religious practice correlates positively not just to community involvement, but to racism, homophobia, and coerced child buggery. But, remember, the point isn't that religion is beneficial or harmful, it's that the underlying premise is bogus. Hitchens quipped, "that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." And anyway, bringing up the long list of religion's historical peccadilloes is unnecessary when religious abominations are conveniently found in the adjacent article.
Dinners and drinks with family and friends, gifts and well-wishing is my idea of Christmas, a lovely time of year, but some people can't get into the holiday spirit without gay-bashing. The Pope is such a man. His Christmas address was devoted to the theme of family, and he rebuked world leaders for introducing same-sex marriages. The article states, "In his most outspoken comments on the subject yet, he denounced what he described as people manipulating their God-given identities [sic] to suit their own sexual 'choices.'"
He believes gay people are actually heterosexuals who choose to be gay, possibly because gay people are so celebrated around the world, and nothing makes life easier than coming out of the closet. However unwarranted, the Pope still holds influence over some people. There are places -- today! right now! -- where gay people are buried up to their heads and stoned to death.
The Pope is in a position to help change this, but perhaps he is secretly applauding. He's dangerous! The Pope -- the so-called exalter of the poor, wearing custom made Prada shoes, traveling freely among the people he loves in a bulletproof car whenever he is dragged out of his impossibly gaudy (pun intended) palace -- is the crystallization of religious hypocrisy. That Canadians are increasingly rejecting this stuff is a credit to our intelligence and basic decency.
There is cause for spiritual rapture in the things we know are all around us--in our food, chess, art, and sometimes even in people. How uplifting! Rapture is accessible! Vladimir Nabokov, who I doubt de Souza can seriously reject as an unthinking vulgar materialist, in Ada states the case in the way only he can: "who cares about all those stale myths, what does it matter -- Jove or Jehovah, spire of cupola, mosques in Moscow, or bronzes and bonzes, and clerics and relics, and deserts with bleached camel ribs? They are merely the dust and mirages of the communal mind." It's time we stop being guided by these dusty mirages.
That said, merry Christmas everybody! And have a happy and healthy New Year.
]]>Sound Familiar? This Man Wants a List of Hungary's Jewstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.22248172012-12-03T08:51:29-05:002013-02-02T05:12:01-05:00JD Halperinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/JD-halperin/
Recently, Márton Gyöngyösi, the foreign policy critic of Hungary's ultra-far-right Jobbik party -- the third most populous party in Hungary -- said publicly what would cause Canadian jaws to drop if said by a Canadian politician here:
"I think such a conflict [the recent Israel and Gaza war] makes it timely to tally up people of Jewish ancestry who live here, especially in the Hungarian parliament and the Hungarian government, who, indeed, pose a national security risk to Hungary."
He wants to catalogue Hungary's Jews in a database simply for being Jewish. Something this deplorable requires no counter argument. Of course, he claims he was misquoted, but his backpedaling cleared up nothing. Really he meant to "call the attention to the threat posed by government members and in parliament by Hungarian-Israeli dual citizens." Not Jews, Israelis.
Disturbingly, the Hungarian government failed to immediately condemn this statement. They did eventually, and predictably, say they disagree with these sentiments as much as possible, but it came days later. If said here, Canadian politicians from every party would hungrily seize on the opportunity to rail against something so blatantly vicious. Of course, I'm not accusing the leading Fidesz party of making only a perfunctory condemnatory statement because they secretly agree; the problem is such a disturbing comment apparently isn't a huge deal because it's commonplace. Paul Steiner, a Jewish opposition MP, claims he "couldn't digest what we'd heard, we're so used to remarks like this from Jobbik." This is a story because it wasn't a story.
Jewish citizens protested in front of the Legislature in Budapest by holding signs and wearing the yellow arm bands with "Jude" written inside the Star of David, the ones Hitler notoriously forced Jews to wear in the period Gyöngyösi no doubt considers the halcyon days.
But now that it has made international headlines, what is there to say? It's obviously disgusting, and there can be no two opinions on the matter for civilized people. There's nothing to debate, yet it can't be highlighted enough.
There are two takes on it, both very problematic. One, Gyöngyösi's only error was saying what he actually thought instead of doing what every other bigots usually has the sense and savviness to do in public: cloak hatred in the fashionable words of the day. After sober second thought this is what he tried, but miserably failed, to do. Anyway, by then his first statement contained such stark bigotry it was impossible to retreat from it. But, had he more prudently disguised his hatred the first time around, the same odious man with the same odious opinions would have likely gone unnoticed around the world, let alone aroused condemnation. The second possibility is that this wasn't a slip of the tongue but was hatched and communicated precisely to mesh with widespread public opinion in Hungary. This is much more disturbing and requires no further unpacking.
There's no third possibility.
In Jobbik's world, "security risk" is code for "vermin." Gyöngyösi and his party dehumanize Jews and Roma by appealing to patriotism and myths of national honour. This is what ultra-nationalists do. Patriotism can be terrifying.
Most Canadians don't need to be told that minorities aren't secretly conspiring to tear apart the fabric of our society. A Canadian politician couldn't appeal to this notion anyway. Whatever outright bigots we have here don't constitute anything approaching a voter segment.
If there's a lesson to be gained from this it's that our lofty notion of tolerance isn't held in high regard in all corners of the "civilized" world, to say the least. That fascism is on the rise in Eastern Europe shouldn't surprise anyone. It's a breeding ground for that, especially in a brutal economy. And where fascism rears its ugly head, it's important criticism doesn't devolve into that pathetic pseudo-sensitive relativism, truly a modern affliction, that aims to appear balanced and sophisticated but misses what is starkly before its face: Gyöngyösi and his type are vile backwards pigs who can't be denounced too strongly and too often.]]>Gen Y Feeling Stress? Get a Griptag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.21757742012-11-23T12:42:52-05:002013-01-23T05:12:01-05:00JD Halperinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/JD-halperin/
Both an Abacus and a Sun Life poll showed that 90 per cent of Canadians between the ages of 18-24 experience "excessive stress" from economic instability and underemployment. How they define "excessive," is anyone's guess, but it's a misleading relative term. After reading a novel I thought undoubtedly described a day in hell, it turned out Ivan Denisovich went to sleep in his gulag fully content: "they hadn't put him in the cells; they hadn't sent his squad to the settlement; he'd swiped a bowl of kasha at dinner..." My guess is 100 per cent of Canadians of any age would find even one minute in the life of Ivan Denisovich "excessively stressful." Say what you will about debt and the cost of living, it's a welcome concern next to gulag problems.
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During cold winters in my old, impossible to heat apartment with that expensive electric radiator (where my good friend now resides...he's about to suffer some), I used to drink tea in a sweater and read Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Tales to feel warmer. Shalamov spent 17 years in a very remote work camp just south of the Arctic Ocean for having the temerity to describe Ivan Bunin in public as a "classic Russian writer." Of course today this freedom allows for a disgusting amount of writing about mobile gourmet food and chic fabric made by slaves, but however painful this decadent schlock is to read, writers now can indulge their imagination to an extent only dreamed about elsewhere, without worrying about imprisonment or being killed for their views. We are not forced to write about factories and farms. Yes, the publishing industry is at a crossroads, but samizdat is blissfully unnecessary. When our generation talks about hardships, and especially the much abused word "freedom," it ought to be tempered against these considerations. This didn't happen so long ago and it's still happening in places today.
As for our generation suffering economic woes for events not our doing, let's remember that everybody enters a world already made. Sixteen million died in the First World War even though only one man assassinated Archduke Ferdinand. Those who died for it weren't responsible for the web of treaties and allegiances that caused the war. The notion that the world should be set up for us is perhaps more evidence of our notorious entitlement. "The world doesn't owe you a living, it was there first." If we're going to lament over being tied to events beyond our control, it's only fair we account for past generations that fought for the various liberal causes we enjoy today, with special mention to those who kept us from speaking German under the Third Reich. Improvements are necessary, they always are, but by and large past Canadians have got the big things very right.
Indeed. Compared to the despotic large-scale murderers in power elsewhere, our politicians are acceptably corrupt and inept. They might line their pockets and fail to bring our hopes and dreams to fruition, but it's only because humans at the trough aren't immune to corruption and governing honestly and effectively is very hard to do. Solons are rare. Russia's secret police kidnapped and executed dissidents in the night, and, in an appalling show of chutzpah, sent a bill to the family left behind for the bullet. In China, right now, the government kills dissidents. Details are always murky there, and the number and nature of the executions, and possible organ harvesting, are state secrets. More transparency is forthcoming, I'm sure.
In North Korea, again this very second, millions starve while massive towers in Pyongyang remain nearly empty, like a movie set designed to try and trick rare foreigners into thinking they're visiting a plausible society. The tragedy and absurdity is almost equal. Numerous countries today forbid women from driving, and, before a crowd of applauding citizens, bury adulterers and homosexuals up to their heads and stone them to death. Europeans no longer routinely massacre each other, but one by one they're going bankrupt. America isn't sitting too pretty. Africa...umm, yah. Meanwhile, in Canada we're over-educated baristas blessed with fundamental safety and an impossible wealth of natural resources. We should be proud of being more open and pluralistic than places with a similar quality of living -- the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, Australia.
Exhausted from reporting on the insoluble problems in the Middle East (decidedly unsolved since), Mordecai Richler in This Year in Jerusalem wrote he was, "overcome by homesickness for my nearly empty, unspeakably rich, sinfully misgoverned country...I yearned for some Canadian homebrew farce rather than the daily death toll of Arab and Jew." Even our national bullying epidemic, lamentable as it is, is a bowl of cherries next to ethnic cleansing and systematic rape, being killed for your country, getting killed by your country, starvation, local militias armed with AK-47s carried by drugged out children, or other routine abominations.
We're lucky to have the time to worry about the self-esteem of our children, and our adults for that matter, or the discrepancy between the size of our childhood fantasy home and our current urban shanty. Student and credit card debt has serious implications, but the companies are not managed by Tony Soprano.
While of course we calibrate our problems and react to them according to the world we actually occupy, rather than the horrible ones we know about but know we don't live in, there's something to be said for perspective. You are probably surrounded by people offering kindness, financial advice, healthy food and yoga classes.
Our citizens are smart and caring and working on making things even better. If us young adults (my preferred epithet for this generation) were told as children we could do anything, perhaps we can take a deep breath and tell ourselves it's going to be OK.
]]>Legalized Weed Is Sparking Tensions in the USAtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.20944612012-11-08T17:07:48-05:002013-01-08T05:12:01-05:00JD Halperinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/JD-halperin/and it smells like the chronic. Big surprising news is that voters in Washington and Colorado embraced measures that will allow anyone aged 21 and up to possess recreational weed. And not just a joint or two but an ounce, more than enough to get you through the Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings movies.
The federal government can still intervene, but unless they do, recreational weed will not just be legal there, but will be be produced, packaged, and sold in retail stores (special stores designed to sell weed, like the LCBO sells alcohol here in Ontario). Exactly what this will look like, how it will be taxed, controlled, and how other considerations remain to be seen. Expect a prude, conservative backlash and objections that haven't developed much in the 100 years since prohibition. Such can be found in Brian Hutchinson's piece from today's National Post.
"Marijuana isn't exactly a benign substance, like milk. Consumption impairs cognitive function and development, and may help induce psychosis in susceptible youth. Heavy marijuana smoking can damage a person's respiratory system."
"Impairs" to Hutchinson might be "improved" to another. In any case, I'm sure it would be illegal to drive while high. And, actually, Health Canada warns against drinking unpasteurized milk that can contain harmful bacteria, even though some farmers view this as a nanny state intrusion, and personally even pasteurized milk ravages my stomach. Milk can do harm if consumed after its best before date. Seriously though, it's a gross understatement to say the number of people harmed (ruined) by alcoholism, tobacco and obesity greatly exceeds the harm done by weed. If smoking cigarettes, something that unambiguously causes respiratory damage, is legal, it seems smoking weed is only illegal because of the effects it produces on the mind, not because of the damage it does to the respiratory system. It seems that what's outlawed here is pleasure.
As for psychosis, this is a stretch. Personally, I've never partaken in smoking weed myself because it's illegal in Canada and I am an upstanding, law abiding citizen. But I've been surrounded by people who have partaken minutes before movies or television, guitar and chess sessions, during late-night Frisbee, before and after concerts, around the camp fire and so on. So far, so good. Most of them laughed a lot, started dancing, or experienced euphoria at the prospect of pizza. If anything, it seemed to keep psychosis at bay. I have seen appalling, unspeakable madness that was all alcohol's doing, but legally that's very cool. My first-hand stoner observations come from quite an extensive sampling, having occurred for over a decade nearly every weekend, some week nights, and in the day sometimes during past winter breaks, reading weeks and summers.
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Next objection. "Many people have experienced anxiety after smoking marijuana, and they avoid the stuff completely." In one breath Hutchinson has wonderfully posed a problem and its solution. If you don't like the drug, stop smoking it. I suspect considerable paranoia has nothing to do with its consumption per se, and more to do with knowing that you've done something illegal, the signs of which -- the smell and the red eyes -- are obvious to those around you. In other words, legalizing it would remove social stigma and of course the legal threats. If paranoia still persists, "avoid the stuff completely."
Next, "Let's assume...special 'pot shops' appear in major cities such as Seattle and Denver...what might be the result? A frenzy of consumption...Drug tourists would certainly arrive from other states and countries, including Canada. Public marijuana use, although prohibited, would naturally occur. So would more illicit pot sales to minors. Nuisance complains would go up."
Yes, yes society will fall apart at the seams at the hands of satanic smokers. One of the curious things about this notion is the embedded belief that a pot smoking population will cause untold harm while simultaneously admitting that a great number of people are already doing it. How many people wait to take up smoking weed when suddenly it's legalized? It's impossible to know, but there can't be many who only refrain from being total potheads because it's technically illegal, who would otherwise indulge. (I am a rare case; my pure and noble devotion to the letter of the law is highly uncommon.)
There's one final comedic objection Hutchinson makes, by far my favourite:
"Impacts would be felt on college and university campuses in both states. Smoke-outs would be more commonplace. How many parents would encourage their children to attend post-secondary schools in jurisdictions where pot smoking is legal?"
Actually, given the amount and the sheer variety of pills routinely taken by today's undergrads while listening to drum and bass (other historically enriching instruments now obsolete to their discerning ears), smoking weed is a fair compromise. Besides, Colorado is the birthplace of Phish. The state is anything but a stranger to weed, and I'm sure alumni have gone as far as indulging in "smoke-outs" before, whatever that is. If he's talking about smoking a joint and then smoking another one I'll wager that it's been done. It might give Hutchinson and his conservative peers nightmares to hear tales of Jamaican showers, Zorbin crossovers, rim-rockers, and other anti-social transgressions aimed, not at increasing pleasure, but at tearing apart the fabric of society. Each joint, a thread is loosened!
There's more fodder to denounce in this article but surely the point is made. To be fair, Hutchinson urges Canadians to watch, "their bold social experiment and take lessons before doing anything else." This statement is reasonable, but kind of cheating, being more than a little loaded. It's like saying, "sure, society will be doomed, but let's try it out." His position on the issue is quite clear, this balanced position notwithstanding, but if he really intends to objectively watch this experiment unfold and take it from there, good on him. I hope the opponents of legalizing weed are so open-minded, but of course I doubt it. My guess is bible-thumpers and those who still believe in 1950-era anti-drug ads will get very righteous about a law that has no bearing on their life.
The people most affected are the untold thousands of people absurdly and scandalously behind bars for committing victimless crimes, lodged in a community of rapists and killers. Also, the taxpayers who have wasted untold millions or billions on a futile war on drugs. And finally, there are people like me, eagerly waiting for weed to be legalized so I can finally try this stuff I've heard so much about.]]>An Eco-Fee? Bring it On!tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.20773832012-11-06T12:44:41-05:002013-01-06T05:12:01-05:00JD Halperinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/JD-halperin/An open letter to the next Premier of Ontario
To whom it may concern,
I know you must be busy, but after you read this you'll at once agree that I couldn't in good conscience keep this idea to myself.
The other day I bought a TV and was surprised to see on the bill a $25 eco charge. Fantastic! It's a small price to pay for the safe disposal of all the hazardous material found in television sets. Your forward-thinking predecessor understood that if we're not careful with the garbage inside our televisions, they'll transform our society into a vast wasteland.
But here's the thing. You have my $25 now and I don't plan to dispose of my TV for many years. What is this money doing in the mean time? Would a bank simply sit on it? Rather than leave the money wasting away just sitting there to nobody's benefit (I'm sure), I'd like to evoke the enlightened spirit of the eco charge and propose that the money is immediately used for a deserving environmental cause.
I'd like to bring your attention to the sad plight of New Zealand's little spotted kiwi. A raptite belonging to the Apterygidae family, they are at high risk of becoming endangered because their diminutive stature (they weigh only two pounds, but can be as heavy as four) combined with the fact that they are a flightless bird renders them utterly helpless against predators like cats, dogs and stoats.
Imagine a bird with no wings, the poor things, how taunting the sky is when they can't fly in it! And meanwhile they're stuck on land, exposed to the wrath of the deadly stoat. But we can help them. Doing the right thing takes great vision and determination, but if we act now and streamline the eco fees to where our beloved ecosystem needs them most I propose we can build the little spotted kiwis some type of protective fence.
Put in these terms, I'm sure the voters will be ecstatic. When the wisdom of this eco-nomic policy has fully sunk in, I anticipate they will urge for the eco fee to increase and be added to other products. I understand recycling cream cheese containers involves the nuisance of scraping the substance off the container's side before the process can begin. For this trouble, perhaps a modest levy can go towards replanting a woody homeland for Brazil's bald parrot. As leader of the party who invented the eco fee, I'm sure that, whoever you are, you are as passionate about this subject as I am.
I look forward to hearing back from you because I know you'll do the right thing.]]>A Very Manly 2012 Fall Fashion Style Guidetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.20037222012-10-23T12:18:21-04:002012-12-23T05:12:01-05:00JD Halperinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/JD-halperin/ I'm a style icon. My credentials are superb, as I haven't gone shopping for clothes in three years and I hate fashion. So guys, if you want to look hot this fall, just read on.
THE HEAD TO TOE STYLE GUIDE
The cornerstone of any fashionable wardrobe is good plaid. Red with bits of green is timeless, always a hit. I have another with just shades of green too, and I've worn blues and browns in the past. I advise waiting until the Halloween rush is over when Value Village is civilized again. Spend between $2-10 on a plaid, and if you see one sold for more give the store or garage sale proprietor a piece of your mind. When it comes to t-shirts, any time you visit a city or go to a concert, be sure to buy a cool shirt with Jerry Garcia's face on it.
Fall is cold and you'll need a sweater. I recommend having at least two so you don't need to wear the same one every day. A smart look is to put your sweater over a plaid shirt with a collar. It gives a plain, monochrome sweater a hot accent. I have a blue, brown, and green sweater. Very hip. Believe me fellas, this fall dark, earthy colours are totally in. One sweater of mine has a round neck while another has a V neck. If you do this, girls will just swoon over the variety.
When it comes to pants, jeans are hot right now. Everybody's wearing them. You should have a few blue ones you like. I used to wear them baggy but I advise against that now. Everyone has a different standard of what "tight" means when it comes to jeans. Rule of thumb: tight enough to go biking without getting caught in the chain, loose enough to play spontaneous hockey. That's some sartorial smarts right there. Khakis are like jean's older, sterner brother. Very smart. "We gotta get jobs, then we get the khakis, then we get the chicks."
You'll need shoes. I like brown dock shoes because they're versatile and in the summer they can be worn sans socks, an added advantage when you don't have a laundry machine at your place. I call my shoes the "B.C.s," or the "business casuals," because they're simultaneously smart and informal. Nikes are cool too.
Jackets: leather is cool and timeless. Get a soft one. Mine's black with beige accents on the cuffs and collar so I call it the "black and tan fantasy," in homage to the great Duke Ellington. Sometimes I name my clothes, but you don't have to. Get a scarf too. It's cold, and it's another opportunity to accent your earth tones with a geometric pattern or stripes.
I wear a light brown scarf with my brown jacket...smart. There are thick scarves that keep you warm and there are those threadbare schmattes worn by terrorists. Fashion faux-pas. If you're going to look like Al-Qaeda, do it in the summer.
Chic. In vogue. Fashionista. You can be these things too, just follow my guide and dress like me.]]>A History of Music in Under 500 Wordstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19010472012-09-21T12:20:09-04:002012-11-21T05:12:01-05:00JD Halperinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/JD-halperin/
This lasted until black slaves sang while being exploited in fields, paving the way for blues, jazz, and rock & roll. This was by far the most positive thing to come out of slavery, though some countries that got rich may disagree. At about the same time, deep in the backwoods of various small American towns, hillbillies played guitars, banjos, and had sex with their immediate relatives. Elvis was a revelation because he showed white people could sing like black people, even if they couldn't yet drink from the same water fountains. Then, psychedelic drugs rendered black music trippy enough and sufficiently different to be considered not really black music any more.
Strangely, glam rock took off at the same time as heavy metal. Wardrobes were weird. Then, musicians traded instruments for turntables, and the machine that used to play music started creating it. Rap was a perfect medium for protesting and lamenting the sad state of affairs in black America. White people ate it up in droves. Simultaneously, grunge became the perfect medium for white people to vent about all the hardships suffered by the unoppressed. Seattle became internationally renowned for rain, coffee, and angst.
The Internet allowed everyone everywhere to hear everything, and we haven't seen a distinct style of music since. Modern bands are accurately described with paradoxical composite adjectives: "They're a soul, poppy jam band, with blues roots and an old-school urban, rural, new-wave feel."
Sexy music videos brought in money, so the highest paid musicians were no longer burdened with time-consuming things like writing songs, singing, or playing their own music. Autotune could give a goat a honeyed voice in perfect pitch. Meanwhile computers liberated musicians from those old historical obstacles like money, instruments, and talent. Rhythms and melodic samples could be found ready-made for click and drag stitching together. Music has evolved to great heights so that now being a musician no longer requires being a musician. And all this on little speakers that fit inside our ears so we can listen to music while doing something else.
We went from Bach to this.
A version of this first appeared at Vivoscene.com]]>University: Not a Pre-Req for Adulthood Anymoretag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18814342012-09-13T13:38:24-04:002012-11-13T05:12:01-05:00JD Halperinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/JD-halperin/
Kate Lunau in a recent Maclean's article looked at how university students' mental health is seriously at risk. The October cover story of The Walrus (currently unavailable online) is entitled, "Unemployed, Unhappy, and Drowning in Debt." This supports what I have seen to be the case. For many, university's assumed value is no more than a collective hallucination.
Students enter university determined to drink, experiment with drugs (or at least use them more), and copulate. They enter huge lecture halls where tenured profs who resent the drudgery of entry level survey courses speak on subjects the students don't care about, that they only picked because it sounded easy. Perhaps sociology. If a professor or T.A. is sought during their office hours, it's not for intellectual exchange but to pout over grades. They don't necessarily learn for four years, they endure.
The academic requirements have been unforgivably watered down for the sake of the university's economic interest. A degree is mostly a commodity, and the marketplace is uninterested in preserving its actual worth. Schools lower their standards to gain greater admittance, and there is greater reluctance to fail brutal students. The golden ratio for many students involves getting a passing grade while doing as little of the reading as possible. They might blatantly cheat on exams and pay people to write their papers. This is ubiquitous, not rare.
Just today the National Post had a story about unemployed University professors writing student papers. Seriously. In any case, those who go on to work after graduation mostly don't use anything they've learned in their studies during their job. To quote the Walrus article, "Most university students get jobs, but more than a third accept jobs that require no post-secondary qualifications...Thus, universities can and do claim that their graduates find jobs, even while graduates complain that their career hopes are dashed."
University gives you a satisfactory answer to tell relatives at family dinners who inquire, "what are you doing with your life?" It has a corny prestige leftover from when university meant more, but it's mostly a brutally expensive, hedonistic way to put off becoming an adult by four years. People are realizing this, but while this delusion can still be invoked by schools and government officials without sounding like outright charlatans, tuition goes up, and programs are lengthened and broadened into subdivisions encouraging more certification.
I was in teacher's college for a year (having never been to OISE, Dante stopped short). Teachers and students knew the classes were largely useless, that you only learned during the teaching practicum outside class. In 08-09 my program took on 800 "teacher candidates" knowing full well there weren't even jobs for a quarter of them. In response, they considered doubling the length of the program (and tuition). Teacher candidates and practising teachers are encouraged to take more and more supplementary courses to become greater experts on subjects like gym. It's a never ending, foolproof business plan other industries exploit: pay us X amount of money so that afterwards you'll make X + Y.
It doesn't matter how qualified you actually are or aren't if you don't have certification. It's like under-aged kids getting into bars because the bouncer needs to see the blatantly forged Michigan ID so he can say he saw something in case a bureaucrat inspector comes in. I'd rather hire someone who smartly avoids tuition and read great, free books from the library for four years, or a 22-year-old with four years of working experience. But often these poor souls are like adults the bouncer can't let into the bar because they don't have a formally issued ID. Meanwhile the 17-year-old from Michigan gets in instead, laughing his ass off. This is a racket.
A generation of students and graduates are financially crippled with student debt, remain under or unemployed, and they literally have mental issues. And the so-called responsible people keep applauding! University is not for everyone, and society should come to terms with that.
If university makes sense for you, go ahead. I loved my time at Dalhousie and I'd change nothing, but there should no longer be an unthinking premium placed on university, and there shouldn't be a stigma placed on kids who feel it isn't for them. In fact, the job market agrees. The Walrus reported that only 2 per cent of parents want their kids to get a trade certificate. Becoming a plumber is a great thing. Hopefully soon, the university delusion and the corny prestige it bestows will wear off for good.]]>When Tweets Can (Buzz) Killtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18041852012-08-20T07:38:52-04:002012-10-20T05:12:04-04:00JD Halperinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/JD-halperin/Maclean's, Jessica Allen describes what restaurants contend with now that people can publicly whine during their meal in real time about perceived problems with the food, or their eating experience, via Twitter.
Allen tells the tale of Amy Lu, a Toronto food blogger. Anticipating a great meal at a luxury hotel, she expressed her excitement to her 650-plus Twitter followers, but things changed even before she sat down at the table. Unlike, say, at Walmart, nobody greeted Lu when she walked in. When she presented a voucher, she thought her server was condescending. A modern-day Solzhenitsyn, she publicly stood up for her principles: "Wow...I'm not impressed with the service so far...It better be good or bad review from me."
The hotel saw her tweet immediately, the two parties met, and they had a civilized dialogue where an understanding was reached. "Thanks so much for finding me and helping me improve my experience here," Lu Tweeted afterwards, magnanimously looking past the ugly episode...after receiving a complimentary luxury spa voucher from the restaurant.
This is not an isolated incident. The article also describes a professional writer who was kicked out of a restaurant for negatively Tweeting about it during his meal. Sadly, this wonderful response seems to be as rare as it is heroic. Generally, if someone uses social media to complain about a restaurant, however unwarranted their dissatisfaction, the restaurant, not surprisingly, tries to restore their image by giving out perks to this nefarious foodie, thereby rewarding this tasteless, tacky, and entitled display! And from the readers perspective, how can bloggers like Lu objectively report on the service if she consciously interferes with it?
I spoke with a few people in the restaurant industry who all became visibly excited when describing how common it is for the perpetrators of food blogs to expect better treatment than ordinary, blogless patrons. In other words, a lack of shame and social media has combined to create two classes of restaurant goer, a type of gastronomic apartheid.
This gives a bad name to dedicated food writers and food writing in general. Without trying to, the casual food blogger can be flippant and cause a lot of harm to restaurants, whereas professional critics write their reviews after going to the restaurant twice. Anyone can have a bad day, from servers to cooks to the reviewer himself. Pro critics' meals are expensed, allowing them to experience and write about the full menu without financial worry. I understand that amateur food bloggers spend their own money, and they go out to eat whenever a new place opens, but their blog is not to be used as a coupon. To expect preferential treatment is just plain trashy.
The industry people I spoke to described how unpleasant it can be when they know they're serving bloggers. It feels like they're being inspected. Because eating out a lot is expensive, bloggers frequently eschew drinks, second courses, and generally tip less. I heard complaint that sometimes servers get singled out for perceived faults on Twitter, then get in trouble from their boss. This is evil, but perhaps worst of all, they sit at the table distracted, Tweeting and taking pictures of the food in poor lighting that aren't always flattering, even if they're eventually uploaded in the "food porn" category.
The servers I spoke to charmingly appealed to the lofty notion of the restaurant, a place for having fun eating great food with great company in a relaxed atmosphere. They resent the foodie bloggers checklist mentality. These foodies don't experience the restaurant properly, and this upsets passionate servers. This irony is worth dwelling on. Those who Tweet about the food mid-meal are like speed readers rushing through classic literature in order to proclaim it's been read. I'd rather savour something that I love, rather than document it.
This doesn't only violate the spirit of eating out, but it's unfair to give an impression of the restaurant until the meal is done. Recall from Spider-Man: with great power comes great responsibility. These bloggers aren't hobbyists painting model air planes in their garage. Rightly or wrongly, they can be influential. The notoriously perilous restaurant business deserves more than a frivolous, amateur review from someone who likely hasn't worked in a kitchen.
As we all know, the Internet demands no credentials. Oscar Wilde said, "All bad poetry is sincere." Where poetry is an obscure hobby, eating is anything but. Everyone's doing it. Do the math: the amount of people who eat food greatly exceeds the number of valuable food opinions. Passion isn't enough.
The foodie blogger frequently admits they're driven by their love of food, and they don't necessarily have a sophisticated palette or a deep knowledge of it. The writing is not always bad, but utilitarian. So long as there are no ghastly typos, their needs are met. They don't find these shortcomings problematic. In other words, they bring nothing to the table, they just eat from it. Anybody can do that. But it must be remembered that bloggers can crush a restaurant. I am sorry for the good food writers who are unfairly lumped in this category. They deserve better, but I have no sympathy for the boorish hacks.
If you have a passion for food, by all means, eat! Eating rituals separates us from the animals, Eumaeus from the suitors. But either the casual food writer should begin taking their work more seriously, or they can make a privately heroic decision and refrain from publishing altogether.
The reticent foodie is a noble creature.]]>Sexting, F-Bombs and Gastropubs: Merriam-Webster Gets (Too) Hiptag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.17835172012-08-15T15:30:42-04:002012-10-15T05:12:02-04:00JD Halperinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/JD-halperin/"Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words." --Samuel Johnson
The new Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary is out this week, and they have added a few words that make me doubt the seriousness of these lexicographers. These drudges may not be harmless.
A new definition has been attached to the term "underwater," to describe, "the heartbreaking realisation that you owe more on your mortgage than your property is worth." This new definition adds nothing to our language, contributing only to its detriment. "Underwater" is symbolic language. The value of an image depends on its...imagery. The feeling of drowning, being under the water, is sufficiently horrifying to communicate dire economic woe and much more. Granted, it is a very stale metaphor, but figurative language loses whatever value it has the more its boundaries are made concrete. In my opinion, "underwater" ought to be wholly avoided. They've done the opposite.
A far worse abomination is the propping up of the wretched cliché, "game changer." I hate this term because it's perhaps the most recurring journalistic cliché there is, and I think (and I'm hardly alone in this) that real communication, the writer's purpose, forbids this general stuff altogether. In this week's Maclean's, Paul Wells' article covering Quebec's election campaign cites the usage of the term "game changer" in no less than five major newspapers in response to the same thing. Wells has a laugh at their expense, and I laugh with him (amused contempt), but this new dictionary embeds the inexact language even deeper. While someone might suggest defining a cliché renders it no longer vague, I say it just makes the awful thing more acceptable. Clichés are to be buried without a tombstone. Lexicographers: reverse course.
And now, sexting! Actually, I don't mind its inclusion in the dictionary, even if I hate the word itself. The word has entered the common vocabulary, even if, regrettably perhaps, it's not something I've had cause to use myself. But this is an example of a word that exists only because sex and texting have a first syllable that happen to sound alike. Not all portmanteaus are good. Lewis Carroll invented the word "snarky" by borrowing from snake and shark. That's a good one, but sexting sounds like someone said "a sex text," then combined the two into one word because it was practically begging for it.
I humbly recommend for official entry into our language, "Manscaping: the act of a male trimming his body hair out of aesthetic consideration, or, in certain extreme circumstances, out of a sense of decency." While I disapprove of the word sexting, the dictionary includes other words I don't approve of, and fair enough.
Now, "F-bomb." I think it's prude and very patronizing of magazines or newspaper to write "f_ck" when fuck is probably the most popular word in our language, used in countless contexts. Besides, when we see "f_ck," we all know what they're really saying. Why forbid the "u"? It's just an innocent little vowel caught in the crossfire, and it can't possibly be the difference between what's refined and unacceptably vulgar. What children say on the playground freely shouldn't be out of bounds for adults. "F-bomb" is to speech what "f_ck" is to print, so it's another case where what needs to be included in the dictionary I find disagreeable. It's much better than sexting, though.
While I admit that sexting and F-bomb have a place in the dictionary, I can't help but feel like these lexicographers are pandering. I know that not all new entries are "fun" like these two, but I also suspect that there's a mandatory minimum of words like these to be included every year in order to generate Internet chatter that vindicates the masses' patois. "See, I'm no moron. Sexting is a real word now."
Before I forget, I cannot let the guardians of words off the hook for including in their little book "gastropub: a pub, bar, or tavern that offers meals of high quality." The great lexicographer Samuel Johnson borrowed books from his friends and returned them marked up so badly they were impossible to read. That's why they called him doctor! Yet nowhere in his expansive search across the world of literature did he come across the term "gastropub," simply because the word itself is a recent marketing scam concocted out of thin air so as to legitimize the practice of charging too much for food and beer. When I come across this word on new glossy signs above the doors of pubs, bars, and taverns, I shiver. As a lover of beer, meals of high quality, and retaining my money wherever possible, I attack this word with all my heart.]]>My Modest Olympic Proposaltag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.17606262012-08-09T12:38:42-04:002012-10-09T05:12:04-04:00JD Halperinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/JD-halperin/this what the Olympic spirit is all about? I have the remedy.
The Olympics should feature unsuspecting citizens plucked from their normal jobs and forced to compete against similarly amateur athletes from around the world. It's simple to implement, and the benefits are practical for countries and entertaining for viewers.
Say Henry the Canadian construction worker is selected to potentially represent the country in the shot put. He will compete against...hmm let's say nine other random Canadians, and the winner of this qualifying round gets to participate in the Olympics. Unlike today, these athletes are really amateur. Henry beats the other nine because his lifetime of casual hockey playing has him in better shape than the other randomly selected Canadians, like Doug the dweeb librarian or Suzy the decrepit ninety-five-year-old. Suddenly Henry, hitherto a nobody anonymously toiling away for his family, becomes a national hero with a real shot at a gold medal. What's that feeling stirring your heart? Olympic spirit, baby!
Networks can milk the human interest stories by creating reality shows about candidates like Henry leading up to the games. They'll play soft music while portraying Henry's modest living, his humble family, his work-generated callouses. Shots will juxtapose the majestic Olympic flame and Olympic rings against his sweat-stained overalls and his beat up metallic lunch pail.
Economically speaking, countries would no longer need to spend a dime on athletics--handy during an international recession. Money spent on sports can be reverted to places in the budget currently considered less important, like healthcare or feeding the homeless. If they want, countries can spend money on national athletic programs to increase the odds that the random citizens selected are somewhat good at sports. Although, since obviously not all these people can participate in the Olympics, they'd be squandering untold money improving their citizens' health and fostering in them strength, persistence and a love of sport for no practical reason whatsoever.
TV viewers will love watching the new Olympics. In many events, it's impossible to tell who won until the results are announced, but when real amateurs compete the gratification will be immediate. The Olympics will take on a more average-Joe quality as competitors may completely fail to clear the hurdles, or their breath will falter before 100 metres is up. Henry might throw the shot put feet further than the Uzbekistani banker, not centimetres. Swimming races might be determined by minutes, not seconds. Personal flotation devices will be on hand.
More importantly, my recommendation brings the games closer to its original spirit. Henry competes in the Olympics beside other authentic amateurs from other countries--teachers, firemen, and other indispensable yet thoroughly ignored figures. If the Olympics are really about sportsmanship and fair play, not sordid things like proxy sociopolitical battles or corporate sponsorship, we should rejoice when our representatives have fun and try their best for their country. This is what it's all about, right?
Maybe not, you'll say. It's about finding out which country is best at sports. But my method rewards countries for having an athletically inclined population at large, not just for having a handful of elite athletes to display to the world while everyone else is famished or built like a house. And as a bonus, certain countries will end the ugly business of kidnapping their children who show early signs of elite athletic ability, and forcing them to train and devote their lives to their sport, free of burdensome things like education and family.
I'm sure that once my modest proposal comes to the attention of world leaders and Olympic organizers, their natural inclination towards fair play and high ideals will prevail, and the change will be implemented at once. Good! There are all kinds of Henrys from around the world with Olympics dreams, and they shouldn't be dashed only because they have never once practiced or participated in a sport which they may not necessarily enjoy, or even know the rules of.]]>Change My Mind: Is the Modern Woman Too Picky?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16987132012-07-24T13:05:57-04:002012-09-23T05:12:09-04:00JD Halperinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/JD-halperin/
The blog was titled: I Rejected a Good Date Because he Was a Bad Kisser.
Now, our newsroom is pretty much a direct split between men and women. Many, if not most, are young unmarrieds or newly marrieds -- plus we have a bunch of single summer interns. Thus very quickly the argument became heated, and progressed beyond the blog itself to a general discussion of, "Is the modern woman too picky?"
The one thing we could all agree on, in the end, was to put this question to two savvy male bloggers (both of whom happen to be single, therefore very much "the boots on the ground" in this battle) and let them go at it. And of course, have you, the readers, decide upon the winner.
]]>Summer Style Tips From a Guy's-Guytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15716892012-06-05T15:59:22-04:002012-08-05T05:12:28-04:00JD Halperinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/JD-halperin/
That's why I'm the perfect source for giving you the sexy, unique look you won't find anywhere else: nobody comes to me for fashion tips, as I've only written one fashion style guide ever, and that was in a very disreputable publication nobody reads. Read on to learn the proper way to look casual and smart this summer.
Summer casual
The relaxed summer look always entails a Sophie's Choice: to wear flip flops or Nike sneaks? Wear swooshed runners for the "laissez-faire" look. You'll be the laid-back, but active man-about-town. Perfect for riding your bicyclette.
Insider tip: wear sneaks with extra low-cut ankle socks to totally elongate your calves. Dee-lish! Though the sport is beyond stupid, basketball shorts are breezy and silky -- perfect for summer. To cover your upper body, you'll need a T-shirt. This summer, blue and grey monochrome T-shirts are scorching. Also, you'll totes need a backpack to tote your stuff. Not a major affair, just a cute little Deuter bag for your whiskey, chess board, 50 Shades of Grey, and other summer essentials.
To make things even more casual, just turn the "laissez-faire" look into the "fairly lazy." To avoid confusion, this look is also called "couch-sexy." It's just like the previous style, but more The Dude. Full disclosure: it's by far my favourite look. The spirit of couch-sexy really emanates from the flip flops. Unless you're about to play roller hockey, wear them sans-socks. To step it up and really be an iridescent couch-sexy betch, you'll need a Grateful Dead t-shirt. Couch-sexy is a simple look, sleek and chic, yet it's radically affordable, so there's an air of austerity too. Very much the look of our times.
Summer Smarts
When it's time to make summer a black-tie affair, you'll need khaki shorts and a leather belt. A chickita will think you're pensive and debonair when she sees your khaki cut-offs paired with a smart strip of leather around the equator. The shorts come in white, tan, beige and cream, while blue and green are perfect for peacocking. To get the honeys really saying "ooh la la," wear brown leather dock shoes. Finito. Now that you're brilliantly decked in smart shorts while sporting two whole items of matching leather, everyone on the patio will know you're a solar-powered sex robot.
Whatever your look, if you're going to the bar and it might get chilly, you do not need pants. Just wear a long-sleeve plaid or a blue oxford button-up shirt with your shorts. This is the key to a wonderful illusion: when you sit down for table pints, the casual shorts vanish from sight and only your ritzy button down is visible. You feel free and easy, but you look swanky. It's like a party down below, all business on top -- mullet logic you can wear.
Where to Shop
Unless you want to dress like the rest of the horde, you can't just shop at any thrift store. Aside from Winners and garage sales, Toronto seldom stocks the gems. Go to cottage country thrift stores, where the good stuff stays on the rack because it's not swarmed by locust downtown-people. When the world catches up to the fashion happenings there, they'll need direct flights from Paris to Haliburton. That town is like one long catwalk. There, they don't need me to tell them how to look fairly lazy. In Haliburton, everyone dresses as sexy as I do.