Posts Tagged Politics

To Govern By Fear Or Inspire Through Leadership

January 20, 2009 by Ian MacKenzie
Inauguration Day / Photo Michael Foley If you want to govern the people, you must place yourself below them. If you want to lead the people, you must learn how to follow them. - Tao Te Ching, 66 For the past 8 years, the US has been governed by fear. Fear that the world is [...]

How Do You Change Someone Else’s Mind?

December 28, 2008 by Ian MacKenzie
Each war is different. Each war is the same. / Photo Kevin Dooley If someone doesn’t have the same opinion as you, most people take it personally. That was a great movie! How can you not like it? This music sucks! Your taste is awful. And so on. Our preference often becomes part of our [...]

Obama: For Prime Minister?

November 1, 2008 by Ian MacKenzie
Why oh why can’t Obama run for Prime Minister instead of President? As Lawrence Martin said in a recent column, Obama is “an American politician with a Canadian mindset. Or at least what has generally been considered a Canadian mindset.” Which is all the more bizarre when you discover that we just re-elected a Conservative [...]

The Lazy Voter’s Guide To Each Party’s Green Platform

October 8, 2008 by Ian MacKenzie
If you’re like the average Canadian voter, you’ve been bombarded by political news and tv debates over the past month. With the election a mere week away (Oct 14) you may still be wondering how the parties differ on the key issues. Courtesy of Dan Froidevaux here’s an outline of how each party wants to [...]

Gauge This: Why The CNN Audience Reaction Meter Sucks

October 3, 2008 by Ian MacKenzie
Photo: Biden offers his stance on the Iraq War. There’s a odd trend in the US that wants to mess with the TV aesthetics of things that aren’t broken. For example: illuminating the movement of the puck during a hockey game back in 1996. Rather than aid the viewer, the effect resembled a lazer shooting [...]

Naked Hippies On Bicycles

June 29, 2008 by Ian MacKenzie
A few week’s ago, I covered the Vancouver Naked Bike Ride. It was an enlightening experience: Aside from the great interviews, I was struck by the following observations: naked people are bizarre for about 10 minutes, then it becomes so normal you barely notice there’s something very beautiful about complete inhibition to social code looking [...]

Do Films Like ‘Children of Men’ Warn Us Of Alternative Futures?

June 16, 2008 by Ian MacKenzie
Last year, while watching Children of Men in the theatre, I remember feeling a slight twinge of deja vu. It wasn’t the personal type that makes you wonder if you’ve dreamt a certain experience that actually came true. Rather, it was the unshakable dread that here, on screen, was a bleak vision of a future [...]

Bush Special Guest On ‘Deal or No Deal’

April 23, 2008 by Ian MacKenzie
Hooray, brand new personal blog is back! And rather than go into a lengthy diatribe about the decision to start a personal blog again, I’d rather skip it. Instead, here’s a recent clip of Bush’s surprise appearance on Deal or No Deal. Wow. The only word that comes to mind is: utter farce. (Oh wait…that’s [...]