How many letters do you have after your name?

Somewhere between the realm of meaningful education and “money grab land” lies the mass hysteria that seems to be engulfing every professional field. Everyone is in a race to add more letters after their name, no matter at what cost or with how much effort. Email signatures are laden with meaningless acronyms that are supposed to means something to somebody. People add these acronyms with pride and with the inherent expectation that whatever their email contains is somehow more factual, or should be taken as sacred text. With some emails the window has to be maximized or else the person’s credentials will start running on the line below. Is this a sign of a competitive job market, brilliant marketing campaigns by professional organizations, or has it simply become a new syndrome associated with our culture today, something I like to call “Accreditation Complex.”

.I’ll give one example of a meaningless acronym. The University of Waterloo offers a two year MBET program. The program is very interesting, and I’m sure is quite solid, but MBET!?! Why call it a Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology? Can you really teach Entrepreneurship? When one of the university staff was trying to sell me on the program I was turned off by the name. MBET translated to bulllshit in my head.

Of course not all of these acronyms are created equal. A BSc, MA, PhD, MBA, MD, and heck even a CPA demand respect. But what does BEMP, FMP, or a CSA really mean? Signing to myriad to 2 day courses will result in a myriad of certification. This reminds of a George Carlin line “not every ejaculation deserves a name”. Similarly, not every training course deserves a certification. Every specialization in every profession needs an acronym... are you a roof installer? We have an organization and a certification for you? Do you stack shelves in a super market? Well then you would be glad to hear of River College’s SMSCA, Super Market Supply Chain Analyst.

These certifications are of course not freebies. After the gruelling 2 day course the professionals are faced with certification maintenance. Every year or two you must pay some fee to some organization to maintain your name on some website. Sometimes you need to be retested, since in the information age knowledge is expanding exponentially and as a professional you need to keep up with the latest and greatest.

The sad part is that these useless acronyms are what someone’s experience is reduced to. While HR professionals go through resumes they Ctrl-F, at least mentally, one of the acronyms that are supposed to make a candidate better than another with more experience but lacking this or that credential. Our merit has been reduced to 3 or 4 letter acronyms, maintained by money hungry organizations. It’s the age of marketing, consumerism, and accreditations.

Thoughts from a Saturday trip to the store

As winter takes its last few breaths, and as the snow melts revealing the yellow grass underneath it, Canadians are taking to the streets and to the hardware stores, anxious to start the summer season complete with camping, road trips, and endless BBQ’s. Motor cycles are back on the streets, their riders who have be waiting patiently for the day the temperatures turn above 5 Celsius seem to have maintained their obnoxious driving skills from last year.

I needed new wiper blades, so naturally I visited the nearest Canadian Tire to pick up some wipers and some car washing necessities. The store was flooded with people despite it being less than ideal outside. The seasonal department is already full of BBQ’s, gazebos, water toys, and patio furniture. I left the monstorous plaza built a few years ago, and lined with box stores like Home Depot, Wal-Mart and Old Navy. While waiting in a line of 5 cars or so at the stop sign waiting for my turn, a guy in a raised door-less Jeep with monster tires decided to cut me off, and speed his trip home by a second or two. As the Jeep sped away I couldn’t help but smile at the complete ignorance this guy must live in. The price of a litre of gas is already at a dollar, and we’re still dealing with a stagnant economy. I can’t begin to imagine the fuel economy of his unnecessarily oversized car, and given his driving habits, I figured he would be trading his car in for a Smart car in a few years. This recession has unfortunately made people believe that the price of gas we saw prior the recession was all part of the “bubble”.

I continue driving home and I come across another big box store, this one though is a grocery store, one of about 3 in a 2 km radius. The store, like all others, features foods from all over the world. Clementines from Morocco, strawberries from Mexico, and oranges from South Africa, sold to you by a friendly cashier wearing a uniform made in China, using a computer made in Taiwan. Across the checkout is the Wine Rack, a store within a store, selling wines from Ontario, Australia, France, among many others. A few more turns and I’m home.

I pass a Petro Canada gas station on the way, across from a Tim Horton’s, Canada’s favourite coffee shop. Both the gas stations and the coffee station have something in common, a line of cars idling patiently waiting for their turn. At Tim’s the cars are at a drive-thru, possibly the worst idea in the food industry’s history of horrible ideas. The cars inch slowly forward, the average car idling for about 5 minutes before the order is filled. At the gas station the wait in line is much longer, and the wait is not to fill gas but to get a car wash. Across Canada I thought there must be thousands of cars idling at that moment waiting for their turn to come.

I’m finally home. I jump on the internet and log onto facebook. Some friends posted pictures of their latest trip to Cuba. Another posted fresh pictures from her most recent mall harvest... I counted 5 boxes of shoes. The comments on the pictures are full of overtones of confessed jealousy and congratulations.

How long can we maintain this lifestyle?

The Wars of Today

As I listened to the radio this morning to a 90 year old veteran of WWII, I had nothing but respect for the bravery he must have had as a 25 year old fighting on the front lines in Normandy. A thought crossed my mind as he went on describing the gory details he had to witness, are we going to reflect back on the soldiers of today the same way we reflect on the ones who died in the two world wars?

The whole nature of war has changed so dramatically in the past few years, that it is even hard to classify any of the violence across the world as a ‘real’ war. We have seen the rise of a type of war where a professional army faces scattered groups of rebels united by a set of beliefs. We have a seen wars (massacres would perhaps be a better description) where multi-million dollar jets drop multi-million dollar weapons on mud houses, refugee camps, and weddings. These wars are fought

by thousands of troops brainwashed to believe that they’re bringing freedom, and justice. These are the “vets” of today. Troops fighting behind thick armour, equipped with advanced weaponry, and armed with falsified facts and fabricated objectives. Behind them is a media machine pumping Orwellian messages into air waves. We hear war, justice, and freedom in the same sentence, and we see family vans and SUV’s with “Support our Troops” ribbons stuck to the back.

Fifty years from now, I wondered, which wars will we reflect back on? And are we going to be honest with ourselves and remind ourselves of the mistakes we have committed during those wars?

Giving Equality to Women - The Muslim Canadian Way

Let’s recap. The Supreme Council of Al Azhar in Egypt approved a ban on wearing the niqab in their schools. A few days later, the Muslim Canadian Congress made a call to the federal government to prohibit women from wearing niqabs and burkas in public. Ironically the reasoning for their call is “covering one’s face has no place in a society that supports gender equality.” Because as we all know, a bunch of men deciding what a woman is allowed and not allowed to wear is a sure way of creating equality.

Now I’m not sure what the real motive was behind their idiotic call. Maybe it was an attempt at disassociating themselves from the extremist image that the media has so cleverly imprinted in our minds. Perhaps it was the other reason they stated for their call: the Quran doesn’t call for a woman to dress in a niqab or burka. But why should a woman dress according to the Quran anyway? I’m not an expert on the Quran, but I don’t think the holy book calls for men to grow beards, especially long, unkempt ones. If we’re making rules here, then we should keep the ball rolling and introduce some rules for men, such as trimming their beard every once in a while. Quite frankly I think Bin Ladin style beards are so 2003. Muslim men should project a more modern look.

To be honest, I’m not a big fan of the burka, niqab, or hijab even, in the same way that I don’t like earrings on men. So What? One of the beautiful things about society is that people are different. How dull would the world be if we were al identical. I’m not oblivious to the fact that some women are forced to wear burkas or niqabs, but does enforcing a ban on such things really solve the problem? What about the women who actually like to wear burkas? Why should we have the right to ban them from wearing something that makes them feel comfortable?

Society or government should never enforce rules on what people should dress like. A person should dress and present themselves however they like to. We start with banning the niqab and who knows what comes next. In a country that prides itself in its freedom multiculturalism there is no place for such rules. By expressing such a ridiculous call, the Muslim Canadian Congress has reinforced the same stereotypes they were trying to get rid themselves of.

Gaining Weight is a Problem?

Is it just me are we all surrounded by the diet hysteria? A quick search on Google shows

that “6.8 million Canadian adults ages 20 to 64 were overweight, and an additional 4.5 million were obese” which happens to be more

than a third of Canada’s population. So maybe it’s not me after all, it’s an epidemic and you don’t have to look far to see it. Of course marketing gurus are all over this and they’re trying to milk it for what it’s worth. For instance as I was walking through the supermarket today I saw for the first time the “100 calorie Doritos” bags, which basically consist of 2 chips. In another aisle I saw airplane style Coke cans also claiming 100 calories. Go into any other aisle and your senses are assaulted by “fat free” this and “baked, not fried” that. At the core of all of this is the same crap quality food that caused obesity in the first place, but in smaller portions. Have people no will power to stop eating chips from the big bags? Or to stop drinking soft drinks altogether? Do we need to miniaturize everything we buy to miniaturize ourselves?

Thinking about the measures the effort that people have to go through to slim up I’m surprised at myself for that realizing the irony behind the phrase “gaining weight”. To me gaining is associated with something positive. People don’t gain problems, stress or bad health, so why do they gain weight? Maybe I’m just stuck with the North American mentality. Food is abundant here and accessible to all. For the majority of the world gaining weight is a good thing, something desired, something out of the norm. Obesity is an “epidemic” only in North America. Nowhere else in the world are you going to hear people complain about having too much food... The more I think about this dichotomy the more I feel like we’re living in an Orwellian world.

Bin Ladin's Biggest Blunder

What was Bin Ladin’s biggest blunder? Are you ready for this? He didn’t say the magic word.  That’s right, had Bin Ladin said “sorry” after the attacks on the twin towers everything would have been fine and dandy.  After all we all make mistakes, and if parents teach you anything it’s that a real man (or woman) takes responsibility for his/her mistakes.  Look at Hillary Clinton for example.  Last night over 100 Afghani civilians died in an accidental “strike” (a soft word for bombing).  What does Clinton do? Well she apologizes, she just release a statement saying that she’s “deeply, deeply sorry.”  That should patch things up with family members who are left grieving over their loved ones. 

While you’re at it, why don’t you deeply apologize for all future “accidental strikes.”

The Diplomat's Pledge of Allegiance

They stumbled over each other, elbowing one another each trying to be the first person to escape from the crowded room.  Blasphemy was in the air and nobody could bear to hear it.  The words being uttered on the podium just didn’t make sense.  Once outside they put their hands together and pledged their allegiance by issuing ‘official’ statements condemning the ‘hate speech’ they had to endure.  Didn’t the speaker read the rules before attending the conference on racism? 

While I disagree with some of Ahmadinejad’s views, one cannot dismiss everything that comes out of his mouth, as Western diplomats have done today.  The guy had a point.  Israel is a racist government and there are facts supporting his statement.  Have a read of the following Israeli laws and some of the commentary that follows, and assess just how blasphemous Ahmadinejad was today:

Section 7A(1) of the Basic Law: The Knesset (1958), passed in 1985
Bars a list of candidates from participation in elections to the Knesset "if its aims or actions, expressly or by implication" deny "the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people."

This sort of thinking is still existent in main stream Israeli society.  For instance, last week Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu stated "Israel expects the Palestinians to first recognize Israel as a Jewish state before talking about two states for two peoples."  The statement that Netanyahu wants to hear would set the stage to expel Palestinians (Christians and Muslims) who are currently Israeli citizens, out of Israel.  An act that Israeli Foriegn Minister, Avigdor Lieberman promised during his election campaign.  A Jerusalem Post article described Lieberman’s promise

 “ [Lieberman’s]  aim is not to deport terrorists or traitors. No, his goal is to deport Arab citizens, no matter whether they're law-abiders or criminals, whether they're construction workers or doctors or housewives or newborn babies, for no other reason than that they are Arabs.”

Law of Return (1950)
Grants right of immigration to Jews born anywhere in the world. Amended in 1970 to extend this right to "a child and a grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew." A "Jew" is defined as "a person who was born of a Jewish mother or has become converted to Judaism and who is not a member of another religion."

Non-Jewish native-born Palestinians - most importantly those who fled during the Zionist massacres in 1947 and 1948 - are in most cases prevented from returning.

My grandparents belong to the category of “Non-Jewish native-born Palestinians.”  They were forced out of their village in 1948, and have lived in Syria as Palestinian refugees since.   In an earlier post I described the sorrow that they experience on a daily basis since their expulsion 61 years ago. 

Land Acquisition (Validity of Acts and Compensation) Law (1953)
Confiscates the land of more than 400 Palestinian villages; "validates" retroactively their use for military purposes and for Jewish settlements.

The tens of acres of farms, for which my grandfather still has the ownership papers, are among the land confiscated by this law.

National Planning and Building Law (1965)

Creates a system of discriminatory zoning that freezes existing Arab villages while providing for the expansion of Jewish settlements. The law also re-classifies a large number of Arab villages as "non-residential" creating the "unrecognized villages." These villages do not receive basic municipal services such as water and electricity; all buildings are threatened with demolition orders.

These are just some of the realities not discussed in the media.  They are truths that are consciously ignored by the very same diplomats who walked out on Ahmadinejad this morning.  Instead of exposing the facts, the media machine works instantaneously and tirelessly to paint a convoluted image of the truth, throwing labels left and right, while massaging in the all too familiar propaganda phrases we are so used to hearing by now.   Conferences like the one held today are a great idea.  They should be an open forum for discussing injustices no matter which side the injustice is incurred by.  As soon as you limit what can be said at a conference like this, you take away all credibility.  Sadly, this is exactly what happened today.

The Bastardization of the English Language Thru Web 2.0 - A study

When we got our physics lab report back in grade 12 there was one sentence circled in red “we installed the measurement devise to take readings…” next to the sentence our witty teacher commented “humans must devise a device that checks for spelling as well as context.”

It has been about 5 years since then, and we’re in need of the “device” more urgently than ever. All one needs to do is look around to see how spelling is getting butchered left and right. MSN (and now facebook and twitter) culture is raising a generation of people who try to condense their thoughts into a sentence or two, using every mean of spelling butchering available. Every time a clever bastardization of a word is seen it spreads like wildfire and becomes the standard in techno lingo. To illustrate I took 4 sekonds on facebook to find the falowing comments on a pic of some1’s mantion (note: no dramatization added):

- what a baller
this is mad balling
i think i must change the pic casue i am going blind from the insane ballign

- I think you can afford to pay me back that $5 from last summa homie...sheeeeeeeeet LoL

- wooow dats so beautiful!! is that ur house?

- LOL I Wish!...Soon 2 Be Tho!

Wa halluma jarran

Another word bastardization that I find particularly annoying is the replacement of “love” with “heart.” At least when people use shitty abbreviations of words they’re being lazy, and that’s respectable. But when you replace “love” with “heart” you’re trying to be cool, and sadly failing at it. I especially notice the replacement in facebook status updates, as in “I heart my new car.” I shudder to think of this becoming a trend where people replace words with symbol words such as “I heart my brain husband” for “I love my smart husband” or pushed one step further “I heart my brain ring.”

And why does replacing a “c” with a “k” make a word so much kooler?

While we’re on the topic of kool, I’m ashamed to admit that my post “mY mSn NaMe iS sO toTalLY kOOl!!” is one of my most popular. It continues to rake in the hits despite the fact that I wrote it 3.5 yEaRs AgO. In all this gloom there's light at the end of the tunnel. For instance, about a year ago I joined the local chapter of the Coalition Against People Who Can't Spell "Definitely" Facebook group. We’re 7 members strong and growing!

Ne way, its gettin late and I better hit the sack… BRB

Related Posts:

Street Lingo 101

Lingo Lesson 2

Lingo Lesson 3

Street Lingo 104 - Mastering Your Son and Daughter's Language

Galloway Interview With CBC Discussing His Ban From Canada

Canada's control of free speech

While the world was relieved last fall from what history will remember as the worst leader to ever walk the earth, Canadians were stuck with the remnants of Bushism with the Harper government. The parallels between Harper and Bush are too many too mention, and the events unfolding in Canada right now are the biggest proof of how we’re still stuck in the age of Bush.

Last week, Immigration Minister Jason Kenny, sent an official letter to British MP George Galloway banning him from entering Canada because, get this, he presents a threat to our national security! Galloway has just completed a lecture tour in the United States, where he presented no threat at all, but apparently he had other plans for Canada.

Galloway who is vocally opposed to the War on Afghanistan, Iraq, and critical of Israeli aggression against Palestinians, has been labeled as a “controversial British MP” in the media. His recent effort to relieve Gazan’s of their suffering was the main motive behind barring him from entering Canada. That and the fact that our right wing government cannot tolerate people who oppose a failing “military campaign” costing Canadian tax payer money, and more importantly, lives.

Today a judge failed to grant Galloway the right to enter Canada, forcing him to deliver his lecture via a live video feed from across the border. Plans are underway for a huge crowd to greet Galloway on another border crossing later this week. A group of Canadian MP’s, lawyers and activists will attempt to escort Galloway into Canada. If their plan fails the “controversial” MP will give his lecture via megaphone, making Canada look even more like an Orwellian state!

While all of this was happening the Jewish Defense League couldn’t keep it in their pants and had to go on boasting on how strong of a lobbying power they have over the Canadian government. Newspapers are now reporting:

A letter – sent March 16 to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, his cabinet colleague Peter Kent and opposition MPs – asked the government to keep that "hater" out of Canada.

"We asked that he not be allowed in," said Meir Weinstein, national director of the Jewish Defence League of Canada.

So what has been Galloway’s response to all of this nonsense? Here are some excerpts from his op-ed in the Guardian.

Kenney is quite a card. A quick trawl establishes he's a gay-baiter, gung-ho armchair warrior, with an odd habit of exceeding his immigration brief. …Most curiously of all, in 2006 he addressed a rally of the so-called People's Mujahideen of Iran, a Waco-style cult, banned in the European Union as a terrorist organisation. On one level being banned by such a man is like being told to sit up straight by the hunchback of Notre Dame or being lectured on due diligence by Conrad Black. On another, for a Scotsman to be excluded from Canada is like being turned away from the family home.

But what are my views on Afghanistan which the Canadian government does not want its people to hear? I've never been to Afghanistan, nor have I ever met a Taliban, but my first impression into the parliamentary vellum on the subject was more than two decades ago. At the time the fathers of the Taliban were "freedom fighters", paraded at US Republican and British Tory conferences. Who knows, maybe even the Canadian right extolled these god-fearing opponents of communism. I did not, however …

The Afghans have never succumbed to foreign occupation, heaven knows the British empire tried, tried and failed again. Not even Alexander the Great succeeded, and whoever else he is, minister Kenney is no Alexander the Great. Young Canadian soldiers are dying in significant numbers on Afghanistan's plains. Their families are entitled to know how many of us believe this adventure to be similarly doomed and that genuine support for troops - British, Canadian and other - means bringing them home and changing course.

To ban a five-times elected British MP from addressing public events or keeping appointments with television and radio programmes is a serious matter. Kenney's "spokesman" told the Sun, "Galloway's not coming in ... end of story." Alas for him, it's not...

To be continued, from another border crossing…

British journalist questions whether legal action could be taken against pro-Palestinian commentators

It seems that some Western journalist have gotten so used to biased media reporting, that they view any true reporting to be worthy of legal persecution. This is the case with Daily Mail columnist, and Spectator correspondent Melanie Philips.

In a recent blog post, Philips goes on and on about the necessity for Israel to attack Gaza in self defense, meanwhile calling the UN a “Club of Terror”, and blaming Palestinian deaths on Hamas. She even condones the disproportionate civilian death toll suffered by Palestinians saying :

“Those who scream ‘disproportionate’ think – grotesquely -- that not enough Israelis have been killed. But that’s in part because Israel cares enough about human life to construct air raid shelters where its beleaguered civilians take cover.”

Philips assumes that starving Palestinians without electricity or food, should have been preparing shelters in anticipation of Israeli bombs. Perhaps Palestinians should blame the Club of Terror UN for not building bomb proof schools. Last week, a UN school where Palestinians have been taking shelter was shelled by an Israeli tank leaving over 40 civilians including women and children dead. Philips would probably condone Israel’s actions by saying something along of the lines of:

“Certainly, some civilian casualties are regrettably inevitable in any such situation – but particularly so in Gaza, since Hamas has deliberately sited its terrorist infrastructure amongst the civilian population”

But even this doesn’t hold ground since reports by Earth Times, Reuters and now Haaretz, have shown that there was no fire coming from the UN school where the refugees were taken shelter. But these kinds of reports wouldn’t please Philips. At the end of her misleading, poor journalistic post she asks:

“Isn’t there a case for legal action against these media outlets on account of their blood libels, for indirectly aiding the perpetrators of attempted genocide?”

And just to be clear here, the genocide Philips absurdly speaks of is that of the Israeli population inflicted by Hamas. A genocide perpetrated by a militia with home-made rockets, against the 4^th strongest army in the world, and the best technically equipped army, only second to the US.