NDP: Win A Date with Tom Mulcair!

The NDP`s latest fundraising campaign offers a chance to watch a hockey game with Tom Mulcair, if you donate as little as 5 dollars to the party. While Tommy may be not as much a draw as say Trudeau for a date, it would still be interesting to sit and grill him about his plans for the party for a couple of hours and make him buy you beer and hot dogs for the exhorbitant arena prices. I have two questions about the campaign. First, why am I ignoring the emails? Second, I wonder how he feels about the whole thing.



I signed up to receive emails from the NDP, so that I could receive updates from the party. Instead, they function as a platform for a big, red "donate now" button. I stopped reading them because the information they send is essentially useless for me and they send far too many of them. I suspect for every forty people like me who views these emails as flies buzzing in my inbox, there is one person who will donate on the tenth email in seven days (I may be exaggerating on the amount of emails - this is my feeling of the frequency). If we follow the law of averages, the more people you contact the more likely they will donate. Great! Simple formula.



Or slightly incorrect. For people like me, who aren't inclined to donate willy nilly and get annoyed at the clutter in my inbox, the amount of emails may actually be impacting their perception of the party and may have some further negative consequences far beyond the reach of the campaign. I place my vote based on the party platforms. What if I were to get so irritated at the fundraising tactics that this would bias my interpretation of the platform to the extent I would see otherwise positive goals to actually be negative. How do you fundraise without turning people off from the cause?
 

I don't have a ready answer to that but I do know that this may be fine line to cross.

As for my second question, I am sure that Tommy - may I call you that? - enjoys spending time with a complete stranger who won some contest by donating five dollars to the campaign. Maybe he looks forward to getting to know someone new over a bonding experience like hockey. Dear Tommy I hope you have a great blind date and I hope that the campaign was worth the date.



On a side note, this campaign has been part of a larger effort to connect with a younger demographic. Their previous effort to engage young voters with the "pick the best sticker" campaign is another example. "I heart NDP?" Really? I suggest that they may have more success if they dressed Tommy in a flannel shirt and got him to wear a toque. They're already halfway there...

Ambivalent Motives: A Backlash Against the "Caring" Insurance Company

I don't watch the super bowl, but I ended up watching the "dead boy" commercial (and hearing my neighbours cheer every time someone scored a goal). Nationwide insurance wanted attention. That much is clear. Why else pay for a commercial spot during the super bowl. If this was their sole aim, they have succeeded on that point. Out of all the ads aired during the super bowl, theirs has received the most buzz on twitter and elsewhere.

But, and here is the big but: the response has been largely negative. Why? Because their motives appear ambivalent. Are they airing a commercial because they care about preventing drowning? Or, do they have a more nefarious purpose? One more closely aligned with the central purpose of ad space, selling or promoting a product. After the storm around the ad had already started to rage, Nationwide stepped up to the microphone and claimed that they cared. They were simply trying to start a conversation.

Yet judging from the twitter storm, many believe that they were trying to promote their product on the graves of innocent children. A rather unsettling association to say the least, and I would guess, not the conversation they were intending to start.

Part of the problem stems from the ad itself. Not only does it play on a person's heartstrings (most people do not want children to die, especially a sweet, lovely child like the one on screen), but it also uses the device of a surprise reveal that emphasizes the negative emotions. It is only at the end of the commercial that we learn why the child will never learn to ride a bike, to fly, and to get cooties. The child drowned. The surprise reveal is a trick that acts as an intensification device. In the commercial, it emphasizes an extremely negative outcome that partially places the responsibility for that outcome on the viewers. Ouch. The viewer now feels like they've been tricked and they feel guilty for the child's drowning.

Besides for the heavy emotional content in the context of light entertainment, why would the most negative motive be the one many jump to first? If google is any indicator of the widespread perception of insurance companies, it's not surprising that an insurance company is associated with say, "evil" or "scam" or "crooked." Those three extremely negative associations appear in the top five suggestions when you type in: "insurance companies are..."


Counteracting the negative perception of a company is one of the key motives behind initiating a public awareness campaign like this one here. Even though the company claims that they have been working with experts for more than 60 years to make homes safer, this is not the message that comes across. When designing the campaign, I don't think that the negative associations with insurance companies were taken seriously and addressed outright. The ad appeared to be the sheep's wool, hiding the wolf underneath.

A better strategy would have been to acknowledge the wolf. The ad could have begun with....

"Let's start a conversation about safety"
"We know our money can never compensate for a child's death"
"Meet..."

Then the original ad could have continued and perhaps the backlash would have been different.

Or not. Aren't insurance companies evil?

Why is technology blue?

Why is technology blue? A simple search for technology on Google images brings up a predominantly blue group of images. In the world we live in of extreme gender colour-coding, the first thought that comes to mind is that technology has been coded as masculine. But is this an accurate first impression?

A simple count of the number of male figures versus female figures in the image reveals that the majority associate male figures with technology, although there are a few female figures.

 

 This immediately leads to a second question. Is this merely a coincidence or do these images and the colour coding of technology as masculine reflect a reality within industries associated with technological innovations?

 

 Fortune magazine has compared the diversity numbers between the major tech companies and generally found them lacking. Just taking a look at the male-female ratio, the numbers are appalling. Indiegogo headed out the top of the list with 57% male and 43% female, while Apple with its uncharacteristically blue apple came in second with 72% male and 28% female. If the numbers only include technical workers, then the picture is decidedly more abysmal. Indiegogo still heads out the top with 33% female workers, but Apple's ratio of female workers drops to 20%. 

The question remains: what happened to Apple's previous rainbow coloured logo? Is that not a better ideal to strive for than a blue one?

The predominance of blue in images of technology is not the source of the gender disparity in the tech industry but rather a symptom of a larger issue. The industry seems to have been coded masculine just as other fields have been coded feminine such as education and pharmacy.








A biological basis for these differences have long been discounted, so the question of cultural conditioning remains. In a world that is more and more dominated by images, we seem to be subtly reinforcing norms within industries through the visual representations we choose. The answer isn't necessarily to code technology as pink - that would be just falling back into a mindset that excludes rather than includes.










The images we choose to represent a set of discourses as diverse as technology will change as our concept of technology and who is involved in determining it will change. I would hope that images like the one of the tree will be the reflection of our future. Such images speak to a growing awareness of the impact our changing technology has on our environment and on our neighbours.

Ford and Schadenfreude: I am not the essence of good.

Sometimes, I would call myself evil. Yes. Evil. Today, the monstrous me reared its head with ram's horns and mehyed. My evil self is also a goat who likes to eat ice cream every day and drink copious amounts of alcoholic cider.

I wasn't sad when they announced today that Rob Ford had a tumour. In fact, there was more than a glimmer of Schadenfreude. My first thought wasn't well wishes. I thought, "maybe, just maybe, this will keep him from campaigning and we won't have another 4 years of Ford." After announcing to my husband that Ford had a tumour, I also told him that I am evil. Unsurprised he answered, "that's not good."

I may have been evil in other situations. Or perhaps a better word for it would be antisocial. I so badly want to be that nice girl, when really I tend to more of an acerbic wit (and people wonder why I am so quiet - I just don't want to alienate everyone by saying what I really think).



There was a particular uncomfortable situation just two weekends ago when we went to pick up Oliver from his grandparents house. I have rather strong beliefs about food and I often disagree strongly about how they feed both Oliver and his cousin. Not to get into details, I bit my tongue until it turned blue and started to affect the colour of my face. I may have appeared hostile (while trying to seem nice), but at least I didn't confirm their suspicions of my evil nature. Or my conflicted nature - words cannot express my gratitude at having a week of being child-free (but that's for another post).



I suspect my mask of niceness is somehow linked with my obsession with what people think of me. It is starting to fade a bit as I get older, but it's still there. I want people to like me - I generally like them. That's why I don't outright tell people that they're bad parents, bad artists, or just generally off their rocker. Unfortunately I have a face like glass and they probably can tell anyways. Ooops.



It's also why I didn't approach Ford when I saw him on the street at the Cabbage town fest last weekend. I was afraid what would come out of my mouth and also afraid he would brush off the criticism with his own blind delusions of grandeur (not to be confused with the French word for large). Besides, he had a little group of admirers circling around his own orbit and reinforcing his deluded sense of self. It's no wonder.

Hibernating Mothers and the February Forest: Giving birth Doesn't Mean Giving Up.

I'm utterly exhausted and not a little bit depressed. February is the heavy, gray month that comes after the hangover of Christmas. At least in January, you know that you feel horrible just because you had a fabulous time celebrating with family and friends over the holidays. And now it's morning, so you drink a lot of water and think the feeling will pass.

But in February, you're officially back to normal and the normal is a horrifying abyss with a bottom out of sight. I'm complaining because I'm tired, because I wonder if I've dropped out of the career to have a child, because it's gray outside, and because my little one year old still doesn't sleep through the night without demanding to be nursed. I thought two years old was when they started temper tantrums.

If you could visualize my brain as fuel graph from a Star Trek movie, all the glowing bars would be blinking bright red and there would be a red alert flashing from a huge red light on the wall. And Uhura would be reporting, "All communications are down, sir"

My energy and creative drive is low and I continually wonder if I haven't already given up. Have I given up my dreams in order to be a mommy? Have I leaned back in my chair as Sheryl Sandberg claims many women do as they begin to contemplate a family? Have I stopped raising my hand? Will I ever feel satisfied?

I've never been a loud one and definitely not on the track to CEO-dom, so the kind of success Sandberg is asking women to want doesn't appeal to me. I'm more the kind of person who wishes for a quiet space to create. Maybe the last question in the previous paragraph is the answer to the first. I have no family in the city, a few lovely contacts, a mostly wonderful man as a husband, and I'm tired. Yet, this exhaustion I feel is temporary. The ever present dissatisfaction with my current situation is a sign that I'm asking more for myself than simply watching the years go by. I have not leaned back. I will not always be mired in toddlerhood and that one day I will manage both the writing career I envisage for myself and the beautiful family life. I have just started both.

Mourning a Merry Christmas

I'm in mourning.

I'm in mourning, because I see a precarious house of cards about to topple on so many Canadians and I cannot look away. Instead of a regular playing deck, on each card is an image of a manufactured need – a desire made in China, priced in Canada and the proceeds in the pockets of some wealthy offshore investor. We are pressured to believe that an overpriced cardboard home – condo or mcmansion, that jacket – Canada Goose, that newest techno-gadget – Ipad – that all of these will make us happy, show our worth, demonstrate our success.

On each card face are the manufactured ideas of happiness and success that block the light instead of letting us see each image for what it is – an image. Not only are we blind to the external forces that control our most basest desires, we are also blind to the fragile foundations on which we stand. This house is not built upon the rock, but built upon slavery – what most call debt.

Our average personal debt-load is higher than the United States even as we ironically celebrate our supposedly stable economy in a moment of misguided Schadenfreude. We are not more free than the most free nation on earth; we are buried up to our necks with our eyes closed to the mass of red ants, who hurry to eat us alive. We citizens as well as our government have misplaced our sense of reason in place of foolish irrationality. In such a flurry of desire, we spent an average of $800 dollars per person on gifts at Christmas in 2010 and probably just as much this year. What else could explain lowering the down payment amount needed to buy a new home, as this conservative federal government has so kindly done.

You may be asking why I say I am in mourning. The house still stands. Yet, it is not as secure as it once was – it's crumbling at the edges, and I have seen it in my family. Both sides have been touched by a sudden loss of income during this recession from which they have not been able to recover. While both their situations sadden me, one does not worry and anger me like the other.

One side has cut back on spending and has managed to replace the lost income to a certain extent. They have savings which they have only minimally cut into and have prepared for their retirement. They own a home, which they have spent over 15 years paying off and are living comfortably, despite the cut in income.

The other side of the family came into some money quickly, felt rich, proceeded to buy a new home, fill it with stuff and then lost that income. So far – a little foolish, but not so bad. Instead of, however, cutting their losses and trying to salvage what they could for the future, they continued to rack up credit card debt with the hopes that lightening would strike twice in a dry recession. Stuck with their heads in the sand, they lived pretty much as they had lived before. Their health started to deteriorate under the repressed stress, but they still believed they would be able to save it all. Finally, with credit card debt well into the six figures, they began to try and sell their house, but they couldn't. No one was interested in buying the oversized home they had lovingly created for themselves. When they did sell it, they received barely enough to pay off the house debt, but not enough to save them from bankruptcy. This fall from comfort into welfare has not restored their reason. They still continue to spend beyond their means, leaving us to pick up the tab.

This morning I woke early, sick and pregnant, thinking of the latest example of their money mismanagement. I couldn't sleep, knowing how easily this story could become the story of so many others, who live in this precarious house of manufactured dreams. We are without reason not only at this time of year, but all year round, and this foolish enslavement needs to stop.

I lay there awake and thought over and over again – I am in mourning. I am in mourning for our loss of reason, I am in mourning for we live as beasts of burden.