The Average Person? Fishing for Information

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By Jason Menard

Every once in a while we realize we’re not as smart as we think we are. And while I’ve always believed myself to be diverse, well-read, and knowledgeable about a number of topics, when I’m ignorant of something I’m spectacularly bereft of information.

I’ve always felt an affinity to the Ramsay character from Robertson Davies’ Deptford Trilogy of books. Early on in his life, he dedicated himself to being a polymath – a person with an encyclopedic knowledge of a wide variety of topics. Myself, I find my interest easily piqued – and the advent of the Internet has made sating my thirst for knowledge even easier.

Yet, as broad of a spectrum of knowledge I believe I can cover, there are some areas in the old cranium that light just won’t penetrate. Last night my wife and I shone a flashlight into one of those areas and were overwhelmed by the cobwebs.

You see, yesterday we were trying to come up with names for our three new fish. Fortunately we didn’t have to come up with names for the other three new fish we had purchased during the day who made a spectacular dash for freedom through a well-coordinated dive and swim to the water system via our kitchen sink, but that’s another tragic story for another day.

My wife, my son, and my daughter like fish. I don’t. We had one male Betta (more coolly known as Japanese Fighting Fish) who passed away about a month ago after two years of bouncing back and forth in a bowl. Enough time had passed that we decided it was time to get another. But this time we went for three female Bettas mainly because they can live in the same bowl without ripping each other to shreds.

I say I don’t like fish, but that’s not entirely true. I just am supremely indifferent to them. To me they’re not pets in the same way my cat is. You can’t interact with a fish, you can’t have any sort of relationship with a fish – they’re just moving art. And, in celebration of their superlative uselessness, we’ve chosen to name our fish appropriately.

Our first fish, who didn’t last long due to the fact that he was sick the day we brought him home, was named Art. The second fish, the one that lasted two years, was also named Art. After all, the name made me laugh and it was only used for a couple of days. For differentiation sake, Art Mark II was a short form for Modern Art. We had determined that our new fish would be called Ren, for the Renaissance period, but that was before we went the female route.

No problem, my wife and I thought, we’ll just name them after famous female painters. Yeah. OK. You try it. If you come up with three then my hat is off to you. It was at this moment that all my thoughts of being a polymath came crashing down.

I started off strong with Emily. I mean, good solid Can-Con there. Then we decided to name the firery red fish after Frida Kahlo. And I’d like to say that choice was a result of my intense study of her genre and the life and influences of Diego Rivera, but it’s probably more true that my fondness for Salma Hayek has more to do with this knowledge than any artistic inclinations.

That was it. Two. Which is a problem when you have three fish to name. Right now it’s Emily, Frida, and Hey You! Not that the fish answer or even remember who I am after 10 seconds, but that’s beside the point. The principle of the matter is that I need a third name.

A search of the Internet was little help. My mind blanked as it was overwhelmed by a total lack of recognition for any of the names that appeared on any list I encountered. Not even the semblance of a hint of potential recognition. These are women who, I assume, are revered for their contribution to the arts world, and I could trip over them without having any inkling of who they are.

Recently I had the interesting experience of working with someone who reveled in her lack of knowledge. She was proud of her ignorance. Politics, sports, and other issues didn’t interest her. When interviewing she chose to actively avoid research, preferring to ask questions that “the people” would ask.

She describes herself as “the Everyperson.” I’m not so sure that’s what the Everyperson is. In her world, the Everyperson wouldn’t be disturbed by not knowing a third female artist – the Everyperson would move on to the next topic, uninterested in filling a gaping hole in their experience.

In fact, I’d like to think that people are more like me – interested in life and desirous of improving our knowledge base. We want to understand the world around us beyond the superficial, we want to feel attached to the events that shape our lives, and the only way we can do that is to get informed about them.

It’s not enough to sit back in the boat, fishing for information, and hoping it jumps onto your lap. To be successful you actively have to bait the hook, learn the right technique, and know the right places to find the fish.

After all, as the old Schoolhouse Rock cartoon proclaimed, knowledge is power. And every person I know is interested in that.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Home for a Rest

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By Jason Menard

The Canadian band Spirit of the West once penned a rollicking pub anthem recounting about how their bar-hopping vacation travels often leave them more exhausted than when they left. Married with two kids, pub crawling is no longer a part of our vacations, but the sentiment is still the same. Although our current lifestyle is more akin to the Spirit of the Mid-West, these so-called vacations do leave us in need of coming Home for a Rest.

Due to the fact that a majority of our family and friends live in Montreal, our vacations consist of heading back home, staying at the in-laws, and using it as a base from which we can do our daily forays throughout la belle province to catch up with old friends, revisit old haunts, and re-clog arteries at favoured restaurants. Compounding the itinerary is the desire to visit other family living in the Ottawa region.

What it amounts to is a lot of time behind the wheel, a lot of wonderful times and delicious meals, a lot of packing and unpacking, and – of course – a long day of travel home culminating in a scant few hours before waking up and going to work the next day (or that same day, as the case may be.)

Now, while I may be able to leave the day-to-day office job behind physically, mentally the separation is a different matter. Not only is there the multiple-day hustle before you leave to ensure that everything runs smoothly once you leave, but there’s also the knowledge that there’s going to be a stack of work waiting for you upon your return. And that lovely invention known as e-mail only makes it worse – and many of us count our e-mails in the hundreds on a good day.

And for those of us with our own businesses, vacations rarely are actual vacations. There’s still the matter of keeping up with clients, meeting deadlines when the mind would rather be elsewhere, and sneaking a few minutes of work time here and there during the day.

Getting back to work is like trying to merge onto the Autobahn from a dead stop. Everyone else is in fifth gear moving with the flow of traffic, and you’re stuck trying to get back into the game while your mind would still rather be playing. In fact, the stress of picking up where you left off is often worse than whatever stresses you were trying to put behind you in the first place! The first day is overwhelming, so many things needing your attention, so little capability to get moving, and so little desire to tackle anything. Eventually you just have to start somewhere and chip away at the pile.

We got home early Thursday morning. We unpacked this weekend. We’ve yet to go to the grocery store, preferring to pick up what we need for the day. Vacation may be over, but real life hasn’t yet caught up. Oddly enough, while vacation is enjoyable, the routine of day-to-day may be the most relaxing. There’s a comfort in familiarity, there’s something relaxing about being surrounded by your own things, and – no matter how hospitable your hosts may be – there’s nothing like sleeping in your own bed.

Yes, the key to surviving vacations is that first weekend back. Forget the chores, forget the obligations, just rest. A couple of lazy days are the key to transitioning back to life and making any vacation successful.

Now, there are a few obvious solutions to combating vacation fatigue and the subsequent work re-integration stresses. One, you could forgo vacations. OK, there are a couple of realistic solutions at hand: vacation at home, or head south to an all-inclusive resort.

Unfortunately, both of those, while appealing, miss out on what the best part of vacations is: sharing time with friends and family, in a more relaxed atmosphere, without the pressures of schedules, obligations, or deadlines. Sure, those stressors exist, but getting away from it all – even if means that you’re only able to loosen the tether that’s binding you to the everyday – makes it all worthwhile in the long run.

Spirit of the West had it right all along. And although nights of drunken revelry are long behind me, pub crawls have been replaced by cross-province jaunts to catch up with friends and family, and the only ones having too much to drink and throwing up now are our friends’ babies, vacations are truly just a prelude to the real relaxation – when we get to come home for a rest.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Time to Park By-law

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By Jason Menard

Let me preface this with a little story here, before I get into the meat of my discussion. It’s the story of a young 19-year-old celebrating his high school prom.

Now, of course, this was back in the days when Grade 13 was still in vogue. In fact, I think it was back in the days when En Vogue was still in vogue… But regardless, after a night of revelry and some alcoholic libations, several of us retired to a friend’s back yard, set up tents, and celebrated the conclusion of our high school experience.

Of course, many of us drove from the official prom to this more laid-back after-party. And, seeing as our hostess only had a normal-sized driveway, many of us parked on the street. The next morning, many of us also woke up to little City of London gifts tucked ever-so-maliciously under our windshield wipers — a fine for parking on the street between the hours of 3 a.m. and 5 a.m.

Now, the $20 charge wasn’t the issue – it was the principal of the matter. Begrudgingly I paid my fine, dramatically stating, “Next time I’ll comply by the law and drive drunk – I hope that’s acceptable for you!”

And that, in a nutshell, is the lunacy of this by-law. It penalizes those who are acting responsibly. Personally, I don’t think any revenue gained by these needless fines are worth the cost of one innocent life lost because an inebriated driver chose to get behind the wheel, instead of leaving the car on the side of the road.

Proponents say that other regions have similar by-laws, but I can also count a number of cities – large ones, the likes of which London often aspires to become – that have more sensible parking enforcement strategies. And if city councilors are reticent about losing the cash grab – uhm, sorry – legitimate revenue from parking offenders, then there is a simple solution to this issue that should satisfy all sides.

There is the argument that the existing by-law makes road maintenance easier, but that convenience can still exist for both the maintenance crew and the citizen or visitor. Alternating parking rights on city streets is the simplest way to satisfy all parties.

Here’s how it can work: on certain days, or between certain hours on certain days, you are restricted from parking on certain sides of the street. Simple. Easy. Clean. Clear.

Say I live on Menard Street (it’s catchy, isn’t it? And I’m more than willing to offer that up for the next round of road name suggestions). Well, from Monday at 8:00 p.m. to Tuesday at 8:00 p.m., I’m restricted from parking on the north side of the street. Then, from Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. to Thursday at 8:00 p.m., I’m restricted from parking on the south side of the street. That way, if they need to do any maintenance on Menard Street, then the workers have a 24-hour window to do so – far more convenient than the 14 hours of interrupted time the current by-law offers.

During the winter, more frequent restrictions can be put into place to enable snow plows to work their magic. Say a Monday to Thursday restriction on the north side of Menard Street and a Friday to Sunday restriction on the south side. That way, there’s always ample parking and also room for the maintenance crews.

This is London, remember. There’s not an abundance of people parking on the street. Most people either have private drives, complex parking, or parking garages, so the impact on the roadways would be minimal. And should we find that the issue grows and more people are parking on the street, preventing area residents from having close parking for their homes, then we can designate certain streets at certain times as residential parking – and the residents would obtain stickers indicating that they are allowed to park in that zone.

We’re not reinventing the wheel here. All we’re doing is taking the best of what other cities have effectively done for years and applied it to our region. There’s no need for a Made-in-London solution when the answer is so clearly available to us elsewhere.

The fact that council refused to make a change to this by-law shows that their progressive thinking gear is stuck in neutral. The way to make all parties happy is clear. And sure, there’d be a little investment in street signs, but that’s a one-time cost that can be considered an investment in fostering our city’s growth and infrastructure.

And that way, should someone know they’re going to drink a few too many, they can park appropriately before they’re under the influence – without being penalized for doing the right thing!

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

What’s in a Name? For Those at the Front, Nothing

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By Jason Menard

World War III? An isolate skirmish? A regional conflict? Sparked in part by a Maclean’s cover story, much debate is going on about what to call the situation in Lebanon. While all descriptors may apply the most accurate description would be tragedy.

It just goes to show how far removed we are from actual conflict and its effects when we waste time and energy debating what the situation should be called. For average Lebanese and Israeli citizens, living their lives under the spectre of death from above, they remain unconcerned about nomenclature, preferring to focus on survival.

Just how far removed we are from violence was underlined with the recent arrest of Canadians plotting a terrorist action on our soil. Many in our country reacted as if the action was completed and lives had been lost. So too did the World Trade Centre attacks show just how sheltered an experience North Americans lived. Not to undermine the horrendous loss of life experienced on Sept. 11, 2001, but the sound of the Twin Towers collapsing echoed louder and longer in an environment previously devoid of that type of sound.

For people in the Middle East, gunfire, bombs, and destructions are just part of the everyday soundtrack of their lives.

We use words to categorize and control issues that we can’t fully wrap our heads around. We are incapable of accepting the immensity of a problem, therefore we’re compelled to create artificial boundaries with which we can contain an issue. If we can define it, we can conceptualize it. Unfortunately, with that description comes the minimization of the issue at hand.

Once we’ve defined the conflict, we can relate it to our experiences. If we determine this as a World War, then we can relate it to past conflicts on a global scale. However, if we maintain that this is nothing more than a more aggressive skirmish, then we are able to distance ourselves from the conflict.

Media doesn’t desensitize us – we have our own, internal defense mechanisms that do that. When the world reacts irrationally around us, we need to retreat to the security of our lives and rationalize the conflict for ourselves. And that’s one of the great powers that words hold – the ability to define.

But how we define this conflict also impacts how we will react. If conceptualized as a World War, then Canadian involvement would probably become more palatable to the majority of Canadians. Instead of being a region conflict, this becomes a cause for the world to rally around. If an Axis of Evil is defined, akin to the Germany/Italy/Japan collective of WWII, then the people world can unite against a common enemy. If clear and definite lines can be drawn to Syria and Iran, then the average citizen may accept involvement in a conflict against a greater enemy.

However, if we define it as a regional conflict, then the public may be more reluctant to risk Canadian lives in someone else’s local politics. If the battle remains between Israel and terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, then it’s harder to reconcile the idea of a massive global offensive against a small group of fundamentalists.

Yet, while we in the West grapple with the concepts of conflict, the fact remains that there are people suffering at the hands of unseen aggressors. Innocent Lebanese and Israelis, through no fault other than geographic location, are dying in a fight that is not their own. They are the pawns on the front lines in this geopolitical chess game that are sacrificed while the kings direct the battle from the safety of the back row.

That is why the word that best describes the current situation in Lebanon is tragedy. Despite what Prime Minister Steven Harper may say, there is no matter of nuance in this situation. The truth is written out in black and white, and as we dither about with words, the actions of others are having cataclysmic effects on the innocent bystanders who find themselves in the path of on-coming missiles.

The word is tragedy – and it’s only taking on greater significance the longer we wait.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

The Geeks Have Inherited the Earth

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By Jason Menard

Have the meek truly inherited the Earth? Is geek the new standard to which we all aspire? Or has the new ostracization model shifted from jock/nerd to a more subtle shades of geekdom?

Video games, comic books, and computer technology – once the Holy Trinity of Impending Wedgies, now are cultural norms. Not just accepted, but embraced by all members of society. It appears The Geek’s passive revolution has managed to assimilate all that once opposed it.

When I was younger, there was a well-defined line between geek and what was thought of as cool. I straddled the middle, never fully falling into the pit of geekdom, but retaining enough interest in certain things that I refused to reject my interests to sit at the jock table. Basically I enjoyed all the meats in our cultural stew and got along with everyone.

Growing up in an age where the Commodore Pet was a novelty in the elementary classroom and our advanced computer classes in high school consisted of creating spreadsheets on Lotus 1-2-3, those with an affinity for computers were considered outside the acceptable norm.

Now, those same kids would be considered wise social investments, as technology-based jobs hold a certain appeal to both sexes – that being a lucrative income potential. The idea of a sexy computer programmer or hot information technology specialist was once the stuff of oxymoron – now, they’re increasingly becoming a reality.

Again, reflecting upon my youth, video games were once the salvation of the physically challenged. Not the physically challenged with actual debilitating conditions, but rather the physically challenged sub-culture that recoiled in fear at the thought of playground physical competition. Now, everyone is a gamer.

The fact that the term Gamer exists (supplanting its forebear – loser) shows how video gaming has moved into the modern realm. Perhaps a result of our continued experience with computers (again, thank you pencil-pusher-formerly-known-as-geek), we are no longer simply content to be pandered to. A movie, despite all its grandeur, is a one-way experience. We demand more from our entertainment! We demand interactivity. We demand engagement. And we demand shorter load times!

Yet, video games are fast supplanting passive media as the engagement activity of choice for men and women. I grew up at the time when the console game market was just beginning to flourish. Although it was still a time when a young boy could go to the arcade and watch in amazement the chosen few who knew the battle codes for Street Fighter, we began to embrace the home entertainment model.

Personally, I was proud to have a Gemini system. No choosing between Atari and ColecoVision for me! I could have both! Yet, I did look on in mild envy at the kid who had the ADAM.

Yes, we ventured into the personal computer market with the Commodore 64, experimenting with the precursor to the Internet – the BBS. Then came the Sega Genesis. Now, it’s not unusual for people of my generation to own multiple systems. At home we have a PlayStation 2 and a Nintendo GameBoy – and there’s still a Nintendo 64, an original PlayStation, and even a Sega Genesis and a Nintendo NES in mothballs somewhere.

Grown men and women of my age, 33, continue to play games, viewing them as an entertainment alternative to TV and movies. As games continue to improve, so too will our infatuation with the market increase. It’s all about the interactivity.

Even the geek’s secured bastion of fantasy – the comic book – has been usurped by the cool kids. Top-grossing franchises like Spider-man, Superman, and Batman show that there’s a mass market for these films – and chances are many of the viewers have never set foot and inhaled the musty air of a comic book store. Even lesser-known characters (outside the traditional geek spectrum, that is) like Hellboy, Daredevil, and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen have received on-screen treatments, not to mention the Sin City and Road to Perdition films.

And while the geek was once mocked for their borderline-concerning fascination with pen-and-ink breasts at the expense of finding real flesh-and-blood ones, it is not uncommon for the so-called cool kids to drool over the sight of Angelina Jolie or Jessica Alba lithely maneuvering across the silver screen in their respective video game (Tomb Raider) and comic book (Fantastic Four) adaptations.

So does the true geek exist anymore? Probably. There’s the über-geek faction that camps out for days for Star Wars films, criticizes two-hour movies for not adhering strictly to a 50-year detailed history of a comic book character, and, of course, there’s the supercilious losers who are masters of their own dorky domain – whether it be comics, television, computer technology, or any other interest – and possess an encylopaedic knowledge of such minutiae that they revel in mocking (privately, of course, lest they engage in actual conflict) those who are interested in a topic, but have yet to devote an unhealthy amount of time to it.

But that behaviour’s not exclusive to the geek culture. Is there any difference between camping out overnight to see the latest Star Wars chapter and camping out to score a wristband that entitles you to buy tickets for a favourite band? Is there any difference between the continuity-obsessed filmgoer obsessed with discrepencies in Ben Affleck’s portrayl of Daredevil and those who criticize period pieces and historical dramas for their creative license? Or what’s the difference between a comic history snob and those obnoxious music fans who revel in their favourite band’s obscurity, only to reject them when they become popular and lament that they were much cooler before they sold out and everyone got on the bandwagon?

Maybe we’re finally coming to the appreciation that there’s a little geek in all of us. The Geeks, finally, have inherited the Earth.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved