There is so much on my mind these days

I completed my course last night ending a good run of schooling since March. I will be taking the next course in the business program in the fall, but it was the writing class that came to a finale yesterday that was a huge eye opener for me. It was a straight up course about writing for magazines and getting them published, taught by someone who is actually doing it – right now.

Deborah Campbell was our instructor and she shared a ton of inspiring insight with a class full of some great writers. Much of her writing chronicles the people and experiences from her travels to Tehran, Tel Aviv, Cairo, Paris and the Gaza Strip. Deborah also writes about artists and has an article about Douglas Coupland’s sculptures coming out soon. She published her book on the conflict in Israel and Palestine called This Heated Place and her articles have appeared in magazines like the Guardian, The Walrus, Modern Painters and one of my favourites – Adbusters.

At the end of class last night, I recounted my story about Adbusters and how their offices are just around the corner from my house. How I sent Adbusters some articles and also walked straight into their offices with resume in hand looking for a gig. “Don’t stop trying,” she says. It’s not an easy business to get into. It is very competitive and writers need to be very disciplined, not only in writing for deadlines but also in fielding new assignments and contacts. It’s important to meet these people, get your name out there and open up those opportunities.

Last night was a bit of a reality check. My second article for the class was about the Young Men’s Adventure Weekend (YMAW) taking place July 14, 15 & 16. I was far too optimistic that I could get the article published in time for the event. I was definitely disappointed with myself, as the article still needed additional writing and tweaking before it is ready to be pitched. The class is part lecture and part workshop, so we all discussed my story and the suggestions everyone had were very important in making the story, a better story. So it was with mixed emotions that I said good-bye to everyone and headed home. We have set up a blog and hopefully we will continue to workshop our writing with each other and I’m sure there will be another writing class in the future.

My goal was to share the YMAW story here on my blog and then begin to pitch it to magazines and some newspapers. I think now that I will extend the scope of the piece with additional stories from this year’s event and submit it for publication afterwards. Still, I am ecstatic over the last couple of months where I have finally felt comfortable saying, I am a creative writer. I am still writing articles for the insurance website which will launch soon and I just picked up another writing gig as well. So I guess I’m actually doing it – right now, too.

It has been a very busy second quarter of the year and I’m looking forward to finally getting some relaxation this long weekend. Enjoy! GO PORTUGAL!! VIVA!

This has been another Observation from the Island.

peace,

Inconvenient Truths

"What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so."
Mark Twain

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding it.”
Upton Sinclair

The quotes by Mark Twain and Upton Sinclair are highlighted in Al Gore’s film where he takes his slide show on the road to cities all around the world. These words really resonated with me and stuck in my head until this morning so I could write the latest observations. I feel these quotes somehow shed light on just some of the reasons why our struggle continues and why we must stay committed to bearing and sharing the inconvenient truths found everywhere.

Back in April I wrote an article called “Love Your Planet” in which I spoke about a new documentary coming out called An Inconvenient Truth. Last night we went to 5th Avenue Cinema and watched this very informative and hard-hitting film about Al Gore’s mission to educate as many cities, towns and families around the world about the reality of global warming.
Judging from the amazing turnout at the box office so far, it looks like more and more people are finally tuning into the reality on earth and not the “reality” of wife swapping or living on Laguna Beach. In it’s second week, An Inconvenient Truth broke the top 10 at the box office. This week it drops to #11 but it is impressive to note that it is having this massive impact while only playing in 122 theatres compared to the 3,000-4,000 theatres featuring anticipated films like The Break Up or Cars.

So why were there only a dozen or so people at the theatre last night in Vancouver? Has everyone already had a chance to see it or was it because it was a Monday? Following the events of 9-11 many people continued researching and asking more and more questions about the truth. It lead to many so called conspiracy theories and it also resulted in a clamp down from the U.S. administration on any distracters to their policies. But it also resulted in a tenacious desire by millions around the world to find the truth.

Today, many of the stories now coming to light, whether it is the inhumane treatment of prisoners of war or subtle mistakes like not finding any weapons of mass destruction, are stories that had been documented and shared long before it hit mainstream media. Take for instance the underground film Loose Change. This film combines all the information of other smaller films and all the stories in relation to 9-11 and brings it together in one of the most concise and informative documentaries on the subject.

Watching An Inconvenient Truth last night I was not shocked or surprised. This film did what Loose Change did by bringing the entire global warming debate into another concise, informative and moving film. When I started reading David Suzuki books like Sacred Balance, I began having a stronger understanding and relationship between my own choices and their affects on the world around me. “Live locally” he always said and watch your imprint on the earth have less of an impact. Support your local grocer and restaurants and watch your local economy strive. Making the changes within yourself first then watch it grow as you share it with others.

It is very promising that some of these uncomfortable realities are being discussed and debated with more and more people each day. The reality is that life is always, always changing. No matter how hard you may try to hold on to all things of the past we must come to that pinnacle decision and understanding that many things are not working any longer.

So I have this challenge to you all. Take your parents to see this movie. Take your father for Father’s day. You’ll be surprised by what you don’t know. Last night we brought a friend to the film and you could see how the film affected him as he felt compelled to ride his bike and discuss hybrid cars. In many respects none of this is new because we have been told for decades that if we don't change, this is where we are headed. Well, here we are....so what are you going to do about it?

This has been another Observation from the Island.

peace,

A Better Life?

Life has been good to me and I’ve been good to life, I can’t complain. Well, maybe I can complain for others who cannot. People less fortunate, those who are oppressed and misguided by corruption and greedy power, how are their voices heard? Like the 11 people found dead on a rusty small boat, four months after they had left Africa on Christmas eve in search of a better life in Europe.

My grandfather left Portugal to look into Canada as a possible new home for his growing family. Under the ruling regime of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, who was Prime Minister from 1932 to 1968, my grandfather had finally lost faith in little mighty Portugal. Salazar developed the “Estado Novo” which literally translated is the New State. Portugal was in the midst of massive change. Salazar’s new policies and reforms simply priveleged the upper classes to no limit while the poorer sections of society were left to rot. Education wasn’t a priority so it wasn’t invested in, instead more money would fund PIDE, the secret police repressing, torturing and murdering anyone who opposed the new state.

Today when I was reading the news article about these eleven people from Africa in search of a better life, I immediately started to remember the story of my parents and their immigration to Canada. My parents sadly left Portugal when they were young children. My father from the northern region near Braga and my mother left behind her friends in the middle of Portugal near Aveiro. My father landed in Quebec where my grandfather had set things up to bring the entire family over one by one, as he raised the funds to do so each time. Through this period of time his youngest son was born back in Portugal while he was still in Quebec. They wouldn’t meet until years later. Oddly enough my parents would both land first in Quebec before finally meeting each other in southwestern Ontario.

Many of the family stories I have been told are definitely classic tales of crop sharers who wanted more education, more opportunities, simply more than a small percentage of someone else’s share. In Salazar’s world, they were nothing important, nobody. Were these Africans nobody too? What were they escaping? How much do we really know about what is happening in these African countries?


Although there were eleven bodies found on the tiny boat it had originally left with 54 people. Setting course for Spain, the boat would lose most of its passengers and eventually run adrift where it was finally found off course near the Barbados. It is still unclear exactly where the passengers were from but officials presume they were from Senegal. Authorities are investigating into a Spaniard living in the Canary Islands who may have organized the deadly trip charging passengers between $1,200-$1,500 USD.

Canary Islands authorities have intercepted nearly 7,000 migrants since January, compared with 4,751 in all of 2005. More than 1,000 are believed to have fallen to the brutal power of the sea attempting the journey from Africa to the Canary Islands since December. Last month 600 people were found in crowded boats after the week before when 1,000 were intercepted in one weekend. The numbers are staggering.

Fifty years have passed since my parents made their voyage and still people from all around the world are leaving their homes, their countries, for a mysterious promise of something better. Some of them are fleeing to Canada and we all have heard of the immigration stories coming from the United States recently as well. Unfortunately the stories are summed up into authority headlines announcing sweet victory of their captures, their intelligent investigations and the record numbers rescued, only to be shipped back again.

The things my parents stressed growing up were education, education and education. Maybe some of these people would have thought twice about taking on this journey if they truly knew what they were getting into. Or maybe no education would stop them from leaving absolute death, corruption and destruction. How are we to know?

The real stories are lying on the bottom of the sea, thousands of untold stories that could reveal more about this unbalanced world we live in. These stories could give us a glimpse into today’s new search for a better life for all.

This has been another Observation from the Island.

peace,