New York vs Edmonton

I was surprised when I read this in the paper today. Apparently it took until February 21st for the first murder to occur in the New York region. What does this mean for tiny little Edmonton, which has already seen 4 homicides and countless other unaccounted-for second degree infractions?

Edmonton pop approx. = 1,000,000
New York pop approx. = 19,500,000 rounded is 20,000,000

4 / 1000000 = 0.0000040 per capita murder rate = 0.00040%
1 / 20000000 = 0.000000050 per capita murder rate = 0.00000050%

0.0000040 / 0.000000050 = 80 per capita murder rate = 8000%

Edmonton is approximately 8000 times more violent than the New York Region, per capita.

Either our police force is markedly ineffective, or there is a growing crime trend in our city that is not being addressed in the media or acknowledged by our citizens.

Toll expected to reach 230

Quotes taken from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article5694768.ece, and photos taken from http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/02/07/world/20090207-AUSTRALIA_index.html.

Embers the size of dinner plates fell through the air as the fire bore down on his house, fuelled by hot winds that “sounded like hurricane”

"It's a huge field which has been inadequately researched," says Adam Brett, a forensic psychiatrist in Western Australia, who has specialist knowledge of the arson.

"The people who died in their cars probably did so because, faced with something the size of what they were looking at, deciding they had to get out it was the least bad of two options that were available. Either way they were going to die and they were going to die doing what they were told to do.”

Australian Wildfires: Decisions that Affect Society, Environment, and Our Collective Futures

This photo taken from Google images of the Southern Australian wildfires struck me today - it reminded me of another similar, more well-known photo:



The difference is that one was a "man-made" disaster (Australian wildfires) whereas the other was a natural one (pyroclastic flow). Both claim human lives but one of them is the direct result of an irresponsible, bone-headed human decision.

We can all accept doctrines as words that have some foundational basis. To some they are the word of truth and to others they are just philosophical mumbo jumbo. One doctrine which I believe in is that human beings have an effect on everything around them because we are intimately connected with our environment - whether to each other as members of the same species or whether we are just individual organisms within a pre-existing ecosystem. The environment has an impact on us the same way we have an impact on the environment, and the combination of these forces do much good and also much harm. Harm is a subjective word but in the context of human civilization it is the outcome of an act that can reduce an individual, a population, or a society's ability to continue in the same capacity while retaining the same characteristics.

It is with all this in mind that I contemplate the news that I read on BBC today:

"The number of deaths from wildfires that have already claimed 131 lives in the Australian state of Victoria is likely to rise, officials have warned. Police believe some of the fires were started deliberately."

These implications have led Prime Minister Kevin Ruud to calling the supposed arson an act of "mass murder."

It seems to me the entire thing revolves around the problem of responsibility: in our modern society there seems to be a disconnect between action and consequence. Consequences may or may not implicate the person(s) involved but it is plain irresponsible to believe that actions have no direct consequence as a result of them. It is a law of physics that all actions have equal and opposite reactions (they were speaking about magnitude, but the meaning carries over) and is perhaps one of the few sure things in metaphysics as well (if there ever was a sure thing in metaphysics).

Like James Lovelock's idea of Gaia, people must understand that not only can human action affect environments - combined with the right weather conditions and social context (inappropriate transit infrastructure or lack of escape routes) it can lead to a humanitarian disaster leading to loss of many lives.

The breeding ground of dangerous ideas is the nest in which the dangerous sentiment that actions are of no import is held with confidence: those who believe that they need to pay no heed of their actions and consequences and the relation therein with other human beings have already created the appropriate societal fabric from which people who can take such actions as those described in Southern Australia can be fashioned.

To shun collective responsibilty as a societal trait (it's your problem - not mine!) is to shun individual responsibility for such actions. We are all complicit to their crime. Freedom is as elusive a term as the definable range of its acceptable practice.

You and I are intimately connected - but how do we measure how much control we should have on each other in society?

Is it as little as possible? Is it as much as possible? Neither?

What is a healthy middle - a healthy compromise? And does it exist?

John McCain, thanks for cunting out... er I meant coming out

Yeah, I don't know how you mix up the words cut and cunt, the way Bush could mess up sets and setback to get sex. John McCain obviously loves using that word. In the second video, watch Cindy McCain's reaction.

A credit crunch? Seriously, how do you mess that up?

Freudian Slip

Thoughts on the American Presidential Election (Gateway Article: Longer Version)

Much of the campaign for the two main presidential candidates Republican John McCain and Democratic Barack Obama was rife with contentious issues such as the American economy and setting policies for economic and environmental sustainability. There were also issues with the cost of the Iraq war measured in both dollars and lives. Also, there was much talking on the American reliance on foreign oil and the need to develop energy independence within the nation. Presumably, this is so that the America’s flag-waving surburbanites could wipe clean their mental slates of any liability to the actions of the people who pump the oil abroad: namely the Saudi Arabians.

The global (impending) economic crisis has shaken not only worldwide bank accounts; it has also shaken the foundations of both major campaigns built on promises of big public spending. Both major candidates have since committed to the Bush “bailout” package, raising eyebrows about where that leaves the financial future of Americans. This has the unintended response of holding Americans hostage to their wallets rather than to their common sense. Will any of the promises made by either man pan out? Or has the era of big public spending as the red herring of progress come to an end?
Also troublesome is the irony of proposing energy independence as a means to ensuring national oil supplies for the maintenance of “status quo” American standards of living, while simultaneously promising an increase in the usage of and investment into “green” technologies and research – a promise of which both candidates are guilty. The candidates cannot plausibly make commitments to both forms of energy security without detriment to the other: the advent of more reliable “greener” technologies would necessitate the need to use less carbon-heavy energy forms such as coal, gasoline, and petroleum. Both men make commitments to oil and several “green” energy technologies to arbitrarily varying degrees. Also lacking is the attention paid on behalf of both candidates regarding the role of power grids in pursuing sound energy policy in America. The Northeast Blackout of 2003 was a prime example of why this is important. The inability of either man to commit to a realistic energy policy defeats the purpose of proposing one. This reveals a lack of understanding regarding energy policy and the science behind it. Their mutual indecision indicates future energy policies will be swayed by the strength of the successful lobby instead of the science behind it.

The dumbing down of the issues by the candidates so that they can be used as political fish bait slights the ability of ordinary Americans to understand them and encourages the twisted version of events sold on their national media. The pandering of these two politicians to the values of the “alienated” demographs of America is not only an insult to the democratic hopes of the people whose votes they intend to procure but also to democracy itself. Joe Biden is supposed to be a counter-balance to the maverick old guard reputation of John McCain, since they are chiseled out of the same stone. Sarah Palin was wryly chosen as an enticement of the female vote subjugated traditionally by patriarchy and most recently, in the form of Senator Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, by Obama. Pulling a page out of Michael Moore’s playbook by suggesting the unison of America’s “alienated” behind Ralph Nader is not that much different, either.

The contradictions of the two campaigns belonging to McCain and Obama taint an important episode in American history. As a result of this, McCain and Obama are tragically derailing any chance for Americans to seize the opportunity to fix not only problems created after 8 years of the Bush administration, but also the opportunity to fix what has been truly broken in the American system over the long term: a sense of connectedness to the rest of the world.

In all honesty, it’s hard to support either candidate because the criticisms for both are so similar that they read like a carbon copy. Would this be a situation where a Canadian like myself would suggest that our neighbours to the south choose the “lesser of two evils” as SNL would have you believe? Hardly. Perhaps it would boil down to something unexpected – such as the ability of the Head of State to survive some sort of imagined catastrophe. The recent assassination attempts on Obama does not bode well for him in this regard.

Choose apathy, then, because the presidential candidates have not given American a reason to care.

What do you think of the Global Financial Crisis and the magnitude of its impact?

Anup Shah, Global Financial Crisis 2008, GlobalIssues.org, Last updated: Wednesday, October 29, 2008