During my mayoral liveblog last night, I got an email from someone who, because I was mocking candidates for being so overwhelmingly pro-police after a series of truly ridiculous abuses of power during the G20, asked if I thought that this was out of institutional fear of the protesters; that the protesters represent a threat to the established power structure and etc.

The answer, of course, is “no.” The protesters aren’t any threat to the established power structure, not as they currently exist.

Now, many a protester will tell you (and has told me) that the reason most people don’t take them seriously is because the mainstream media12 has obscured their message and chosen to portray them as a bunch of silly, flighty, violent thugs. As I’ve said before, though, the problem with this theory is that the protesters’ message comes pre-obscured to the general public. Since a mass protest – and just about every G-whatever protest – frequently has no specific central organizing issue, this means that every protester brings their own issues along with them. Since protesters are generally an accomodating lot, there’s genial support for all issues being protested so long as they’re reasonably somewhere on the left of the political spectrum. But this also means that the issues, as they are, are lost. All that is communicated is that the protesters are angry (or, if you prefer, passionate).

Which means that the average viewer of a protest takes away the following:

– the protesters are angry (or passionate)
– they are shouting
– they are marching
– sometimes some of them break things and/or fight with police
– and usually some of them get arrested

You don’t need a compliant media to decide that this movement is composed of silly, violent thugs if that’s the information you’ve got to work with.

On top of that, though, is that when protests turn violent, what I don’t think many protesters understand is that this is always a losing situation for them. Yes, it’s always only a few idiots; that’s a given. But one thing that remains relatively constant (not universal, but relatively constant) is that their fellows are reluctant (or worse, unwilling) to condemn them. Understandable, of course – even if the cries of “solidarity” weren’t genuine (and they mostly are), simple commonality of focus and the shared experience of being targeted by police would do the job.

But here’s the problem: when protesters are reluctant or unwilling to condemn violence – and honestly, it happens more often than not – what they’re doing is setting themselves up in a state of moral equality with the state using force against them. Saying “but the cops have guns and shields and riot armor” isn’t a justification for violence3; if anything it’s a confirmation that the speaker’s issue isn’t that use of violent force is bad, but that the cops can do it more easily than they can.4

Finally, it’s worth noting that the movement itself is likely counterproductive. Kevin Drum recently posted about how Tea Partiers and Republicans catering to Tea Partiers were driving independent voters away from the Republican party and making Democrats more willing to vote and organize. Looking at polling on the issue of police reaction, Canadians by and large sympathized with the police over the protesters despite the fact that police overreach was both massive and pretty well documented. I don’t think there can be any question that this is antagonistic public reaction to the protests themselves, and if you look at previous polls concerning protesting in Canada the trend holds up5, and largely isn’t about anger at their use of violence so much as it is dislike of the general protest movement.6

Can all of these issues be overcome, and thus make the protest movement more effective at shifting public opinion? I think it’s possible, but here’s the thing: everything that would make it possible – IE, would serve to fix the abovementioned issues – would likely require greater central authority and coordination among the protesters, and the protest movement is by its very nature decentralized (and not really keen on the idea of greater central authority anyway). Which is why I don’t think the protest movement isn’t going to see its objectives come to fruition any time soon.

1. Or politicians, or whatever permutation of The Man you prefer. [↩]
2. True story: at one point during the G20 protests, a protest organizer refused to speak with us because we were wearing our media accreditation badges and explained that he was sympathetic only to the media accredited for the Alternative Media Centre. So we showed him our Alternative Media Centre accreditation, which we had gotten first, and he immediately became receptive. When he asked us why we weren’t using that centre, we explained that it was shit and absolutely everybody in it was trying to get proper accreditation. [↩]
3. Trust me when I say that at the G20 in Toronto I heard this so often I constructed a Bingo card in my head of Stuff The Cops Have and played it anew with every conversation. [↩]
4. At this point an anarchist may wish to say something, so let me pre-empt them by saying that communal anarchism is at best a meaningless philosophy when applied to a group larger than a couple of hundred people, and even then its failure rate is tremendous. Please go get a realistic philosophy of government and get back to me. Thank you for your time. [↩]
5. A key point would be the polling over time surrounding the prorogation of Parliament earlier this year. As the protests happened, outrage against the Tories noticeably dropped. [↩]
6. I think the general public understands that the vast majority of protesters do not use violent tactics. I also think the general public believes that the vast majority of protesters don’t or can’t keep the violent assholes from attending protests, even when they know what’s going to happen. [↩]

…liveblogging the third Toronto mayoral debate.

Okay, so if you don’t live in Toronto you won’t care. But if you don’t live in Toronto, you don’t have to live with the prospect of Rob Ford becoming mayor. To make another Animal House reference: fat, drunk and stupid is no way to run a city.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

If Christopher Nolan shot every action scene in this movie like he did the hotel lobby fight sequence – rather than simply relying on quick cuts to cheaply juice the excitement level – it would be just about a completely perfect film; as it is, we must settle for very, very good instead.

Reading MGK’s post about the recent resurrection of Kraven the Hunter reminds me of one of my core problems with superhero comics…not “comics these days”, not “Marvel Comics” or “DC Comics”, but one of those things that I always have to grit my teeth and ignore about the entire pulp-inspired genre of men and women with super-powers. And that’s the way that death and resurrection are treated so cavalierly. I’ve posted in the past on how it’s not just resurrection that’s the problem, but death itself: When death is common, resurrections have to be common or else you start running out of people to kill. This cheapens the sense of drama that death brings; how can you be worried that the main character might die if you know they’ll just be resurrected in five years?

But there have been some stories over the years where the death was intended to be permanent…and not just that, but the permanent death was used to craft a genuinely powerful and moving story about that character. Those stories deserve to be remembered, because it’s not their fault that someone decided later to bring the dead person back for a quick sales boost. So let’s talk about the truly great deaths, shall we?

5. Aunt May. I’m actually of the school that says Aunt May shouldn’t die, because despite the fact that her age and infirmity have almost become a running gag, she fulfills such a vital role in the Spider-Man storytelling engine that getting rid of her creates more problems than it solves. But if you have to kill her off, you’d have a hard time doing it better than in Amazing Spider-Man #400. This was exactly what her death needed to be–not at the hands of some super-villain or monster, but simply a gentle passage with her beloved nephew at her side. It was sweet, moving, and sad…even if her resurrection was probably necessary.

4. Supergirl/The Flash. I’m not really sure how much of this was actually the way they were written, and how much of it was just the sheer iconic majesty of their deaths as part of the universe-shattering Crisis on Infinite Earths. Of course, twenty-five years later, a generation of fan-turned-pro writers with meter-length hard-ons for the Silver Age has undone just about everything good about Crisis, and the deaths of Supergirl and the Flash are no exception. But at the time, Crisis genuinely felt epic because it wasn’t trying to be so self-consciously epic, and the deaths of Flash and Supergirl worked because they weren’t done just check off the “shocking death!” tick-boxes of that year’s crossovers.

3. Kraven the Hunter. The man who inspired the list. I actually think Kraven probably had a few good stories left in him when he died; strictly speaking, his death wasn’t “necessary”. But he was starting to become progressively more pathetic as time passed, and this story restored the menace and majesty to one of Lee and Ditko’s loopier creations. And even if it hadn’t ended with his death, it would have ended him as a character; once he defeated Spider-Man, what was left for him to do in the Spider-Man books? His suicide was somehow the least shocking element of the story, and the story was a masterful work of craft by some of the finest talents in comics.

2. Jean Grey. I’d argue that this one was a bit of a mistake, because Jean is such an iconic character in the X-books. But Claremont and Byrne didn’t plan to kill her to begin with, so I’ll give them a pass on that one…and they managed to turn the “problem” of killing Jean into one of the most dramatic scenes of sacrifice in Marvel history. The fact that it created years of hassles for later writers, who had to find a replacement for Jean, replace the replacement with Jean, and then merge Jean with her own replacement and then get rid of the replacement completely. (And then Grant Morrison made the indefensible mistake of killing Jean all over again, in a much less dramatic fashion for a much smaller pay-off. I loved Morrison’s run on X-Men, but he was edited way too lightly. Mark Powers should have recognized that Jean must have had some kind of value, or they wouldn’t have spent so much time and effort bringing her back in the first place. Throwing something away and finding out you need it later is an accident. Throwing something away, rooting through the trash to get it back, then throwing it away again later is just stupidity.)

1. Gwen Stacy and the Green Goblin. A triumph. A sheer, unmitigated triumph. The first half of the story has a wonderful atmosphere of gathering gloom, as what seems to be a standard rescue-the-hero’s-girlfriend story feels inexplicably ominous and ends not with a triumphant hero, but with Spider-Man cradling his girlfriend’s body and swearing murderous revenge on the villain. And unlike the other sixteen billion times that happens in a comics story, you felt a) like he really meant it and was going to do it, and b) genuinely unsettled. Spider-Man doesn’t kill. We all knew that. But we knew the Green Goblin really needed to die. The subsequent story elegantly resolved that with a death that felt like the universe was punishing the Goblin, like his death was karmic retribution for his act of callous murder. The surprisingly adult ending to the story, with Peter realizing that vengeance was hollow and MJ discovering a new maturity by comforting him in his grief, was the icing on the cake. This was a genuinely stunning, brilliant story, and it says a lot that not even self-avowed “Gwen was Peter’s One True Love” fanboy and editor-in-chief Joe Quesada has been able to bring Gwen back. (As for the Green Goblin…don’t even get me started. Bob Harras was a Philistine.)

As always, feel free to add your opinions in the comments!

So Amazing Spider-Man has been running a sort of overall-metaplot called “The Gauntlet” all year, where the heirs of Kraven basically beef up every one of Spidey’s villains and then send them after him (or manipulate them into doing so). Originally, the implication was that the Kraven family was trying to knock Spidey down enough to then take him on themselves, a la Bane’s plan for Batman in “Knightfall.” This didn’t entirely work in terms of the stories that were being told, mostly because the rotating-writer-and-weekly format of ASM doesn’t lead itself to the sort of cohesive storytelling you want for this sort of plot, so at the same time as Spidey was fighting villain after villain, he was also engaging in all his other running subplots, which meant that the “beat him down into exhaustion” idea didn’t really work.

This became obvious early on, so the ASM writers collectively shifted gears (or maybe they intended it all along, but I don’t really think it reads that way) and shifted the Kraven family’s focus so that they weren’t so much interested in defeating Spider-Man as they were in changing his nature to become a more primal nature-warrior (the “Spyder”, a nice callback to “Kraven’s Last Hunt”) that they could then defeat. This worked much better with the nature of the comics model they were using, and some of the various rogues’ gallery stories that came about as a result are just instant classics. The Lizard four-parter has already been hailed in other quarters, and deservedly so, but the Rhino and Sandman stories were only a step behind, and the Electro and Mysterio ones quite decent as well; the only failure was the Vulture one, and that wasn’t bad so much as it was just kind of there.1

And then, in the dramatic conclusion of this year-long metaplot, it turned out the entire reason for all of it was… to bring Kraven back from the dead.2 This earns a “wait, what?” for two reasons.

Firstly, there really isn’t any reason to bring Kraven back from the dead. His death story is a classic, so it’s not like bringing him back avenges a sin against comics. (Whatever that is.) Kraven, more than most villains, is a really dated concept to boot.3 His heirs fulfill the functional purpose for his existence; you don’t need Kraven when Kraven’s Son or Kraven’s Wife or Kraven’s Daughter can do everything he can do anyway. And Kraven isn’t someone who should come back, frankly, even considering that comics characters do it all the time, because let’s not forget the reason he’s dead is that he committed suicide. The Chameleon points out in the story itself that resurrecting a character who killed himself is kind of a stupid idea, and as always, when characters in the story are pointing out that the premise of the story is stupid, you’re not in a great place.

Secondly, if you’re going to resurrect somebody with magic, you shouldn’t be doing it in Amazing Spider-Man, because Spider-Man’s world isn’t one where people magically come back to life (stupid deals with the devil aside); he’s not that sort of high adventure superhero comic. Spidey is street-level superheroics, even when he gets a little mystical. Spider-Man’s world is one where when you die, you’re dead: see Captain Stacy, Gwen Stacy, Jean DeWolff, the Tarantula, et cetera. If somebody gets killed in a Spider-Man comic and you want to bring them back, you need to establish that they were never really killed in the first place: see Norman Osborn, Aunt May or MJ, all of whom were thought dead at one point or another, but who were after-the-fact revealed to be not dead and Spidey just tricked.

However, there’s no way to use that method to bring back Kraven, since there is no way to write it so that Kraven didn’t really blow his head off. So instead, there’s another boring story about magic in a comic where it doesn’t really belong, and the resolution is that Kraven goes to the Savage Land until some other writer thinks of something to do with him, which – why would you go to all the trouble of resurrecting somebody like this if you don’t have a plan to do something with him? It’s a shame because most everything leading up to the reveal was really good, but the denouement was just unfortunate across-the-board.

1. Why do all the other classic villains get a revamp or a pump-up, and Adrian Toomes gets pushed off to the side for a newer, freakier Vulture? The Rhino story was good because the newer, meaner Rhino got absolutely destroyed by the old one, making it clear that the original was the badass. Why no love for the original Vulture? [↩]
2. I know there are some people who are all offended about Kaine and Mattie Franklin and Madame Web being killed off, but honestly, who the hell cares about them? [↩]
3. Remember: he’s a big game hunter turned baddie. A big game hunter. Do they even exist any more? [↩]

Your judges are the usual band of idiots. Ashley is injured this week, because everybody who deserves to win this show gets an injury this season, apparently. Possibly Nigel is wandering out backstage with a hammer taking out anybody who can keep Not Legacy from winning due to his wonderful personality or Kent because the girls love him.

Lauren and All-Star Mark: “cultural.” Which is their new catchphrase for “traditional cultural dance styles too small to merit their own category,” apparently. This week, it’s Tahitian dance (I don’t think the specific style was mentioned, but I’m pretty sure it was ‘o’tea). This is difficult for me to critique because what the hell do I know about the technique involved, but Lauren seemed to be doing well enough and Mark was, well, Mark – I’m pretty sure he can sell any dance on the planet so long as it isn’t two-step. The long and short of it is that I was greatly entertained, and that’s as specific as I can get here.

Adechike and All-Star Anya: salsa. Dear everybody on SYTCYD: the fastest salsa in the show’s history is Benji/Heidi from season two and nothing else even compares. This was… not terrible, as salsas on this show go. Mia actually rightly pointed out that Adechike’s basic was a little underemphasized (getting those hip swivels to be instinctive takes quite a lot of practice; I know whereof I speak), and I’d add that he overcommitted to some of the tricks, dancing through them too fully rather than getting that hint of resistance that Latin styles need so much. And the big stunts came across as clumsy rather than awesome. There have been worse salsas, and Adechike definitely had the personality for the routine, but… eh.

Not Legacy and All-Star Courtney: Broadway. This was arguably the worst Jose has danced all season, simply because in every other routine he’s been at least able to project his winning personality into his character and thus seem appealing; when called upon to actually act, he froze into this horrific pain-rictus, which made his bad dancing all the more glaring. Judges actually say, straight up, that he was bad, as hell freezes over.

Robert and All-Star Allison: contemporary. That was really lovely, and probably the best piece Travis has yet choreographed, and frankly a great leap forward for him as a choreographer. I get annoyed when the most applauded routines are inevitably Very Special routines, but this deserved the plaudits because it was genuinely just about perfect and the ending choreo with the paired feet was a very smart piece of work. Easily the best Robert has danced all season; the only thing I can say critically is that even at his best, Allison is still visibly better than him, which is the problem with the whole All-Star concept but we’ve already discussed that ad nauseam.

Billy and All-Star Anya (again): jive. Billy started out really nice here (and isn’t it great to see Louis van Amstel choreo again, I might add), with terrific snaps on his kicks, but after a little bit he stumbled a bit and got a bit clunkier. Not terrible by any means, but after such a promising start the rest just fell flat because that opening was so good and the rest just decent-ish. Still, probably the best partnering Billy has done all season. Anya maintains her perfect record this season of blowing every partner away.

Aw Shucks and All-Star Neil: Broadway. This was a reasonable bit of Broadway from Tasty, if only because he found a different element of Fosse to relentlessly Xerox. Kent danced well enough, but he wasn’t in Neil’s league, and Neil is something of a proto-Kent in that he surpassed dancers of greater skill based largely on winning personality and a few big tricks in his season. Neil is a better dancer now than he was but he’s still arguably the least skilled of the All-Stars; that Kent can’t dance at his level tells me that Kent probably isn’t good enough to win the whole thing, popularity with tweens or no.

Lauren and Billy: jazz. This was charming and fun, the first Mandy Moore routine in a very long time I’ve actively liked (as opposed to tolerated). Both Billy and Lauren danced it very well, and again Billy actually engaged his partner rather than just doing a Billy solo to different music with somebody else on stage. Billy is stepping up his game precisely when he really needs to do it, which bodes well for him. Lauren is just plain good.

Not Legacy and All-Star Dominic: B-boying. This was so greatly dissappointing, because regulars will know that I think the show gives street dancing pretty constant short shrift and all too frequently treats it as a sideshow, so I wanted a really great performance, and Jose was so clearly not in Dominic’s league: moves not as sharp, power not as impressive, behind the beat for good chunks of the routine. I should stop calling him Not Legacy and just go to Not Good Enough, because that’s simply what he is. Of course, the judges eat it up with a spoon because he’s such a sweetypie and isn’t breaking fascinating and etc.

Adechike and Aw Shucks: contemporary. Okay, Adechike busting on Kent having a crush on Lauren was fucking hilarious. The choreo was conceptually interesting and both danced it well. This was a perfectly good bit of dancing and I have nothing else really to say about it.

Robert and Substitute All-Star Kathryn: disco. Probably the best Dorianna Sanchez routine since season three’s with Sara and Neil; the lifts were better integrated than most of her routines by far. Robert danced quite well. Kathryn, as usual, was brilliant, and presumably was picked as a last-minute substitute because Kathryn can do anything. “Okay, we need somebody to dance a polka through a hail of bullets on twelve hours’ notice.” “Eh, just get Kathryn.”

Bottom three should be: Jose, Billy, Adechike.
Bottom three will be: Billy, Adechike, Ashley.
Should go home: Adechike.
Will go home: Adechike (if Ashley’s injury proves not a big thing) or Ashley (if it is).

So if you weren’t alert on the internets yesterday, you might have missed Isaiah Mustafa, the Old Spice Man, basically going nuts on the internet for Old Spice – first sending Digg cofounder Kevin Rose a “get well” video, and then putting up an Ask Me Anything post on Reddit and answering as many questions from just about every social media thing where Old Spice has a presence as humanly possible. (This probably hit the high mark when he proposed to someone for that someone’s someone.)

Thoughts in no particular order:

1.) If anybody wasn’t impressed with Isaiah Mustafa’s acting ability, they should be now. Granted, his original commercials with Old Spice were extremely impressive, but almost anybody can deliver lines well with a lot of practice and a bazillion takes, and the commercials were as much about the clever visual play as they were about the Old Spice Man being the Old Spice Man. Yesterday’s video blitz, however, was basically Mustafa standing in front of a camera while wearing a towel, occasionally striking a bit of a pose, and delivering lines in Old Spice Man mode (injecting additional bass into his voice, maintaining pleasant poker face, etc.) – and given the speed with which they were cranking these mini-ads out he didn’t have a lot of time to practice.1 Ironically, these mini-ads, which have to be vastly cheaper than the “real” ads Mustafa first performed in, required much more skill on his part. If nothing else, Mustafa has certainly earned a chance at his stated desire to play Luke Cage.

2.) For all that people are blathering about the “innovation” of the ad blitz – and I don’t want to take anything away from it, for it was clever – it relies heavily on tried and true comedic techniques. Overliteralism (pronouncing netspeak literally, saying punctuation aloud), silly phrases (“manly babies” is one of my favorites), grandiose boasting2, shoutouts to other minor celebrities, and self-referential metahumour aren’t anything new, and if the Old Spice Man were posting on 4chan he’d just seem like another /b/tard trying to get attention. But if you hit people in the face with them fast and furiously enough in a slightly unexpected format, they seem fresh.

3.) But it also works because of the comedy of repetition creating lowered expectations for a laugh. After all, in most of these videos, the Old Spice Man is just standing there, so when he breaks out an easel and canvas or a snorkel or a giant trophy, even though he’s not really doing anything except holding a prop, suddenly it seems incredibly fresh despite the fact that, if you think about it for a bit, it isn’t fresh at all. (Not that it isn’t still funny; it is. But it seems funnier than it is out of perceived novelty value. Only a few of the prop gag pieces are actually really top-notch among the entire selection.)

4.) The only time Mustafa nearly loses it is in this one, which is probably the best of them all.

1. At least a few of them, I am sure, he did cold. I leave it to the comments section to debate which. [↩]
2. Whether you prefer to compare to Chuck Norris jokes or Will Ferrell routines is your call. [↩]

East Timor. Odd progression because it starts out stately and dignified, and then after about thirty seconds or so jumps to a more uptempo march. It’s like there’s fifteen to twenty seconds of transition that are missing. Possibly Indonesia stole them. 71

Ecuador. If you close your eyes while listening to this, you can see the Bugs Bunny cartoon that would have used it for a score. Yosemite Sam is the villain, and he plays an evil South American duke of some kind. There is a bit where Bugs Bunny tricks Yosemite Sam into fighting an ostrich. The ostrich beats Sam up real good. 55

Egypt. Feels like an early exercise in grade-school music class, with the awkward tempo and odd pauses, and not least because of the percussion hitting every beat. You can just imagine little Timmy in the back hitting his cymbal and nodding his head to keep time, maybe with his tongue sticking out a little because he’s concentrating so hard and he really wants to hit that cymbal properly. 14

El Salvador. I know it runs 3:30, but that was literally the shortest version of it I could find. With all the trills and horn sections and fanfares I’m not sure how anybody sings to this anthem (yes, even considering they only apparently sing the chorus and first verse), but it’s definitely an endurance sport; this feels more like a movement of a symphony than a national anthem. Pretty, though. 72

Equitoreal Guinea. Entitled “Let Us Tread The Path,” but only officially. In the right circles in Equitorial Guinea, it is known as “Let The Day Workers Tread The Path For Us, Preferably While Carrying Our Laundry.” 34

Eritrea. I am unsure which is more disturbing: that this anthem is titled “Eritrea, Eritrea, Eritrea” and while listening to the instrumental you can tell exactly when you are supposed to sing “Eritrea,” or the fact that it sounds like a dorky polka no matter which version you listen to. 26

Estonia. This is kind of derivative, but on the other hand, apparently when sung the Estonian national anthem commonly only lasts thirty seconds. That’s awfully considerate of them, isn’t it? I think that’s considerate. 50

Ethiopia. It’s a bit of an interesting tune, but beyond that it’s also got a bit of distinctive African flavour in its musicality that so many African nations’ anthems lack. You’d almost expect it to predate colonialism, but of course it turns out that it was written in 1992, which is the other way to avoid the common “hey let’s have an anthem like France or England” trap so many African countries have fallen into. 76

Fiji. One of the few anthems written in two languages right off the bat, and much like Canada (which was also written in two languages from the beginning), the different sets of lyrics are completely dissimilar. The English version is your standard “God bless Fiji, becuase it’s awesome” but the Fijian version is “we should carefully elect honourable leaders because people, when you get down to it, are kind of bastards.” You have to admire that combination of candor and reflexive guilt. 80

Finland. Widely considered to have been copied from a German drinking song, either intentionally or accidentally, but nobody really seems to care. This tells you a number of things about Finland, most of them positive in my view. 74

France. Oh, come on, it’s “La Marseillaise.” It’s basically the entire reason countries have national anthems; everybody else heard this and said “well, we’d better have one too,” and either wrote something or promoted a song they’d already been using to celebrate wars and the like. This pretty much remains the gold standard for national anthems despite flagging a bit in the tail end, because the “bom bom BAH BAH bom bom BAH BAH BAH” opening is timeless. 96

Gabon. Kind of the Muppet Babies version of “La Marseillaise’s” Muppet Show; it takes the core element and goes further uptempo with it in a lighthearted sort of way to produce something that is entertaining, cute, and perhaps a little cloying. 68

The Gambia. You have to admire The Gambia, because it’s a seriously dinky little country that manages to do quite well as African nations go, but on top of that they have a really lovely little anthem that they acquired through the most practical of measures: they had a contest and opened it up to the whole world. “Hey, you got a good anthem for us? We’ll listen. We mean, we’ll actually listen.” Maybe the story would be even more stirring if it hadn’t been written by a couple of white people adapting a West African folksong into an anthem, but you take what you can get that’s good, I guess. 90

Georgia. Hey, you know how back in the 1980s when we had Commodore 64s and you would play Winter Games by EPYX and when you picked your country, you had the option of picking EPYX and EPYX would have its own anthem? This is a lot more generic and dull than the EPYX anthem was. 17

Germany. You really sometimes have to judge on a sliding scale, and let’s be honest: its history of great composers aside, the fact that the Germans have such a lovely national anthem when their language is basically composed of a lot of throat-clearing noises and screaming can only be construed as a magnificent victory. Also, the Germans get props for having the common sense to realize that the “Deutschland uber alles” opening has kind of bad connotations, and thus dropping it. (You may think this a minor thing, but when you consider that it took decades to change a redundant “we stand on guard” to “from far and wide” in O Canada, it’s actually quite impressive. People get upset when you point out that parts of their anthem are dreadfully offensive.) 93

Ghana. Ghana was going to get a reasonably high mark for their perfectly nice anthem (which never really stops ascending, but hey, you got to aspire to something). Unfortunately, Uruguay stole it. Them’s the breaks, Ghana! 56

Greece. Weirdly sounds like the entire orchestra is slightly drunk whenever it gets played. Also sounds like a drinking song, even more than Finland’s does. 41

Grenada. Like many anthems written in the 1960s and 70s, sounds like the composers threw half a dozen anthems into a blender, hit puree, and tried to play what came out of the blender and finally said “okay, that’s our anthem.” 39

Guatemala. Unlike most South American and Latin American anthems, this is actually fairly short. Also unlike most South American and Latin American anthems, it’s dreadfully boring. 45

Guinea. Possibly the most low-key, mournful anthem so far, and in a very weird way. This doesn’t have any big flourishes or fanfares; in frank it seems embarrassed to be played, and has some odd fast bits, sort of like the musicians are saying “oh god let’s just get this over with” and then the conductor catches them trying to rush and has to scold them with his little wavy stick. If this was my anthem I would honestly get depressed, and I don’t think I’m alone because most Youtubes of national anthems have tons of comments from natives and from foreigners saying “your anthem is pretty and your country is great,” but all the Guinea anthem vids have barely anything apart from a solitary, lonely “vive le guinee.” That’s just kind of sad. 25

Guinea-Bissau. Has a nice steady build leaving you expecting something and then suddenly it’s all over in a hurry, which may or may not be a metaphor for the history of African colonialism. 51

Guyana. I swear I’ve tried to listen to it seven times now and every time I get distracted. Presumably there is music of some kind? An orchestra? It’s like there’s some sort of distraction field. I’m not getting tired of doing this, either; I actually came back after doing a few more and I still can’t make myself listen to it. 50

Haiti. I know Haiti has had it rough lately and I’m inclined to be generous, but even so, this is barely an anthem; the second half is largely a repeat of the first half and the whole thing lasts forty seconds. If you want to hear the full version, it repeats the whole thing for another forty seconds. And it’s not really an outstanding forty seconds or anything. 19

Honduras. KETTLEDRUMS KETTLEDRUMS CYMBALS KETTLEDRUMS low-key woodwinds woodwinds woodwinds NOW MORE KETTLEDRUMS low-key woodwinds KETTLEDRUMS CYMBALS XYLOPHONE! If The Grunge Song had been written in 1915, it would be this. Not that that’s a bad thing. 63

Hungary. Is an out-and-out hymn (its title even translates to “Hymn”) rather than your standard “hey [country] is so great because of its [geographic features] and [people who can beat the snot out of other countries].” Really, including it in this list is like how that one kid at your school, the one who constantly trained for the Olympics and who attended maybe one class in seven because they were so busy, made it into the high school yearbook despite ninety-five percent of everybody never even speaking to them; it’s just a whole different sorta thing. 91

Iceland. Also a hymn. Also entitled “Hymn.” However, although not a bad piece of music by any stretch, it’s not nearly as good as Hungary’s, and that is why Hungary does not sue Iceland. That, and the fact that Iceland no longer has any money and would have to pay their damages out in herring. 72

India. The instrumental doesn’t really do it justice, because when you hear it played with Indian instruments it’s a lot more majestic, but even when it’s played with proper accompaniment it doesn’t change the fact that this anthem just sort of ends suddenly, at a point where you would honestly expect at the very least a sort of coda or maybe even a triumphant ending. Even when choirs sing it, there’s just this sort of “yep, that’s it” feeling. Weird. 60

Indonesia. Starts out kind of boring, but by the end it’s really quite enthralling (presumably they stole the good bits from East Timor after all), in the “professional wrestler late in his career entering the arena as fans cheer madly for the living legend” sort of way. Memo to Indonesian professional wrestlers: if you ever come to America, you’ve got a bit of a leg up right from the get-go because, like all dirty foreigner wrestlers, this can be your entrance music. 70

Iran. Was written by a committee. Sounds like every creative effort ever produced by a committee. 33

Iraq. Is also the unofficial anthem of Palestine, so I hope it’s not controversial to say that this is honestly a pretty nice bit of music; a bit repetitive to say the least, but it’s pleasant. It’s a far sight better than the Hussein-era anthem, to be sure. Clearly, from a musical standpoint, the invasion was justified. No, not really. 75

Ireland. Is a military march converted over to national anthem status and sounds like it. (This is not a bad thing, per se. But it is noticeable.) Also, the English version of the lyrics rhymes “Ireland” with “sireland,” which is perhaps the most desperate rhyme I’ve seen yet in any national anthem. Given that the writers could have gotten away with “Eire” for naming the country in the anthem and so many things rhyme with that, you just have to kind of shake your head. 72

Israel. Even sadder than Guinea’s anthem in its own way, but where Guinea’s anthem is sad because it seems conflicted and confused, Israel’s is an attempt to translate everything Jews have had to put up with for the last few thousand years into a couple of minutes of orchestration, and mostly succeeds at that. This is the sort of music to which elderly mothers beat their breast when something tragic happens. 86

Italy. Operatic as you would expect from Italy, and although it kind of gets lost in itself after a while, the only real downside is the pauses the orchestra has to take when musicians dive to the ground and clutch their faces in agony after the conductor waves his baton in their general direction. No, no, I’m kidding. They’ve got it down to such a science now that they don’t have to pause, they just keep playing while they dive. 81

Jamaica. Supremely calm and sedate; this anthem never gets excited. Even when the orchestra rises, it’s very steady and deliberate and measured. Make your own ganja joke; I have standards. 73

Japan. Powerful and dignified without being ostentatious or noisy. The Japanese national anthem is very Japanese in character; there’s a lot of national anthems that simply can’t say the same for their respective home countries. 92

Jordan. Seems stretched out; this isn’t a long anthem to begin with, and then you realize that this forty-second snippet is every verse of the song. Then you do a little research, and you find out every verse of the song is basically a long paean to how awesome the King of Jordan is. Then you wonder why the King of Jordan’s anthem is so mediocre. Surely he can have people punished for it. I mean, he’s the King. 42

According to I Write Like, apparently I write like Isaac Asimov, Stephen King, James Joyce, Agatha Christie, H.P. Lovecraft, Kurt Vonnegut, and Ian Fleming. There could be more, for all I know. Apparently I’m not that consistent.

The only consistent elements of this on a post-to-post basis are the following:

1.) Three Executives posts are all Agatha Christie. Which is eerie, because I’m pretty sure Agatha Christie never had a character who tried to eat gravel.

2.) Conversations with Flapjacks are always James Joyce. Which is eerier and a little freaky, to be honest.

3.) Stuff I write for Torontoist in “journalism mode” is Vonnegut. Which is the only element of the whole experiment I find flattering.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

So I was busy at the end of last week and missed the chance to comment on the Tories’ decision to scrap the full, proper census in favour of a “less intrusive” short form. David Eaves explains well enough that removing the long-form census hobbles government’s ability to perform social services for the general public (and of course it’s shocking that the Harper government would hobble the government’s ability to deliver public services) and Counternarratives pointed out that the reasoning behind the removal of the long-form census – privacy concerns – is stupid, considering that census participation is anonymized and then analyzed only in a giant aggregate mass.

But this isn’t about privacy, because that’s a silly concern, and Harper might be a bit of an ideologue but he’s never been a stupid one. And it’s not about the delivery of social services either, although that’s of course a wonderful bonus when you’re talking about a government which has made it quite clear they’re disinterested in providing them. This is, when you get to it, about accountability. Eaves mentions this when he points out that with less data, private citizens are less able to argue against government action (or, for that matter, large business action). But that’s just one aspect of it.

Censuses, at their heart, are the best single measure of longterm government performance, because they demonstrate longterm societal trends: population migration, demographic change, economic stability. When you consider the Harper government’s general lack of interest in accountability, them killing the census makes even more sense than it previously did; census data is among the best ways to hold a government accountable for their actions because it provides big-picture data, and a lot of it.

God, what a useless government we’ve got.