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noetus

Listed below are comments made by noetus between Sunday, 27th April 2008 and Tuesday, 31st March 2009.

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The best prepared award 1:30pm on 31 Mar 2009 A pity this rather boring-sounding journalist has to jump all over that well-worn saw that Canada is 'boring'. Not very original. And rather ignorant. One expects more from a BBC journalist.

Try substituting 'sensible' for 'boring' and the article makes more sense. And by the way, a sensibly run economy is perfectly consistent with a culturally innovative and reasonably exciting country. Take some examples. Dan Akroyd, Donald Sutherland, William Shatner, John Candy, Robert Bateman, Emily Carr, Conrad Black, David Cronenberg, Jack Warner, James Cameron, Bryan Adams, Leonard Cohen, Glenn Gould, K.D. Lang, Sarah McLachlan, Oscar Peterson, Alanis Morissette, Neil Young, Pamela Anderson, Margaret Atwood, Saul Bellow, Robertson Davies, William Gibson, Michael Ondaatje, Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, Frank Shuster, Le Cirque du Soleil. Um, clearly a boring lot, yeah? By the way, I don't come from Canada or live there.
Oud awakening 7:58pm on 20 Sep 2008 I am sorry, Rahim may be a brilliant musician but he is quite ignorant about North America, his new adopted continent.

He says that Canadians are just like Americans, including the way they have treated Mexico?

Speaking as a Scot who has lived extensively in the US (Berkeley CA, Denver CO, Chicago IL, New York City, and Cambridge MA) for 8 years and also in Canada before that I can say that Canada is QUITE unlike the US, even though it may superficially look a bit like its smaller (geographically) brasher neighbour to the south (for example, I guess it uses some of the same street signs).

I looked at Rahim's website and there is a listing there of all his concerts, from 2000 to 2009. An impressive list, to be sure, and very long. But not a SINGLE concert in Canada in all that time. In fact, since 2001, Rahim has played all his concerts on US soil.

I conclude that Rahim has been brainwashed by the stereotypical image most Americans have of Canada (usually never having been there or got to know any Canadians, of course).

That's a pity. I am sure if he actually went to Canada and played a few concerts there, they would love him.

Remember, I am speaking as a Scot, not an irked Canadian. And I have lived in Mexico too, and I know that Mexicans typically think of Canada in quite different terms from the US.

And as for treating Mexico in the same way? That's quite offensive, really. For a start, Canada isn't building any long walls on its border. It doesn't make undocumented presence a crime. Immigration and travel to Canada from Mexico is easier. And the NAFTA agreement was imposed on Mexico by the US (albeit with the help of a complacent Mexican government at the time), not Canada. Canada has its own issues with the US on NAFTA - for example in the way it has signed its water rights away, and opened up its borders to the influx of American media (especially print media).

Please, Rahim, go to Canada and play a few concerts there.
Who is more electable? 5:07pm on 27 Apr 2008 Dear Justin,

I enjoy reading your blog but I find your analysis a bit simplistic at times. Your latest contribution got me riled up enough to motivate me to respond. I'm referring to your article "America's safety catch" in which you argue that America is, or at any rate feels like, a peaceful and tranquil place, despite (or even perhaps because of) the proliferation of guns.

Well, I'm a Brit who's live in the US since 2000, in Chicago mostly, but I've also lived in the San Francisco bay area and most recently in Manhattan. My sister lives in Flint, Michigan and I have visited her there often. And I do not agree.

To me, the US is a country polarized by money, both its surfeit and its lack. If you frequent only the places that are moneyed you do get the impression of peace and tranquility. Recently I enjoyed a stint in Falmouth, Cape Cod, courtesy of a friend who loaned me her summer house, and it was lovely. Full of tranquil, laid back, and friendly people. But many, or perhaps most, people who actually live in the US are not so fortunate, and do not have such peaceful lives.

Just look at a NYT headline from today, 'After Killings, Escorts for Chicago Students'. I find it very sad that kids going to school have to herd together to travel in groups for fear of being randomly shot. Since the beginning of the school year, '24 public school students here have been murdered, mostly by gunfire', claims the article. The groups of kids in 'joyless parades' wear special brightly-coloured vests, and are sometimes escorted by the police. Fear of violence is real, and many, many people live with it in their daily lives.

You live in Washington, DC, one of the most violent places in the US, and yet you still claim the US is 'peaceful and tranquil'? That is probably because you have your nice BBC salary, enjoy full health care, live in a nice area, and are whisked by taxi and limousine from place to place. I would have thought that as a responsible BBC journalist, you would feel it incumbent to report on the reality of daily life in the US, not just the perspective of coddled journalists and tourists with money.

As for me, I have lived life as a graduate student here since 2000, which means I don't have much money and can't afford an apartment that costs more than $750 a month for my share. In Manhattan I live far north, at 147th St, way beyond where any tourists come, or any residents of Manhattan below 86th St for that matter. When I was in Falmouth, I had to be treated at the local hospital. I got excellent treatment, of course, because it is a wealthy area (very unlike some earlier treatment I got in Manhattan). The doctor was surprised to hear I live in Harlem. "When I was in New York, back in the 80s, anything above 100th St was unlivable. Has all that changed?", he asked. Unlivable by whom, I wondered? Well, I guess wealthy doctors, of course. And anyone else the wealthy doctors assume are just like them.

Violence, or the threat of it, is an aspect of daily life here. My girlfriend (who is American) will not go out of the apartment at night unaccompanied, period. During the day she gets hassled and cat-called every time she makes the short trip to the subway stop. Along with the threat of violence, there is poverty. Despite the high rents (compared to the rest of the country), there is literally nowhere in the neighbourhood where you can eat food that is half-edible (never mind healthy). A train ride to another part of the island is necessary, a part, of course, with more money.

Before moving to New York I lived in Hyde Park, Chicago, a few blocks from Barack Obama's house as it happens, and violence there is also a part of daily life. People will not venture onto streets at night. As a unaccompanied white male, I often felt nervous walking at night and would not venture down sidestreets. Everyone has been mugged or knows someone who has been mugged, often at gunpoint. The international students take the campus bus home from the library at night, never walk, and never get over their fear of the neighborhood - certainly not wondering, on their second and third day, 'what all the fuss was about'. And they are right to be concerned - reading the crime statistics, published by the police each week, is enough to fill you with fear. An international student was shot and killed in Hyde Park as recently as a few months ago. Every now and then, a student will commit suicide (by gunshot) in the toilets of the university library.

The point of view you and the tourists enjoy is a privileged one, enjoyed by a minority. My sister, whom I mentioned lives in Flint, Michigan, doesn't bat an eyelid to hear the crackle of automatic gunfire at night. Once she looked out her window and an automatic rifle (something like an AK47) was lying abandoned in the street, dropped there by some gang member fleeing the police. She bought her house for $15,000 cash, which tells you something. A pregnant friend of hers was walking down the street one day when a random bullet whizzed by, inches away, and embedded itself in the wall next to her.

Even supposedly 'laid back' Berkeley, where I lived for half a year, had violence in the air. The residents of a house where I lived, a co-op with (relatively) cheap rent, were constantly obsessing about the suspicious looking characters hanging around in the street outside. In the evening, people would venture out only in groups. Would they rob us? Would they mug us if we go out at night? Again, the crime statistics, if you care to look, revealed this to be no idle fear. Just walking down the street, it wasn't an uncommon experience for me to be shouted at aggressively by random strangers, frustrated by something in their poverty-stricken lives, and taking it out on whatever random person seemed most unlike them.

America is FULL of violence, and the fear of violence. But, unlike in the UK, it is also true that in America, if you have money, you can largely transport yourself away from all this. You can stay sealed in your house, in your nice community (gated, if you like), and in your car. You stick to frequenting places frequented only by other people with money, and you smile and joke pleasantly, reaffirming the reputation of America for its 'openness'. All in all, with money, you can pretend the daily threat of violence simply doesn't exist, and many Americans (and foreign correspondents, apparently) do just that.
Who is more electable? 5:00pm on 27 Apr 2008 Dear Justin,

I enjoy reading your blog but I find your analysis a bit simplistic at times. Your latest contribution got me riled up enough to motivate me to respond. I'm referring to your contribution "America's safety catch" in which you argue that America is, or at any rate feels like, a peaceful and tranquil place, despite (or even perhaps because of) the proliferation of guns.

Well, I'm a Brit who's live in the US since 2000, in Chicago mostly, but I've also lived in the San Francisco bay area and most recently in Manhattan. My sister lives in Flint, Michigan and I have visited her there often. And I do not agree.

To me, the US is a country polarized by money, both its surfeit and its lack. If you only frequent only the places that are moneyed you do get the impression of peace and tranquility. Recently I enjoyed a stint in Falmouth, Cape Cod, courtesy of a friend who loaned me her summer house, and it was lovely. Full of tranquil, laid back, and friendly people. But many, or perhaps most, people who actually live in the US are not so fortunate, and do not have such peaceful lives.

Just look at a NYT headline from today, 'After Killings, Escorts for Chicago Students'. I find it very sad that kids going to school have to herd together to travel in groups for fear of being randomly shot. Since the beginning of the school year, '24 public school students here have been murdered, mostly by gunfire', claims the article. The groups of kids in 'joyless parades' wear special brightly-coloured vests, and are sometimes escorted by the police. Fear of violence is real, and many, many people live with it in their daily lives.

You live in Washington, DC, one of the most violent places in the US, and yet you still claim the US is 'peaceful and tranquil'? That is probably because you have your nice BBC salary, enjoy full health care, live in a nice area, and are whisked by taxi and limousine from place to place. I would have thought that as a responsible BBC journalist, you would feel it incumbent to report on the reality of daily life in the US, not just the perspective of coddled journalists and tourists with money.

As for me, I have lived life as a graduate student here since 2000, which means I don't have much money and can't afford an apartment that costs more than $750 a month for my share. In Manhattan I live far north, at 147th St, way beyond where any tourists come, or any residents of Manhattan below 86th St for that matter. When I was in Falmouth, I had to be treated at the local hospital. I got excellent treatment, of course, because it is a wealthy area (very unlike some earlier treatment I got in Manhattan). The doctor was surprised to hear I live in Harlem. "When I was in New York, back in the 80s, anything above 100th St was unlivable. Has all that changed?", he asked. Unlivable by whom, I wondered? Well, I guess wealthy doctors, of course. And anyone else the wealthy doctors assume are just like them.

Violence, or the threat of it, is an aspect of daily life here. My girlfriend (who is American) will not go out of the apartment at night unaccompanied, period. During the day she gets hassled and cat-called every time she makes the short trip to the subway stop. Along with the threat of violence, there is poverty. Despite the high rents (compared to the rest of the country), there is literally nowhere in the neighbourhood where you can eat food that is half-edible (never mind healthy). A train ride to another part of the island is necessary, a part, of course, with more money.

Before moving to New York I lived in Hyde Park, Chicago, a few blocks from Barack Obama's house as it happens, and violence there is also a part of daily life. People will not venture onto streets at night. As a unaccompanied white male, I often felt nervous walking at night and would not venture down sidestreets. Everyone has been mugged or knows someone who has been mugged, often at gunpoint. The international students take the campus bus home from the library at night, never walk, and never get over their fear of the neighborhood - certainly not wondering, on their second and third day, 'what all the fuss was about'. And they are right to be concerned - reading the crime statistics, published by the police each week, is enough to fill you with fear. An international student was shot and killed in Hyde Park as recently as a few months ago. Every now and then, a student will commit suicide (by gunshot) in the toilets of the university library.

The point of view you and the tourists enjoy is a privileged one, enjoyed by a minority. My sister, who I mentioned lives in Flint, Michigan, doesn't bat an eyelid to hear the crackle of automatic gunfire at night. Once she looked out her window and an abandoned automatic rifle (something like an AK47) was lying abandoned in the street, dropped there by some gang member fleeing the police. She bought her house for $15,000 cash, which tells you something. A pregnant friend of hers was walking down the street one day when a random bullet whizzed by, inches away, and embedded itself in the wall next to her.

Even supposedly 'laid back' Berkeley, where I lived for half a year, had violence in the air. The residents of a house where I lived, a co-op with (relatively) cheap rent, were constantly obsessing about the suspicious looking characters hanging around the street outside. In the evening, people would venture out only in groups. Would they rob us? Would they mug us if we go out at night? Again, the crime statistics, if you care to look, revealed this to be no idle fear. Just walking down the street, it wasn't an uncommon experience for me to be shouted at aggressively by random strangers, frustrated by something in their poverty-stricken lives, and taking it out on whatever random person seemed most unlike them.

America is FULL of violence, and the fear of violence. But, unlike in the UK, it is also true that in America, if you have money, you can largely transport yourself away from all this. You can stay sealed in your house, in your nice community (gated, if you like), and in your car. You stick to frequenting places frequented only by other people with money, and you smile and joke pleasantly, reaffirming the reputation of America for its 'openness'. All in all, with money, you can pretend the daily threat of violence simply doesn't exist, and many Americans (and foreign correspondents, apparently) do just that.

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