MentalPolyphonics.com

Lefties say that street people just need opportunities to get traditional work; righties say that the homeless are too lazy to work. I have three business models that prove them both wrong: bottle refunds, windshield washing, and panhandling. These people are willing to do flexible, independent work. But none of these labours adds wealth to the economy - it’s like paying people to dig holes and fill them back in. Why can’t we come up with something more useful to pay them for?

Retail and tourism complain about street people. The knee-jerk policy is to ask businesses what they don’t like and ban it. I put my economist hat on and my first thought was “no, we need to cause the ends, not the means: tie social assistance to the revenue of downtown retail and tourism”. But that’s too indirect to influence behaviour and I can think of all sorts of problems.

How can we leverage the entrepreneurial spirit of street people to improve the ambiance of downtown? Here’s the idea I’m working on right now:

1. Outsource the cleaning and beautification of city streets by the block
2. Encourage subcontracting and dispute resolution
3. Turn current city cleaning staff into assessors
4. Provide a short feedback loop with performance incentives and contract forfeiture

The idea is that, since street people are downtown anyway, they’re well-positioned to be caretakers. Tidying and encouraging other people to act nicely is flexible, independent work. It directs our money to the results we desire instead of wealth redistribution by market failure.

I must see Love:

Before I start I think I should acknowledge that this post might make people uncomfortable. For what it’s worth Baudrillard once said, “God exists, but I don’t believe in him.” If you turn that statement into a truth table, I’ve held the opinion in every quadrant. Some of this guy’s views are what I’d call a cold and broken hallelujah. All of them I take with a grain of cultural relativism, and, yes, perhaps some cowardice.

Today I woke up late and took a taxi to work. I asked the driver how his day was going.

“An abortionist,” he said, “has just received the Order of Canada. The holy scriptures say that murder is wrong. Who is Canada to decide otherwise?”

That gave me pause. It’s not often that “how’s your day going?” kicks off an anti-abortion rant. Still, situations like this are why I bother asking. I thought for a while before I said anything. Silence is passive-aggressive, but speaking quickly here would probably turn out poorly. This was approximately what I thought:

“Well, I have to disagree with this guy. I hope he’s not really really crazy, I don’t want to get kicked out of the car halfway to work. Perhaps I should say something non-committal in the interests of being polite.”

I was once in group therapy for several months. One of the members of the group was suicidal because she’d had an abortion a decade before, when she was 18. She told us she was deeply, perhaps permanently guilty about it. This thought occurred to me as I sat in the cab.

“I think that some people,” I finally replied, “underestimate the emotional costs of an abortion.”

“And gay marriage is legal here too!”

Well, there’s nothing to say to that. I’m a hyper-liberal marriage guy. I’m even pro-polygamy. But then, he might be too. Maybe I’ll try for the conversion.

“I read a book recently,” I changed the subject, “called A Year of Living Biblically. The author lived the Bible as literally as possible for a year. He found that literal readings of the scriptures are impossible to live by. You must interpret.”

“Yes! Exactly! God provides the general principles. It is up to every man to decide how to apply the Holy Book to his own life, with the help of his Imam.”

I thought that was a surprisingly nuanced opinion. The driver began to remind me of a boss I had once: Bob, for those of you who know him. Bob is the kind of person whose religiosity permeates his entire life.

“I was studying the Koran last night and I read about the method we must use (I am Muslim) to wash ourselves before prayer. The Imams say that, practically, there is a simpler way of washing. This differs from the word of God, so I must decide what to believe.”

He continued, “It’s like how, in my country…”

“Where are you from?” I interrupted. I always try to ask cabbies who aren’t obviously local this question. Sometimes my White fear of looking racist gets the better of me and I don’t ask.

“India,” he said, “and Pakistan.” I heard, “कश्मीर“, but who am I to say?

“In my country, when a man dies and leaves an inheritance to his children, the daughters get a half-share. The sons get a full share. Here in Canada it is fifty-fifty. I have to choose which is right: what is equal, or what is the word of God.”

“Right,” I said, “Jesus taught in parables and metaphors. If you take that part of scripture literally you’re actually missing the message. Interpretation is everything.” We seemed to be getting along.

“I have a niece in Pakistan who is marrying a man here. My brother called me and asked me to meet them and make sure they’re good Muslims. I have heard they are very religious, so I said I would visit without my wife — she doesn’t wear a head scarf and I don’t want to offend them.”

“I grew up in Victoria, no one there wears a head scarf. It was amazing coming to Vancouver seeing how many women do.”

“They like it! Women like being respected! When I meet a woman I tell her, ‘please don’t take offense, but I cannot shake your hand. You are not my relative and it is forbidden. You are very beautiful, but I cannot.’ They love it. Sometimes I bless them.”

“The men here dress inappropriately”, he continued, “where I come from men grow mustaches so that people can tell them apart from the women. Here men even pierce their ears!” He stroked his goatee as he said this. I’m insecure enough that I was glad I didn’t have time to shave — stubble.

“Yeah, I read another book called The Fat Years and one of the things he talks about is how piercings have become meaningless.”

“Male earrings started as a way for criminals to recognize each other. Drug dealers. People take too many drugs.”

I was silent here for a while. I’m not anti-drug. Drugs do, however, remind me of the homeless. Another bonding opportunity! But I must be careful. There’s a scripturally-correct way to say this…

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I started, “I’m not trying to brag. I never pass a homeless person without giving them money. People tell me I shouldn’t, that they should get a job or that they’ll just spend it on drugs. I say, ‘who am I to judge them?’”

“Fantastic!”, he was really happy, “Allah will give you a 10% return in this life and double in Heaven!”

I went to Catholic school until I was 15 and this was the first time anyone ever told me I was going to Heaven. It felt great and I broke out smiling. I don’t even believe in Heaven.

“But there is a story of the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, where a man came to visit him, begging for money, for three days. On the fourth day the Prophet, peace be upon him, asked his followers, “can one of you buy him an axe?” and “can one of you buy him a rope?” and they did. He told the man to go to the forest and cut wood to sell in the market. “It is better”, said the Prophet, peace be upon him, “to work than to beg.”

“We have a saying too. ‘If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for life.’ It’s interesting how morality is relatively consistent across cultures.” It’s interesting how brevity makes for clarity too…

We were getting close to work. The Cabbie asked me if I knew “Cat Stevens? The singer?”

“Yeah, the one that converted to Islam.”

“He said that he would never have converted if he just looked at the actions of Muslims. One day his brother gave him a copy of the Koran. He read it and converted.”

I thought for a while. I’ve always wanted to read the Koran. “What’s your opinion? Should the Koran be read in Arabic or is English okay?”

“English is fine, Muslims just need to learn Arabic…”

“To recite the Creed”, I interrupted again.

“Right. $35.85, please.”

“Here you go, could I get $5 back? Thanks. And can I just say, ‘السلام عليكم‘.”

“Wa ‘Alaykum As-Salām! God bless you!”

Sorry, Sister Green. I guess life really is a traffic jam:

The whole movie is about trying to get healthcare in America. Really, the whole thing.

Hopefully public health swoops in and saves the day in that poor benighted country.

[Edited the video to be more on-point for those who haven’t seen the movie and to reflect Tom’s comment.]

One of my friends got laid-off today and he was pissed enough to decide to leak the circumstances. I believe this may be a scoop:

There’s a videogame studio in Vancouver called Backbone Entertainment that belongs to a production company called Foundation 9. They just fired everyone except for a handful of developers (6 out of 50+). Backbone was the largest developer of XBox Live Arcade games, including the 2007 hit Bomberman Live. They make other games, too, like Sonic The Hedgehog for the PSP, and are about to release a game called Monster Lab.

XBox Live Arcade - where you download games instead of buying them in the store - is the key business model for Microsoft’s XBox. Two months ago Microsoft lowered its royalty payouts to third-party developers for the games. So maybe this is a sign that the XBox franchise is in trouble?

Vancouver’s video game industry is doing pretty well; but, besides EA, Backbone was one of the biggest employers. Whatever all those developers suddenly on the market end up doing will be a major factor in how the industry grows.

[Edit: Added to Games category.]

I read 2/3rds of this guy’s first book today:

What is she looking forward to?

Come to think of it, caption, she probably wasn’t paying attention.

He seems like the real deal, review forthcoming.

Oh, and fuck the haters: “funnily” is a word.

For some reason I can’t remember, I ended up looking into early BC history on Wikipedia the other day. If any of this was taught in school, I either wasn’t paying attention or wasn’t in class. I’ll assume you weren’t either:

In the 1860s, the colony of BC was run by an aristocracy. The colony was heavily in debt from building infrastructure to support a series of gold rushes. They agreed to join Canada on three conditions:

1. The province would remain governed by the aristocracy.
2. The federal government would assume all the province’s debt.
3. A trans-continental railroad would be built to Victoria within 10 years of Confederation.

The federal negotiators initially agreed to all conditions. They later changed their mind about the first condition, which is just as well because Amor De Cosmos* and his buddies were threatening revolution otherwise. Confederation took place in 1871.

It took 19 years for the Canadian Pacific Railway to be built to its terminus in Vancouver. As you can see, the federal government still hasn’t built it to Victoria. Now I’m not suggesting we got tricked into confederation like Newfoundland, or illegally annexed like Texas, but it’s something to think about while you wave your little red and white flag today (especially if you’re waving it beside one that looks quite colonial).

* BC’s second Premier. He changed his name to something like “Lover of the Universe” while living in California before moving to BC. As you can see, BC has been like this long before the 60s.

Nostalgia grips me:

I’ve always loved Folk music, evidently.

Dr. Tolkein was marking homework one day when inspiration struck. He flipped over the paper he was reading and wrote, on the blank reverse:

In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.

The rest was just exposition. What’s a Hobbit? What if he left the hole?

In a few minutes I turn 28. I’m over in Victoria to celebrate.

I am centred. All is well.