Raspberry House Blues by Linda Holeman (from Winnipeg!)

Raspberry House Blues is centered around a teenage girl named Poppy. I didn't find the story captivating as much as interesting. It didn't pull me in, but I got the story pretty well and in the end, I think it's a pretty good one. Poppy is going through a rebellious stage and is being totally hostile to her adopted mother, because of her desire to find her real mom. Poppy moves to Winnipeg while her adopted mom is out. She moves in with her dad, step mom and their kid in this phsyco, crazy house of snake oil and insanity (they let the kid shit on the floor until he learns for example). Luckily, Poppy is able to not spend to much time their.

As it says on the back of the book, Poppy's quest to find her real mother is all about the true meaning of love. At first, Poppy is depressed a lot, and has this thing called the M-book where she puts pictures of what she thinks her mom looks like. This obsession of filling this semi-imaginary hole in her life of not knowing her real mother creates a ton of anxiety and sadness. The way she escapes this in the end is by sharing her feelings with her accepting dad and step mom and a few other people, as well as a bit of trial and error. The character of Becca Jell is one of the main ones in the story. She's a dry-bed actress, never made it big in hollywood, and lives a weird, light fantasy life. Poppy actually thinks she's her mom and gets into this big imaginary fantasy.

With most books, you're left to imagine the setting and it's many described characteristics. It was a different experience for Raspberry House Blues because it's set in the Wolsely area of Winnipeg, and I'm very familiar with the surroundings they talk about. It's exciting when one of the characters mentions how he goes to Gordon Bell High School (the one I go to). That's one of the things that kept me going with this book.

How can I identify with this book though? Not directly of course, because my mom didn't abandon me, (or so I think). In an indirect way I can. The way Poppy got caught up in this imaginary world and distracted, thinking that she had to find her mother to be happy in life is a place everyone can get caught in. For example, say I want to go to bed and read at 9:00. First I have to play a bit of gamecube, then go on the computer and annoy everyone with my banter and then finally get in bed at 10:30. That's all on a slightly smaller scale but it's a form of procrastinating, and putting these imaginary barriers in front of ourselves so we won't have to deal with our real pressing issues, or goals. These distractions seem so real at the time, but they're fabricated unconsciously and most of the time we're living from the unconscious and we believe whatever it throws at us. So how is this all related to the true meaning of love? As I mentioned before, Poppy finds a community that listens to her struggle, and that helps her a lot, as I have with Watershed and my friends from school.

Overall, I would recommend this book to you. It's a pretty interesting story, and has a lot of the crazy stuff in Winnipeg that you could relate to.

The Iraq War

As you know, a rather pointless war in Iraq is going on right now. This has been an issue as of late, because no one can really find a reason for why it's happening. I'm here to decipher the issue a bit, and say what I think on the issue.

I think the whole issue is a obvious and silent attack on human rights, which I'll explain later. I'll focus on America for now, because if people protest in Canada, our government shouldn't be responsible for it all.

On that note, many people are left asking why? Why is this war happening? Many have devised ideas about why the US government is having it. I think that George Orwell's saying from 1984, "War is peace" applies here. The meaning behind this is if you are always waging war, the nation is always rooting for the government, although they're not really seeing what's happening. Basically, if you always have war, there is always something that everyone can root for and support, if the eternal war stops, then people start to see through the governments plans, which they don't want to happen. It's a matter of scapegoating. It's all a pretty dirty situation.

I think it's a combination of idea which include to get oil, the bigoted view the US has on other nations, previous negative dealings with Iraq, and events leading up from World War 1 as crazy as it may sound.

The obvious part of the human rights invasion is on the Iraq side. Beforehand, a cruel leadership suppressed the human spirit, and that created a pretty bad experience for the Iraqis, although it has been reported that the situation is not much better now.

The other, silent part of the human rights invasion is on the side of the protesters, specifically in America. Here are these people living in the wonderful "United" States, pouring their souls out to the government telling them how goddamn stupid they're being for attacking this place. Naturally, the government doesn't care at all. I think the ignorance that the government displays to half of it's population is insane. They claim that free speech is what they live by, but they don't listen to the free speech that is happening. The states will never be united if this massive devision is in place.

How could the US government fix itself up a bit? I think starting to listen more to their population would be a start and to basically get common sense. Of course there is a reason for why they're so ignorant. I think it's because of the personal experiences that they've had. Let's focus on George W. Bush. I think we could say that he leads a pretty shallow life, with his life containing a lot of confused wandering and probably shallow influence from his father. I don't think he's fit to lead a very troubled nation like the US is, but since he is, these problems are unavoidable. I don't think the nations problems are all at the fault of the current government. I think the main reason for all of it is the racist inertia that has been building since the beginning of the nation.

- Joel Penner

My Teeth

My teeth. I doubt most people think much about them, aside from the dentist. People noticed them when I got my braces, but still, they didn’t actually think about them. One day in the shower, the idea popped into my mind about how my teeth can parallel my attitude towards life in general, and how that view has changed.

I’ll assimilate all the years previous towards the change in attitude into one basic idea. I would brush my teeth before I went to bed. There were a few months where I would brush when I woke, and also floss. Whenever I would go to the dentist, I would be quivering with fear for the faint possibility of a cavity. Just the idea of it made me crazy, the needle getting thrust into my gums and a nasty drill being shoved into me. (This is probably inline with my fear of needles and other such related horrors of the world.) After the cleaning, I would go to Robin’s Donut’s with my mom and buy a donut or two. My very active dental life would go on as usual, with little to no modulation.

When I was 13 (also around when I received the coming of age present of braces), I started to dread brushing my teeth because it took a fair while and it bored the hell out of me. I would procrastinate from doing this, thus reducing my reading time and shortening my sleep. I stopped flossing altogether just since the braces made it unimaginably long and tedious and I didn’t see a point in doing it. This eventually progressed to my slightly apathetic attitude towards them I have now.

So what’s the significance of all this? Wow, Joel’s wild dental life has changed! OH BOY! I see it on how my attitude towards life has had a major shift. Before grade nine (easing up a bit in grade 8), I had a very legalistic air around me. I would silently loathe any person who swore, didn’t like music (amazingly) and got annoyed with anyone who would play it (aside from video game music, [I’m such a nerd]). I wasn’t too close with my friends aside from the ones in watershed, and I was very introverted (which I am still to some extent). Around the beginning of grade 9 my attitude towards everything started to slowly change. I gained a love for music which I thank my friends for. I became more social in a way and gained an off-beat sense of humour. I started to see more deeply in things, and also get caught up in my emotions a ton more (but isn’t that what life is for most teenagers).

Later on in the year, for better or worse, I also gained a sense of apathy for schoolwork I deemed useless (math, band, gym to name a few).

So how does this all tie in with my teeth? The sense of apathy towards them ties in with my schoolwork. But I think it’s all just part of the change that happened within me. I still don’t see the point of braces, do we all need to have perfect features?

- Joel Penner

The Over Rating of Marks in Education

In school, the things called marks (overrated little buggers meant to evaluate your progress in school. For most people, they are not a big deal, they come and go, and they don’t really think about them a lot. For others though, they can be a real problem (not in their eyes though). They can get obsessed with them and go insane! They lose sleep in some cases, think about their marks ALL the time, and sometimes to the extreme and commit suicide. It can also be a good thing sometimes, but I’ll talk about that later.

The first thing that persuades this obsession is pressure, from parents, teachers, peers, and other relations, especially parents. They force their kids to get good marks, and worry about them a lot. This worry eventually carries on to the kid. This pressure that always resides in the kids mind starts to take over and when a test or exam comes up, they start to cram this information in the fear of getting bad marks. This pressure environment that the kid experiences provides a conter-productive effect. Instead of digesting the information that they need to know, they stuff it down in haste and don’t learn anything for the long term.

This turns to obsession. This obsession and horrid pressure-environment consumes the child’s life and starts to annoy people around him or her. Personally, I don’t think that this is the point of public education. I think the point of our awesome (but over-conservative) education is to help us learn things for life. If you have a pressure-environment then you don’t really learn anything very well. The most dangerous part of marks is the personalization of them. When you get inflated with high marks, and depressed with low marks, then something needs to change. Living life and getting constant mood swings depending on the outside world can really screw you up. For the people that are obsessed with there marks, this is some good advice (also for the rest of the population as well.)

The other side of marks (opposite end of the extremity scale) is for people not doing to well. Then, its OK for the parents to point out that the kids are not doing well, and create a pressure-environment for them. For whatever reason, falling behind on your schoolwork and doing horrid is not a good thing. The people around the failing student should be pressured to strive for the better (unless that person has a valid reason for falling behind). Most of the time, marks are a good tool for evaluating your progress in education. All in all, paying attention to marks when you are doing bad (as long as you don’t let it affect you to much) can be a helpful thing.

Similarities and Differences Between Canada and the United States

Canada and the United States may seem similar at a glance, since we both run on a democracy, and theoretically have free speech and voting and equal rights for most groups of people. This is partly true, we are similar in a lot of ways, but there are also a ton of ways in which the two great nations are different.

For one of the biggest and most personal topic for a lot of people, is culture. In Canada here, the official policy is a “cultural mosaic”. A good example of this is Gordon Bell. Say Gordon Bell is a rough representation of Canada. All of the time there are new kids coming in from different religions and places all over the world. There is also this immense cultural diversity within our country. Our government makes an effort to preserve each culture through programs which support the different cultures. The United States cultural policy is a “melting pot”. I don’t know a good example for it, but it is basically where anyone can come into the country (although there have been cases of discrimination and prejudice with the border crosses and immigration officials). The government doesn’t make much of an effort to save the individual cultures, and they kind of become one massive culture.

The economical differences between the two are a bit more subtle than the cultural differences. Canada has a mixture of a planned and free-enterprise economy. An example of the planned economy is a wal-mart popping up in your neighborhood. This building is owned by a private company, and is not at all controlled by the government aside from the standards and laws it has to comply to for the local area. An example of our planned economical side is garbage pickup (although there is rumor of this becoming privatized). Winnipeg’s municipal government pays for city-wide garbage pick up with tax money that the government dudes get from us. The United States is mostly a free-enterprise economy. An example of this is the common stereotype of America’s greed for money and everything else. There are also a lot more businesses in America, and a lot more riches focused in small places.

Our governments are very different. Ignoring the political parties, and how they run the countries. We have a parliamentary style of government. This is where all political parties get a place in Ottawa (assuming they’re voted in). I think this gives a more equal representation of what people want. The US has a senatorial style. This means that the party that wins the election gets FULL control over the United States. This can be good in some cases, but in others like the republicans getting voted in I don’t think its good. They have to much power for such a stupid group of people.

Our practices in the global relations sector are vastly different. The US likes to think of itself as a “superpower”. I think they have to much power, and the government is full of itself. They force countries to comply with there rules, or else they don’t get the same benefits as nations who agree with them. Canada as a nation is more peaceful. We play along and support the more peaceful side of the world. We aren’t as much of an influence as the US is, and we do sort of play along with them, but as seen in the Iraq war, we aren’t afraid to disagree with them.

Now for sports! Canada as you may know loves hockey (PROBABLY because of our slightly colder weather). We also love golfing and swimming! The US as you may know loves football. This is probably because it can be played anywhere, and is thought of a “tougher” sport. The US has a tough image, although not very accurate, so this would make sense. Basketball and baseball are also loved. Baseball used to be the most popular sport in the US!

- Joel Penner

Second Sight (PS2 Game)

This is odd, you usually hear about people writing reviews to games, but you don’t usually hear of personal responses to them. I do them with books, so why not with games?

The game follows the main character, Vattic. He has been summoned by the US army to help solve a very deceptive conspiracy involving people carrying out horrendous experiments on children. The way the story is carried out is very clever. Half the game you are playing in the “present”, and half the time you are playing in the “past” (which appears in the form of flashbacks); finding out why the hell you woke up in a mental facility (where you start the game)! The way Vattic pulls through with this superhuman task of going through swoths of armed and trained guards is that he has crazy psychic abilities, like charm which makes you go invisible and telekinesis which lets you throw objects and people around (heh). You also carry an arensal of firearms, which can be used very effectively since the controls were crafted very intelligently.

Vattic’s character is pretty wild. If you ignore the constant murdering of the infinite amount of guards, he’s a pretty compassionate person. It’s interesting, the story is played out with the view on that you’re good and the enemy is evil (which is the case with a lot of stories), and on the way to saving the children, he probably has killed 100 times more than then the “bad” guys have done. Ignoring that, he cares for his imprisoned friend Jayne, and saves her from a psychic ward which was a huge act of courage. He also has the desire to do what is ultimately right, in trying to save the tortured children, even though he's not taking into account the lives he is ending. In a way, it's your typical slightly American conspiracy story.

It’s a bit harder to write about the story of a video game, because typically the stories in video-games are nonexistent or really badly done. The story for Second Sight isn’t THAT good if you think about it, but I still enjoyed it. It’s a great contrast to 90% of the completely crappy games. You can tell with Second Sight that they had fun making the game, and everyone’s creativity was used. The voice acting is superb, the music draws you into the game and creates a very eerie atmosphere. The visuals are also pretty well done.

An interesting thing to look for in a game is it’s message. Is there one in Second Sight? The title is most definitely referring to the physic powers your character possesses. The meaning of the game in general is semi-clear. The developers might have had some experience, or anger towards big corporations. The reason I say that is because in the game, the children (basis of the conspiracy) are treated like possessions by the big corporations who are managing the experiment. For example, there is one chapter where the guards are named “suits”, and they show no compassion and are not pleasant people to be around. It’s pretty hard to theorize a meaning when the line between good and evil is so clearly defined and so extremely carried out. Overall though, the meaning could be how we humans can get so greedy with money that we forget about love.

Overall, I really enjoyed this game. I felt as if the Playstation 2 controller was an extension of my body. This is how i want video-gaming to be, but it's not how most people perceive it.