Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The "ideas" or "cognitions" in question may include attitudes andbeliefs, the awareness of one's behavior, and facts.

I always laugh when I see people rail on about "gentrification." Take this quote from the Toronto Star for example.

"Community Activist and artist Misha Glouberman says it's unfortunate how little the city appears to have learned as it attempts to slow fast-gentrifying Ossington Ave."

Translation: "Unemployed busy-body Misha Glouberman is pissed off that the city is not artificially stifling the revitalization of a former shit hole, and her rent is going up as a result."

The problem with letting an area stagnate is that you get the Danforth, east of Jones Ave. which is described as

"...An auto shop. A fried chicken joint. A funeral parlour. Coxwell is the dividing line.

By Main Street, bars on shop windows, payday loan stores and dingy pubs are the norm. Drifters who have been turned away from the local shelter sleep in long alleyways. Dealers work out of side-street crack houses. Prostitutes walk the Victoria Park strip."

Do you not see the inherent contradictions in this article? You want the "authentic character" of an "up and coming" neighborhood? Be prepared to deal with the drugs, the squalor and worst of all, the real working class who don't share your enthusiasm for ironic clothing, heirloom vegetables and organic, sustainable coffee shops.

Yes, there are downsides, like rents going up, and people without an endless credit line from the Bank of Mommy and Daddy have to move. But if you came here for school within the last four years (and a lot of my readers have) then know that not long before you got here, before the Drake, West Queen West and the fixed-gear riders with Civil War General facial hair, Ossington, Parkdale, Trinity Bellwoods; you would not walk around there at night, unless you were looking to score crack or get shanked.

Get a fucking grip people. The cost of everything is going up, the services we get are stagnating or getting worse, we have a loose canon premier who wants to run your life, and your blood pressure is rising because a few places where you can grab a stiff drink or a bite to eat want to open up or, god forbid, stay open past 11 p.m?

This is why we'll never be New York, Chicago or even Montreal. That and our collective paralysis when celebrities descend on our city for a week.

Don Draper

Ask Men names Don Draper the most influential Man of the year.

Don Draper may be a fictional character on AMC's Mad Men, but he's just as real as any other public personality you can think of. Celebrities are brands, with carefully constructed images, and most of us are just as likely to have a beer with Don Draper as with anybody else on this list. What matters is that Draper's hardass 1960s persona represents something about male identity that is enduringly captivating but has nonetheless vanished. The man that Don Draper is -- value-driven and thoroughly masculine -- is the product of a bygone era; without him, there would be no contemporary figure to represent it. Yet, as removed as his persona may be, it is also contemporary and familiar. He's a postwar archetype, both a brilliant career man and a temptation-swayed philanderer who sincerely wants to be a family man. Like most men, us and our fathers both, Draper is permanently conflicted over how to reconcile his morals and his desires.

Let's get something straight; Don Draper, as a character is a piece of shit. His entire life is a fraud, he can't form any real relationship except with the random whores he cheats on, he's constantly trying to escape from his apparently-perfect life (see: Midge, Rachel Menkin, California, the hitchhikers). I know he's handsome and suave, but like the characters on Entourage, the whole point of Mad Men is that by and large, they're all douchebags. The only one with any decency is Ken Cosgrove.

In the words of Tony Soprano, "what ever happened to Gary Cooper?"

The Best Description Of Toronto Yet

In 1970, Quebec declared war on English Canada by blowing up some stuff and kidnapping some politicians. That scared the shit out of every English person in Quebec, so they all moved to Toronto. Almost overnight, Toronto went from a hick little lake village to New York City–sized. That seems to have fucked with their heads, because all the males have regressed into this hillbilly, hoser mentality where they drink beer all day dressed as lumberjacks and call their friends by their surname. The females, on the other hand, have decided to failingly grasp at big-city life by wearing tiny knapsacks and platform shoes and saying things like, "It's, like, ooooh kaaye." Both of them perfectly sum up how blindly liberal all Canadians are. They push the leftist agenda not because they believe it, but simply because it seems un-American. Torontonians are so chuffed with themselves for being the most culturally diverse city in the world (more than any American city) you can almost smell their balls. Of course, whenever you ask them why that's so great, they go on about being able to order Turkish food one night and Thai the next, so that means the merits of diversity are measured by how well they serve white people.

Bailout

I've refrained from writing about the Big Three and the bailout, because I don't know as much as I shout. Not that it's stopped others from contributing to the noise.

As usual, these people can't see the forest for the trees.

I've been sending these articles (and others) to someone who's been working with the auto industry for much of his career. I say with, not in, because his position as an outsider allows him to be objective, despite experiencing first hand the destructive management tactics and moronic decisions made by the people in charge. His response below to Mark Cuban's post:

The root problem of the current situation is that consumers cannot get financing to buy cars.

Jeremy Clarkson also makes a good point. It's all well and good to say that Detroit "chose evil" by making Escalades instead of Volt's but that's not what happened. The GMT900 project was in all likelihood initiated before 9/11 - think how much our world has changed since then. At that time, electric cars were considered a failure.

In conversations, the commenter explained to me that very few people appreciate the R&D, lead time etc. that goes into making a car(5-6 years on average), and its components (which are handled by suppliers, not manufacturers). I don't know anybody that has an injection molding facility in their basement, but I do know that the only people who pay cash for new cars are coke dealers, and there's not enough of them to keep Detroit going.

Roger Ebert Gets A Gold Medal

The celebrity culture is infantilizing us. We are being trained not to think. It is not about the disappearance of film critics. We are the canaries. It is about the death of an intelligent and curious, readership, interested in significant things and able to think critically. It is about the failure of our educational system. It is not about dumbing-down. It is about snuffing out.

The Politically Correct Litmus Test

Carleton University cancels a fundraiser for cystic fibrosis because it's a "white man's disease".

Any time you see something like this, you can apply a simple test, such as the one below.

Carleton University cancels a fundraiser for ______ because it is a _____ disease.

Now look at the alternatives. Try replacing "cystic fibrosis" with "AIDS", "Tay-Sachs" or "ovarian cancer" and "white men" with "blacks", "Jews" or "women".

Think this is an isolated case? You're wrong.

Brain Candy

The John Templeton Fund has a series of four panels. I like the one about the free market, but you should read them all.

Christopher Hitchens speaks the truth yet again (does anyone still back Hillary anymore?).

Michael Lewis speaks on the end of Wall Street.