Chronically Misunderstood

Cannabis connoisseur and -izzle originator Snoop Dogg calls it the sticky icky. Fear-mongering anti-chronic crusaders of the 1930s called it reefer. My mom calls it pot. Regardless of what you call it, there is a puzzling lack of consensus around how marijuana affects us.

Scientific studies touting the drug’s benefits, or warning of its dangers, invoke the same level of scrutiny and skepticism as studies on climate change. But while climate change deniers are considerably outnumbered and increasingly discredited — most statistics show that over 95% of the world’s scientists agree humans are responsible for climate change — marijuana studies continue to contradict. I’m not sure how this is possible. Climate change is a recent concept, emerging out of no where like the iceberg that hit the Titanic (the same murderous ice berg that is now at risk of perishing under warmer temperatures). Marijuana has been around for thousands of years.

So even though we’ve been smoking the green for a long time, our understanding of its effects somehow remains grey.

There is a common process that drugs follow between the moment they are invented and the moment they make it to market. In the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, this process typically takes between 10 to 15 years. However, this time includes years of pre-clinical testing before a drug is deemed safe to test on humans. It also includes a lot of time spent in the application process, awaiting approval to advance to the next stage. If this is enough time to determine that Xanax and Prozac are safe for human consumption, you would think we’d have figured out Mary Jane by now.

Recent developments show that medical professionals are having a hard time keeping up with the courts. In Canada, the medical marijuana industry was privatized (but remains heavily regulated) in 2013. Health Canada, for its part, does not believe the drug meshes well with its stated goal to have Canada be “among the countries with the healthiest people in the world”. The government body makes sure to state in bold letters at the top of regulatory and industry correspondence that “The government of Canada does not endorse the use of marijuana, but the courts have required reasonable access to a legal source of marijuana when authorized by a physician.”

The College of Family Physicians of Canada recently released new guidelines for physicians to follow when prescribing medical marijuana. It advocates a cautious approach, given the need for further study, advising that physicians prescribe the drug only when all else has failed, and only to those 25 or over.

Meanwhile, the chair of the Arthritis Society’s scientific advisory committee, Dr. McDougall, recently said of marijuana: “I think it’s high time that we found something to help the 4.6-million Canadians living with arthritis and trying to do something to help,” apparently deciding it an opportune moment to drop a pun.

Given the widespread demand for the drug, it’s high time we conducted authoritative studies and started to come to a consensus on its effects. Once we have some clarity on the subject we can leave the confusion and paranoid skepticism to the stoners.

Attack of the Drones

The thought that no matter where you are in the world a flying machine can come and kill you is terrifying. It’s also a reality.

The proliferation of drones–unmanned surveillance/killing machines–means that people can be hunted and killed with greater ease than ever.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a UK non-for-profit, found that there were over 2,400 deaths as a result of drone strikes over the past five years — that’s an average of over 1.3 deaths per day! And as many reports suggest, this includes an alarming number of innocent civilians. This is, I should mention, just the U.S. drone program (there are close to 30 countries known to have operational armed drones).

Now that’s not to say that you and I are at risk of being obliterated. That honour is reserved for “terrorists”. But what constitutes a terrorist? Surely one who commits terrorist acts is a terrorist. But what about those who pledge to commit such an act? Do they deserve to die?  If Minority Report taught me anything, it’s that pre-emptively assigning guilt and administering justice is wrong. This is especially true when that justice involves lethal force.

The use of drones, or rather the way they have been used, also signals a paradigm shift in how war is conducted. Where once there were clearly defined battle lines, with one army on one side and one opposite, now the world has become a battlefield (Jeremy Scahill’s Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield is an excellent read on the subject). This has been the mantra of the Bush and Obama administrations, the latter as evidenced by the recent decision to drop bombs within Syria’s borders, sovereignty be damned, as well as the use of drones in Yemen and Somalia.

The problem is that politicians are able to wield too much power with too little oversight.

Case in point: the New York Times reported in May 2012 that President Obama maintains a “kill list”, which one official likened to “baseball cards” for bad guys. Obama has a protocol for deciding who ends up with a death sentence but, when you’re the one making up the rules, the credibility of such a protocol is severely strained.

As technology advances, it is conceivable that drones will become faster, smaller, stronger, and more adept at avoiding detection; assassination will only get easier. And if an enemy, whether actual, alleged or imagined, can be removed with such ease, you can be sure it will happen. Now that’s a scary thought.

When Police Get Defensive

When threatened, animals use a variety of tactics to ensure their survival. Turtles hide in their shells, while lions unleash terrifying roars, for example.

These tactics are not very different from how some police departments react when under pressure. Like a mother bear protecting her cubs, these police departments will go to great lengths to shield their employees from harm.  This is true of any unionized group, but when you are responsible for enforcing the law and authorized to use lethal force there are certain standards of accountability and transparency that take precedence over self-preservation.

When questionable behaviour receives media attention, these police departments are quick to exercise their Miranda rights — they become tight-lipped, reluctant to offer any information. This was the case in Ferguson, Missouri, where the shooting of an unarmed 18-year old had the police receding into its shell. The public demanded answers but got few. Basic information, including the name of the police officer responsible for the shooting, and the number of times the boy was shot, was kept from the public.

At the same time department spokespeople were showing the same cowardice and desperation of a frightened turtle, their officers in the field, facing their own perilous situation, marked their territory with the intimidating presence of a pride of lions.

This show of force was similar to the way Toronto police forces handled the G20 protests in 2010. In this instance, what began as a legitimate disturbance was met with an incredibly over-zealous response — police forces clumsily responded by tear gassing and detaining innocent protesters. More than 1,000 people were arrested, one of the largest mass arrests in Canadian history.

A lot has been written recently about the militarization of police. One thing is certain: heavily armored trucks and army fatigue in city streets is not the way to build trust with the civilian population. It scares the shit out of people and only increases tensions.

For police forces, the best defense against public scrutiny is transparency and cooperation.

Is Blogging Narcissistic?

Blogging sites like WordPress offer a soapbox for us to stand on and express our thoughts, however trivial those thoughts might be. But there’s something about blogging that irks me. Whenever I take to writing something I always pause and ask myself, why am I expressing these thoughts to an anonymous audience and not to a friend? It has always felt like an exercise in narcissism, as if I’m asking the world to listen to my thoughts on Topic X, Y, or Z.

And truth be told, my thoughts, when they do somehow formulate in the mostly empty space inside my skull, are rarely insightful.

I group blogging together with the rest of social media — Facebook, Twitter, and the most self-serving of them all, Instagram. These online platforms provide convenient forums for us to express ourselves. And whereas in day-to-day life we need to find a willing listener, and interest in what we have to say can be gauged by verbal responses and facial cues, social media gives us free reign to post, tweet, and share with no regard to who’s listening.

There’s been a lot of discussion about the society-corrupting qualities of social media; the inherent isolation involved and the obsessive relationships we have with our phones. I’m not here to shit all over social media (full disclosure: I use Twitter daily and Facebook sparingly). I think there are a lot of positive ways social media can be used, even if it requires careful navigation to dodge the ubiquitous selfie landmines.

But what about blogging? Is a blog post the equivalent of Instagramming a duck-face selfie at the grocery store? While any sensible person would agree that those who take duck-faced selfies deserve to be shot, the same can’t be said of bloggers.

I’ve come to the realization that blogging is more about creative expression than anything. There’s no doubt that receiving likes, followers, and comments is a gratifying experience, but that’s because it validates bloggers creative efforts. People who share their every living moment online are likely looking to fill a void – they crave social interaction and want to know their lives have meaning (or whether they look hot in their new shirt…).

Bloggers want validation and attention, but not in the same way a shallow, insecure Instagrammer or Facebook-obsessive does. It’s about knowing we can articulate our thoughts in a way that is engaging or relatable, and not about being popular. It’s more highbrow and less desperate.

Now will you please like this post, comment on it, and follow my blog? Pretty please?

Writing is a lot like…

I often use analogies when explaining or attempting to understand something. I like to think I have a knack for it. A good analogy can really help someone better understand something or see it from a new perspective. Recently I’ve been trying to think of one for writing, but I’m stumped.

In a way, writing is like archery. A writer picks words like an archer draws arrows, and with them hopes to hit the target as accurately as possible. The target in the writer’s case is not a distant circle but the perfect expression of an idea or emotion.

I like the bit about accuracy, but the analogy isn’t so convincing when you look any deeper. For starters, arrows are chosen without discrimination, whereas words are selected very discriminately. One arrow is the same as the next, more or less, but that isn’t true of words. So writing is sort of like archery. But there must be another analogy, both witty and ingenious, that fully encapsulates what it is to write, right?

Maybe writing is like fighting a war. I don’t mean as a soldier marching around and shooting at things, but rather some sort of General or high commander. You know, one of the guys who comes up with strategies and clever names, like “Operation Rolling Thunder” or “Operation Magic Carpet” (a real operation, by the way).

Yes, just as a military planner tactfully deploys resources to accomplish an objective, a writer deploys his or her resources (words) to accomplish an objective (write a blog post?). Both require structure. Troops are organized and certain units are selected based on with what the mission requires, sort of like how sentences are organized and words selected depending on the purpose of the written piece.

Alright, so maybe this analogy is neither witty or ingenious (it’s terrible). So what is writing like? Maybe it isn’t like anything. Maybe it’s just… writing.

Thoughts?

Collecting words: the Sontag list

It goes without saying that great writers have a strong command of language. A big part of this can be attributed to having an extensive vocabulary from which to draw from.

The Oxford English Dictionary contains 171,476 words. Imagine if you knew every single word and exactly what they meant. Once you decided on what to write about the words would flow effortlessly from your pen (or, more likely, your keyboard).

But alas, we are not robots (despite my best efforts to pretend otherwise on the dance floor – yes, I’m single).

As it is, our vocabularies reflect the words we’ve been exposed to, as well as our brain’s ability to soak up these words and file them away for future use. A lot of it is memory.

I read the other day that Susan Sontag–the multi-talented American writer, filmmaker, professor, literary icon and political activist–kept lists of words that she encountered. Words like “persiflage”, “gruel”, and ” integument”. I don’t know what her motive was, but it’s a brilliant idea.

When reading I often come across words that are peculiar to me or that I’m unable to define accurately. There are other words I’ll come across that are familiar but not part of my vocabulary. The Sontag list is a perfect remedy for these situations. By recording words that are unknown or underemployed I’ll be more likely to look them up and learn their meaning, and by writing them down I’ll be more likely to remember them and utilize them in the future.

And who doesn’t like lists?

Writer’s today are at an advantage, historically speaking. It has never been easier to find the meaning of a word (dictionary.com and its companion thesaurus.com serve me well). It’s sad but I can’t imagine consulting a physical dictionary to discover the meaning of a word. If the dictionary isn’t within arms reach I have to get up, and then I have to use my legs to walk to it, and then I need to put it down somewhere, perhaps needing to clear off table space to make room. That’s not to mention the page turning! My god, the page turning!

Maybe I’m being a little bit dramatic (a little?), but the point remains that it is easier than ever to expand your vocabulary.

Collecting stamps hasn’t been cool for years, if it ever was, and you’re going nowhere in life if you collect rocks. Start collecting words. Start a Sontag list.

For those who are wondering, courtesy of dictionary.com:

Persiflage: light, bantering talk or writing

Integument: a natural covering, as a skin, shell, or rind

Great Expectations

Every day I roll out of bed after a prolonged and expletive-laden battle with my alarm clock and begin a battle of a different nature: meeting my expectations. These expectations constitute an idealized life of success, learning, and fitness.

Some of us dream of being an industry titan within our respective fields of employment. Some of us dream of being a cultured and well-read scholar.  While some of us dream of having the toned and chiseled bodies that are everywhere on TV and in magazines (yet mysteriously absent in everyday life).

I dream of having it all. And of course, every day I fall short of my expectations.

Sure, there have been noteworthy successes. Like one day, months ago, when I managed to go to the gym, read, write, and get some school work done — all in the same day. Oh my, what a terrific day that was…

The challenge is replicating that feat each and every day. And the reality is that expecting to do so much, each and every day, is unreasonable. The Buddha Himself would struggle to find the discipline I require to lead the life I want.

It all comes down to habit.

I recently read The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, in which he identifies a common cycle that is found in all habits: the cue, the routine, and the reward. For example, you feel stressed or bored (the cue), you have a smoke (the routine), and you feel relieved (the reward). Duhigg contends that the only way to get rid of a bad habit is to replace it with another habit. So next time you feel stressed or bored, instead of reaching for a smoke, reach for a stress ball to replace your bad habit.

The problem is that a stress ball is not a smoke, and replacing one with the other is easier said than done. We are drawn to simple solutions (10 minute abs!) , but simple solutions don’t work for complex problems. But that doesn’t mean that we should succumb to failure.

There is no universal model for meeting your expectations. If I have learned anything, it is to manage my expectations. Be persistent, but be reasonable.

Bridging the gap between attainable successes and unreasonable expectations is important. If we fail to do so, the great expectations we continue to fall short of fester, and insecurity grows. Position yourself to achieve smaller, more manageable goals, and you will spend less time stewing over failures and more time patting yourself on the back.

“Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.” –Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Even the largest avalanche is triggered by small things.” –Vernor Vinge

The Far-Reaching Responsibility of Corporations

Abraham Lincoln once said, “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow, by evading it today.” This is becoming increasingly true for companies who want to protect themselves from scandal.

Loblaw CEO Galen Weston,  who you might know  as the affable geek from the President’s Choice commercials,  has been all over the news lately due to his company’s connection with a textile factory that collapsed in Bangladesh on April 24th. The collapse has claimed 580 lives (a number that continues to grow) and has raised questions about the allocation of blame.

The extraordinary negligence of the factory’s owner, Mohammed Sohel Rana, without a doubt, deserves top billing. After discovering cracks in the building an engineer was brought in to examine it. The engineer urged the owner to shut down the factory, a request that was ignored. The building collapsed the next day.

However, Mr. Weston has announced that Loblaw will compensate the families who lost a loved one. Furthermore, the company is taking new measures to regularly and personally inspect buildings in foreign countries where its merchandise is being produced.

Gone are the days when a company could feign ignorance about abuses happening at a plant located in some distant country. These days information travels at light speed to every corner of the Earth.

This has been a troublesome development for companies whose morally-dubious operations in third-world countries had been traditionally swept under the rug. Everything changed after Nike’s use of child labour was exposed in 1996. Well, sort of.

Companies still outsource operations to third-world countries because it is cheaper. It’s cheaper because working wages are low and safety standards are nonexistent. What changed is that companies are starting to understand they are liable to receive bad press if they don’t take responsibility for their connection to these factories.

In public relations you should respond to crises in an ethically responsible way. Loblaw is the only company to step forward — of 30 who were having merchandise manufactured at the plant — and one could argue that they are doing more than they need to.  Some companies might not have the profit margins to be able to respond in this manner.

The lesson to be learned is that the public is always watching. The rug is gone. Everyone will see your mess, and how you respond to it will define the character of the organization you represent.

Body Language and Perception

I was at a bar with my girlfriend one night, a couple years ago, when my eyes were drawn to a woman whose outfit left very little to the imagination, to say the least. She was as naked as one could possibly be — without actually being naked. It was as if she covered up just enough to avoid getting arrested. I was awestruck, and turned to my girlfriend to bring her attention to this spectacle:

“Look at her! Can you believe it!?”

My girlfriend was not amused. I should have realized my error right away, yet I continued.

“Wow! You can see everything! That’s crazy!”

An earthquake wouldn’t have broken my concentration. I don’t know how much time passed, but once the initial shock wore off I turned back to my girlfriend. The unbroken gaze I directed at the scantily-clad woman was nothing compared to the intensity of the one I found upon me. Her eyes were so wide I thought they might fall out of their sockets. Her arms were crossed. Her lips were pressed tightly together. If the moment called for comedy — which it certainly did not — steam would be shooting out of her ears. She didn’t say a word, but I knew exactly what she was thinking. I’d be sleeping alone that night.

We convey so many emotions through our body language. This is important to note because how we project ourselves affects how others perceive us. What we say verbally is supplemented by, or detracted by, what we do with our body. I’ve always been a big believer in the “who cares what other people think” school of thought, but there are situations where it does not apply, such as a job interview or workplace presentation.

Amy Cuddy, an associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, gave a TED Talk last year that on the subject that has over 4,300,000 views (found here). The most fascinating part of her speech is that our body language doesn’t just affect how others perceive us, it affects how we perceive ourselves.

Studies have shown that when we stand in a “power pose” for two minutes our testosterone increases and our cortisone, responsible for stress, decreases. The opposite is true when we stand or sit in closed positions (arms or legs crossed, touching our elbow or face, etc…). As Professor Cuddy suggests, even when you do not feel confident, you should fake it using your body language.  Next time you wait to go onto a stage, in front of your peers, or into a job interview, you should sit or stand in a power pose — that is, widen yourself by being erect and having your arms by your side. You will force a physiological change in your body and make yourself feel more confident.

One of the many things Sir Attenborough teaches us in Planet Earth is that animals spread as wide as possible when trying to attract a mate. Birds feathers puff outwards. Monkeys raise their arms in the air. Animals want to be as big and colourful as possible. Some men, not as far removed from their animal ancestors as the rest of us,  intentionally dress ridiculously to attract women, in a strategy known as “peacocking”. Body language is wired into our brains and is one way we judge each others confidence, sexual suitability, intelligence, etc…

Politicians know the power of body language. They have people coaching them daily on how to speak and what tone to strike. When two rival candidates shake hands before a debate there is often a comical display of posturing, with excessive shoulder patting and unnaturally wide smiles. It can seem silly, but there is truth behind it. Most of us, to varying degrees, judge politicians based on how they carry themselves. A common criticism of Mitt Romney was that he appeared cold and his smile insincere, qualities that don’t reflect how he would manage the economy or direct foreign policy.

The takeaway here is that it is important to give some thought to your body language.  It might be the reason you haven’t gotten a date in a while or why you didn’t get hired after a job interview. If it doesn’t feel natural to stand or sit confidently, fake it. The job/man/woman of your dreams might soon be yours!

Hating on Successful Women

You would think we would admire and respect women who ascend to the top of the corporate ladder. Women have been trying to shatter the glass ceiling for decades. Some argue they have succeeded. Yet in recent weeks women who should be role models have been turned into pariahs.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, industry titans running multi-billion dollar companies, have been crucified in the media as of late. For anyone who is late to the hate-party, Mrs. Mayer has been ridiculed for putting an end to allowing staff to work from home, while Mrs. Sandberg has offended women everywhere by encouraging them to work hard to overcome gender bias.

Let’s start with Mrs. Mayer. Mothers who worked from home while caring for their kid(s) now must pay travel expenses and the cost of daycare. Meanwhile, Mrs. Mayer built a private daycare next to her office for her child.

Some people point to studies of comparative companies that show that allowing employees to work from home is just as profitable, if not more so. Others say it was necessary to reign in a workforce that is not producing; the company has been mired in mediocrity recently. Also, those who had to show up might have resented the fact that some coworkers were given such a privilege.

Whether this was a good or bad business decision is debatable, but one thing is clear: it was a business decision. It has inconvenienced female employees who worked from home, but the decision was certainly not made to spite women.

Companies should be responsible for the well being of their employees. However, the option to work from home is not an employee’s right. It is a privilege.

Mrs. Sandberg, whose recent bestselling book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, asserts that there is an ambition gap between males and females. The onus is on women to unite, work hard, and earn their spot at the top.  Some people argue this is letting men off the hook.

Maybe she is letting men off the hook, but who cares? Here is a woman who has worked hard and made it to a position generally held by men. Some profits from her book go to leanin.org, a community designed to encourage women to realize their ambitions. This is a story deserving of positive coverage, not the ugly negativity that has prevailed.

Complaining that her efforts are misguided is like chiding someone for donating to a heart and stroke charity because cancer is the more lethal problem. We should be celebrating her efforts.

We are quick to attack Mrs. Sandberg and Mrs. Mayer because they are of a different ilk. They are extremely wealthy in an age when wealthy people are inherently disliked by the masses. The irresponsible behavior of government, banks, and large corporations has cultivated this attitude.

There are many people to be suspicious of and many rich people deserve our reproaches. However, let’s not forget that there are just as many who deserve our respect and admiration for the hard work they put in to get there. Mrs. Sandberg and Mrs. Mayer — and successful women everywhere — will continue to make controversial decisions. We should take a step back from our instinct to be critical and take time to celebrate these successful women for defying the odds.