i do not want to be kept alive artificially in case of a severely debilitating injury

i also want my organs to be donated to where ever they’ll be necessary

(does this constitute a living will? wtf, mate)

– dean does not come to class to apologize for administration boondoggle
– get a parking ticket despite having paid for parking and displaying the permit on your dashboard (and which you will now have to dispute)
– the varsity runs your article but leaves out the most important paragraph (like submitting an essay without a thesis)
– having an essay worth 30% of your mark due the next day (and not having started)

i wonder if, four hundred years from now (if humans are still alive), someone reading today’s english will say, “bloody hell, why is this so convoluted?” the same way i’m referring to hobbes’ leviathan as i try to navigate through it now …

sleep would be nice

What is it about our counterparts in Québec? I mean the students. Do they have sticks shoved up their asses? Do they have uncomfortable mattresses? Do their parents feed them tainted cheese, because that�s all they eat anyway?

What’s wrong with them?

Why are the students in the province of Québec mobilizing en masse to protest the province’s cutback of $103 million in grants/bursaries? Why are these students on strike when Québecers pay the lowest tuition in the country, at an average of $1,800? For fuck’s sake, that’s only 10% of my student debt (about $18,000) — and I’m only in my second year.

Ontario’s students pay some of the highest tuition fees in the country. We’re assailed by fat-cat former-premiers who advocate outrageous modes of student loans (income-contingent loan repayment plans � try saying that ten times fast) that everybody first thinks are rosy-cheeky-muah-
love-you-Bob-Rae-have-my-children-thank-you-be-my-university’s-
president — but are more aptly described as life-long debt sentences (for the not-so-rich) that are going to bring in the bling for the banking industry.

If we good Ontarians can apply Vaseline to our asses despite getting butt-raped by $5,000 averages in tuition fees — why the hell can’t those goddamn Frenchies shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down?

Ou, en Francais, s’il te-plait: pourquoi can’t those goddamn Frenchies shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down?

What’s wrong with them?

Why don’t they acquiesce to the privatization and bastardization of social services and campuses like we do? Why do they naively continue to believe that mobilization of the masses with mass support from various sectors among the masses will make a massive difference to the classes that hold power in this state of affairs that some call a democracy, but Malcolm X called a disguised hypocrisy?

Maybe — because it will?

Let’s not be such dimwits as to believe that the Liberals of Québec — led by a man who is balding and was at one point a loser leader of the federal Progressive Conservatives (Jean Charest) — will give in completely to the demands of the students. But even if their struggle does not completely bring about the change they want to see, are they not correct to stand up for their rights? For what they believe in?

What are we, the students of Ontario, going to tell our children when they go to university and face thousands of dollars in tuition fees, massive tuition debts, professors sponsored by ExxonMobil and classrooms sponsored by ING Direct? Hold on a second — what the fuck are we, the students of Ontario, telling ourselves?

That we refuse to mobilize and therefore silently and painfully acquiesce because we believe that action does not bring about change anyway? Are we telling ourselves that, yes, we will go down without a fight — because it’s not that bad — right?

It’s not that bad?

Bitches, I’m in my second year of university, I have $18,000 in debt and I don’t even own a credit card! I make excuses not to go out places, most of my clothes are gifts, my parents try to prevent me from buying gifts for my niece on Eids and her birthday, I sometimes find myself without enough money to buy textbooks, and I shudder before I buy a $2.00 hotdog from those hotdog stands outside Sidney Smith — well, I would shudder even if I were loaded … that last point was moot…. I’ll move on now. And there are plenty of fellow students who have it much worse than I can even begin to fathom.

The fact is that it is bad now. And if it�s not that bad now it can only get worse. Unless we stand up and fight for our rights now, we face telling our children that “we didn’t start the fire, son, no we didn”t ignite it but we, uh, tried to, uh, stop listening to Billy Joel … actually we got burned and burnt out like half-ass pussies rather than stopping, dropping and rolling and then helping others put out the fire.”

There’s nothing wrong with those goddamn Frenchies (except maybe escargots, what the fuck is up with that?). The question we ought to ask is why is our shit not hitting the fan?

There’s something wrong with us when the only reason our voices are not heard is because we don’t speak out. There’s something wrong when we’re more concerned with the hockey lockout than Rae’s report, when we pay more attention to the latest happenings on the Apprentice or American Idol than we do to corporate irresponsibility and American imperialism, when we loudly debate pseudo-reality television but shy away from and feel uncomfortable discussing public policy.

I’m going to tell my children that I stood up and fought for my rights and theirs and those of others, even when I felt like no one stood by me, that even when I lost faith in humanity I did not drop the struggle. I’ll know that at least once in my life I decided to join those “radical” activists and skipped a couple of classes to do the least I could — join a protest or something.

I will not, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr. be disappointed by the fervour of those who were opposed to me, but by the silence and inaction of those who should have supported me.

Even if I lose the struggle, and I think I will, I will rest secure in the knowledge that I never acquiesced.

Et tu?

sometime on march 8, the huge poster of malcolm x in my room fell
it’s right beside the poster of che guevara and above my bed
it fell behind the headrest of my bed

i haven’t had the time to put it back up

sometime on march 8, aslan maskhadov was killed by russian security services
he was the last elected president of chechnya, chechens have been embroiled in a bitter war for their independence from russian hegemony for the past ten years

sometime on march 8, i started wondering why so few people care
there are so many people, yet so many are apathetic, happy with the disinformation they receive and satisfied with the status quo that they can — one way or another — make better but simply refuse to
people who’ve lost their hope in positive action

and i’m honestly wondering why i care
i’m probably more cynical and angrier than most people i know, i don’t naively force myself to believe that waving a placard is going to change anything
but i do know that the less people that wave the placards and refuse to acquiesce to the status quo, the more we will lose our rights and rights to criticize the status quo

i can go through university, accumulate a huge student debt, but i can repay my debt after i graduate and move on with my life
so why do i give a shit about rising tuition fees?
why should i care if some poor guy looks at tuition fees as a barrier to education?
why should i care that someone who doesn’t get a decent job will have a harder time to repay the debt?
why should i care that someone who gets a low-paying job will effectively be saddled with a debt with gigantic interest rates that he’ll spend the rest of his life paying off?
i’m not going to be that fucker — so why should i care?

once i get a job, i’m sure my employer will provide me with decent health, and maybe even dental, coverage
so why do i give a fuck if healthcare is being privatized? let them do whatever they want to do as long as it doesn’t affect me
why should i care if some poor sap has to take out a loan from a bank to get his kid a life-saving operation?
so what?
why do i care?
why should i care?

can somebody, anybody, tell me why i should remain on the arts and science students’ union at the university of toronto and continue to insist that the administration treat students with respect and fairness?
why should i make plans to make the quality of education better for students? to get them involved? to provide better services for them? to make a tangible difference, regardless of how small it is?
why should i care?

why do i care about the fact that aslan maskhadov died? the people of chechnya have no relation to me, i don’t even know anyone from eastern europe, nevermind the caucasus
the chechens are dying and russian recruits are being suckered into a war?
so what? why do i care?

why do i even care about malcolm x?
he died forty years ago as a direct result of fighting for people, who, now, for all intents and purposes are in pretty much the same positions and don’t even give a fuck about themselves
why do i care?

why should i care?

why shouldn’t i just focus on maximizing any and all things i can do for myself? why shouldn’t i view life as a zero-sum game? why shouldn’t i not give a fuck?

adam once called me the “champion of lost causes” — fuck, if they’re all lost, why the hell should i give a shit?

why should i care?

nomes says:
why don’t you join the comic book geeks club on facebook
nomes says:
DO IT
nomes says:
DO IT
yaser says:
how does that help me
nomes says:
oh true
nomes says:
you also LOOK like a geek
yaser says:
yes
nomes says:
i don’t have to worry about that
yaser says:
right

nomes says:
damn, i never knew supporting israel was in the bible
nomes says:
he has me sold
nomes says:
now i’m going to do all i can to support it

(refer to yaser’s post here)