The Interesting Politics of Iceland

Reykjavik, the capital city of Iceland recently had a municipal election in May of this year. A new political party that was running to be elected was the Best Party, whose original goal was to satirize Icelandic politics. The party's platform consisted of things like "free swimming for everyone and free towels", "free bus rides and dental services for children and the poor" and to "listen more to women and old people." Well low and behold, the Best Party won the latest municipal election in Iceland's capital city, and now comedian Jon Gnarr is the mayor of Reykjavik.

Here's the campaign video for the Best Party, featuring the song "The Best" by Tina Turner:



If only Canadian politics were this interesting!!!

To learn more about the Best Party, visit their website: http://bestiflokkurinn.is/. Warning: it is in Icelandic!

I will be visiting Iceland for one week at the end of this month, and I am getting extremely excited about my trip! I will soon write a post about all the things that I hope to do in Iceland, and about more interesting things in Iceland's capital city of Reykjavik such as the world's best hot dog stand!

G20 Protests Continue

In Toronto there are still many protests taking place even though the G20 summit ended two weeks ago. This time though, they are not simply protesting topics that would be talked about at the summit, but how the police responded towards protesters during the weekend of the summit in Toronto. Yesterday (Saturday), around 1,200 marched from Queen's Park to the Toronto Convention Centre to protest how the police and the Canadian government is handling the aftermath of the G20. It's not just rowdy protesters who are angry though, Shanaaz Gokool, the head of Amnesty International Toronto thinks that more needs to be done in handling reviews and investigations into the police. Over 1,000 arrests were made during the G20, which makes that weekend the largest mass arrest in Canadian history.

I've posted some things regarding the G20 and my feelings about it on Facebook and I've gotten many responses saying that the police presence was completely necessary. And I agree. The police presence was completely necessary, but the way that the police acted, was completely unnecessary. There are many videos on YouTube circulating of violent arrests made by the police, but there was one video that really caught my eye:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Heb9BXjYcII

This short 31 second video shows a large group of protesters singing O Canada in front of a large group of police. Near the end of the song, they sit down, clearly showing that they are peaceful. As the song ends, police charge the crowd, shoving them back and pushing many people over. Could they not have simply said "please, move?"

Canada is not a police state, but from looking at some videos posted during the G20 in Toronto, that was kind of hard to tell.

I also understand that there were some violent protests that happened during the G20 where police cars were actually set on fire, and yes, those are the people who the police should be arresting and spraying tear gas on. But the people yelling "we are peaceful, how 'bout you?!" should not be arrested just for expressing your opinion. In connection with my class video project that I made on human rights, I think that many human rights were violated two weekends ago. Mainly by the police towards the protesters and I think that something like that is unacceptable in our society.

My New Obsession...

I am in the midst of exams right now, so I’m very busy, but I want to share this amazing song with you!

Last week on CBC Radio 2 I heard a song by poet Shane Koyczan. He recited his poem We Are More at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Opening Ceremonies and is now my favourite poet!

I am obsessed with his song This is My Voice which isn’t the same poem that I heard on CBC, but is off the same CD and I think is better!

I hope that you like it as much as I do!

G20 Police Presence to Exceed Vancouver Olympics

At the G20 Summit in Toronto this year a "small army" is being brought in to protect the leaders of the world's 20 most powerful countries from rowdy protesters. However, this protection seems to have backfired as now more people are protesting because of the high security in downtown Toronto! A three meter high, 3.3 kilometer long fence with ring the convention centre in downtown Toronto and anyone who lives or works inside the fenced off area will have to enter through security checkpoints.
“This is Toronto and not Tiananmen Square,”activist Greg Thomas said speaking to a group of protesters, “We are asking if body bags are included in that billion-dollar security package.”
Another expense that has been causing quite the uproar is a 1.9 million dollar fake lake that will be built inside the convention centre. This lake is being built so that the leaders of the G20 countries can experience Canada in the safety of the air conditioned convention centre without having to go outside into the crazy streets of Toronto and the terribly dangerous country of Canada. Isn't Ontario called "lake country" or something like that, according the the wikipedia article about Ontario, that province has over 250, 000 lakes!!! So is it really necessary to build an expensive man-made lake when there are thousands of free lakes all around you?
All in all, I think that the G20 summit in Toronto is a bit outrageous. All I can say is that I'm glad that I went to Toronto two weeks ago, before all this craziness started, and that I was able to see the CN Tower without having to go through a security checkpoint!

My Experience Doing the Barefoot Challenge

I have so far survived the challenge this year, but it's still not over! I still have to go and see my physiotherapist tonight in barefeet.

The rest of the day was quite successful though, a whole bunch of other people from my school also went barefoot for the challenge! To start the day off, I rode my bike to school with barefeet, which was actually quite challenging. The bike pedals were digging into my feet and the bumpy roads of Edmonton didn't really help. School wasn't much of a challenge in barefeet, since we pretty much just sit there all day... gym was a different story though. We had gym outside today and running outside on the rocky, bumpy ground was kind of hard on the feet. The grass was nice though, and once you got used to it, it was fine. However, at lunch I definitely saw the negative side effects of going barefoot. A classmate of mine accidentally slammed a door into my foot and now I have a big blood blister on my big toe. It doesn't actually hurt that much... but it's just kinda gross!

After getting the blood blister, I saw how much going barefoot can effect someones life. For the people who can't afford shoes, this can actually be quite dangerous, especially in the environment that they may be living in!

I felt that through this challenge people were educated about the lives of people living in poorer, developing countries. After doing this challenge, I hope that many other teens will realize how lucky they are just to have the basic necessities like shoes.

Barefoot Challenge 2010

This year I have successfully convinced my principal to let me go barefoot for Bilaal Rajan's barefoot challenge. I am going barefoot for one day, today, to raise poverty awareness.
Today is also International Children's Day and Bilaal Rajan is encouraging as many people as he can to kick of their shoes to feel what it's like to not be able to afford shoes.

I printed off a poster for the challenge and then pinned it onto my back before getting ready to bike to school barefoot!
I will be adding more information after school about how my day going barefoot went and felt like, so stay tuned!
For more information about Bilaal Rajan's barefoot challenge, visit http://makingchangenow.com/

2010 Edmonton Folk Fest Line Up Released!

I just got back from my first news conference ever, the media conference to release this year's line up for the Edmonton Folk Music Festival.
Edmonton Folk Fest producer Terry Wickham had a lot to say regarding this year's festival. Some artists playing this year's festival include Calexico, Gord Downie, Sarah Harmer, Ben Harper, The Waifs and Patrick Watson. Wickham announced this Ben Harper would actually be playing Thursday night on the mainstage, instead of playing the Wednesday night benefit concert. This is because he (Terry Wickham) didn't think that Ben Harper could bring the 10, 000 people that they hoped to attract to the Wednesday night concert. Instead, Wickham is searching for a bigger artist to play Wednesday night, though he thinks that the Wednesday night concert this year just wont work out.
Terry Wickham also stated that he thinks that this year's festival will have one of it's strongest World Music section yet! Some World artists include Aterciopelados from Columbia, Debashish Bhattacharya from India, Te Vaka from a Samoa, Cook Islands, New Zealand and Tuvalu and, Aurelio Martinez from Honduras.
Another thing new to this year's festival will be street performers entertaining people while they wait in line to get into the festival. This was announced at the press conference as well and a few specific performers were mentioned. I think that this will be a great addition to the festival as waiting in line for hours can get a bit boring!
Now I've got to go back to school, but I will try to post more information when I get home. For more information about this year's festival, visit efmf.ab.ca.

What do Human Rights mean to you?

A video that I made for a school project researching the question "what do human rights mean to you?" I interview many people of different backgrounds for this project and tried to include a mix of teenagers and adults.

I hope that you enjoy the video!

What do Human Rights mean to you? from Isaac Wurmann on Vimeo.

Thanks so much to everyone who I interviewed!

GELA Prison Committee Book Sale

The GELA (Greater Edmonton Library Association) Prison Committee works with the Edmonton Institution for Women in their library.

All the proceeds from this book sale on this Saturday and Sunday will go towards the Edmonton Institution for Women.
I'll be there, so you should come out too!

L53 Every Victim Matters Art Show

This evening was the opening of the Latitude 53 art show called Every Victim Matters. This art show featured the art work of over 60 Edmonton area youth (aged 12-24). The works of art addressed different topics such as poverty, violence and peer pressure to go with National Victims Awareness Week.

A classmate of mine, Rebecca, had a piece of art in this show. Her piece of art was called "Victim Words."

What I found interesting was that some pieces of art showed the environment being destroyed. This showed that not only can humans be victims, but the environment is a victim as well.