Did You Really?!

Did you really, M. Bredeson?!

Today I received a letter from M. Bredeson, the Executive Correspondence Officer for Stephen Harper in response to my letter to Harper regarding the detention of Omar Khadr at Guantanamo Bay for Amnesty International's Write-A-Thon. In the letter it read:

"Dear Isaac:

On behalf of the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, I would like to acknowledge receipt of your recent correspondence regarding the detention of Omar Khadr at Guanatanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.

Thank you for writing to share your views with the Prime Minister. You may be assured that your comments have been carefully received by this office.

Yours sincerely,

M. Bredeson

Executive Correspondance Officer"

But did you really, M. Bredeson? Or is this just what you tell everyone? Personally, I'd like to see some proof that my comments have been "carefully reviewed by this office."

Young Artists for Haiti - Wavin' Flag

Here's a great version of K'Naan's song Waving Flag performed by many young Canadian artists in support of Haiti.



It's great to see artists such as Sam Roberts, Serena Ryder, Hawksley Workman and so many other great Canadian musicians come together to perform this wonderful song for Haiti. My one disappointment was at the end... where Justin Bieber got to sing the last line!

For You, Mr. Stelmach...

Well apparently premier Ed Stelmach hasn't seen any pictures of the approximately 1, 600 ducks that died after landing in a Syncrude tailings pond in northern Alberta. Somehow this seems impossible as these pictures have been on the front page of pretty much every newspaper in Alberta, and video footage of the ducks dying has been shown on pretty much every news station in Alberta.

Well here you go, Mr. Stelmach. Here are the pictures that you have somehow missed while going about your daily life. Here is evidence showing how the oil sands are destroying our environment, in more ways than just climate change.

The picture was taken of a duck actually in the tailing pond, shortly before it died.

To learn more about this topic, please visit the article in the Edmonton Journal about how "Stelmach hasn't seen duck images". Sheesh... really Stelmach?

A Morning at Boyle Street

Last Friday I spent my morning at Boyle Street Community Services in downtown Edmonton. I volunteered there in the Youth Department for my community service hours that I have to do for school. It was a very interesting and eye-opening experience and I will definitely volunteer there again.

Boyle Street is an inner city service that works to connect people living in poverty with the things that they need. Social workers there work with people who are often ignored, face discrimination and have been marginalized by the larger society. I volunteered with the Youth Department because a friend of mine, Matt McCoy, works there.

I started volunteering there at 9:00 AM, right at the beginning of the day. I was first sent to work on organizing pamphlets that help people with what they need like staying healthy, legal resources, and other important things while living on the street. Many of the pamphlets were running low, so I went to StreetWorks to collect more copies of pamphlets. StreetWorks is an organization in Boyle Street that does a needle exchange, but that also publishes pamphlets and other information sources in a way that is understandable to the people who need the information the most.

Later, I went on rounds with some social workers at Boyle Street to check to make sure that all of the people who came there were doing okay. We walked around in the central area and outside the building to make sure that nobody was doing drugs on the property as well. It was very interesting to talk to the people who came there, and who worked there. I talked to one person who was a sort of "counselor" for the people, and he seemed to specialize in aboriginal people who went through the residential schools. He said that he likes to think of the people who come to Boyle Street as part of the community and then help people find ways out of doing drugs or alcohol.

It wasn't a very busy day at Boyle Street I was told by Matt, especially not in the Youth Department. So, for the final minutes of my visit there, I found myself playing the piano and guitar with the community. It was quite interesting to see some hidden talents in people that one might not have expected.

In all, it was a very interesting and eye-opening experience. I was perhaps a bit hesitant at first to volunteer at Boyle Street, and I didn't really know how things would work, but in the end everything worked out fine. I will definitely not hesitate to volunteer there again in the next few months.

To learn more about Boyle Street Community Services, visit their website.

A Night of Freedom

Last night was the "Freedom Ball", an event at the Art Gallery of Alberta organized by the Edmonton Public Library to celebrate Freedom to Read Week. First of all, I do not think that they should have used the word "ball" to describe the event. I had imagined it as being a lot more free (pardon the pun) where one could wander about the art gallery and then also listen to the DJs and watch presentations. Instead, it was very structured and it was held in a sort of presentation room in the basement of the art gallery. However, it was still very excellent, just not exactly what I had expected!

We got to the event at 8:00 PM (one hour after it actually started) in the middle of the concert of the rap/hip-hip band called the People's Poets. The People's Poets were excellent, and in the end we ended up buying their CD. They are from Chile, but they now live in Edmonton and they write and rap about social justice issues and consider themselves as "raptivists". I was even pleasantly surprised to hear an excerpt of one of Che Guevara's speeches as a part of one of their songs!

Visit the People's Poets website to listen to some of their songs online.

After the People's Poets, there was the presentation of the "Freedom Movie". This was a movie filmed by various people around Edmonton. It was a compilation of interviews of citizens of different backgrounds answering questions such as "What does freedom mean to you?" and "What do you think you take for granted?".

It was very interesting to hear what people had to say in response to those questions. What was also interesting to see was how open people were to respond to the questions.

In all, it was a great night and I thought it was a great activity to celebrate our freedom to read! Perhaps next year though, just don't use the word "ball" to describe it.

My Top 10 Canadian Singles

Last weekend's episode of CBC's The Vinyl Cafe featured the host, Stuart McLean listing off his top 10 Canadian singles of all time. Stuart McLean said that he was asked to come up with this list by Bob Mersereau, who is an arts journalist and author of the 2007 book The Top 100 Canadian Albums.

Today, I am going to present you my list of the top 10 Canadian singles of all time. Many factors were included in coming up with this list. Of course how much I like the song is a factor, as well as the amount of impact these songs have had on the Canadian music world. What I also considered in choosing these top 10 singles were how "Canadian" these songs and artists were. So here we go...

Number One: Heart of Gold by Neil Young off of his album Harvest (1972). This song if probably Neil Young's most well known song, and his album Harvest was listed as number one on Bob Mersereau's top 100 Canadian Albums list. Here's a video of him performing this song live in 1971, when this was still one of his new songs! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh44QPT1mPE

Number Two: A Case of You by Joni Mitchell off of her album Blue (1971). This song is probably one of Joni Mitchell's most famous songs, and was in fact number two on the top 100 Canadian Album's list. Here's a link to a video on YouTube of her performing this song live (it's pretty quiet, but it's a great quality recording!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QZioxCg20I&feature=related

Number Three: Wheat Kings by The Tragically Hip off of their album Fully Completely (1992). This was the first song that I ever heard by The Tragically Hip and it is a truly Canadian song that speaks of the vast prairies. Here's a great live, acoustic version of this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JjX-F7AFso

Number Four: Famous Blue Raincoat by Leonard Cohen off of his album Songs of Love and Hate (1971). I've always loved this song by Cohen, and it's one of my favourite's by him. Here's a great live version of this song from 1979: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrMR9lEeJEU

Number Five: Body’s in Trouble by Mary Margaret O’Hara off of her one and only album Miss America (1988). Mary Margaret O'Hara is truly amazing! She has released only one album, yet that album is up there in the top Canadian Albums list, and you could probably count the number of performances that she's done on two hands! I was lucky enough to see her perform live at the Edmonton Folk Fest a few years ago. Here's a link to the music video for this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z14wPTz6PdY

Number Six: Record Body Count by Rheostatics off of their album Melville (1991). I was introduced to Rheostatics a few years ago, and this was the first song that I heard from them. It's short, but great! Here's the promo video for this song (the quality's not too great): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_j7FUGV22I&feature=related

Number Seven: Hallelujah covered by k.d. lang off of her album Hymns of the 49^th Parallel (2004). This is an absolutely amazing, and probably the best cover of Leonard Cohen's song Hallelujah. Hallelujah is Cohen's most covered song. Here's a live version of her singing this song in 2005. She also sang this song during the Opening Ceremonies of the Vancouver Olympics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_NpxTWbovE

Number Eight: My Favourite Chords by The Weakerthans off of their album Left and Leaving (2000). I first saw the Weakerthans perform at the Edmonton Folk Fest a few years ago and they instantly became my favourite band! I love this song because it's very simple, but also very great! Here's a link to listen to this song on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkBMpngSy3Y&feature=related

Number Nine: Underwhelmed by Sloan off of their album Smeared (1992). For some reason, Sloan seems to me like a truly Canadian band. This was the first song that I'd ever heard by this Halifax band. Here's a link to a video of the band performing this song on a TV show in 1992: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4VfIGhw4-I&feature=related.

Number Ten: Through and Through and Through by Joel Plaskett off of his album Three (2009). This is the most recent song on my list. I was lucky enough to interview Joel Plaskett at last year's Edmonton Folk Fest and this is probably my favourite song by him. It's a real "road trip" song, and it has a great music video! Here's a link to the music video for this song on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlNvx2Zl_0M

So those are just my top 10 Canadian singles of all time, or at least from 1971 to 2009. If you have any other ideas or if you'd like to share some of your favourite Canadian singles, just comment at the bottom.

So long for now!

Happy Freedom to Read Week!

That's right, this week is the annual Freedom to Read Week, a week to celebrate freedom of expression and to encourage Canadians to think about intellectual freedom. This week is celebrated all across Canada with many events in majour cities.



Freedom to Read Week is very important because even in Canada in 2010, many books are still being challenged and being banned in many libraries across the country. As I looked at a list of books that were challenged or banned, I noticed that many famous books that are used in teaching or books that are now celebrated as classics are in these lists. For instance, books such as To Kill a Mockingbird (by Harper Lee), The Catcher in the Rye (by J.D. Salinger), Lord of the Flies (by William Golding), Of Mice and Men (by John Steinbeck), many novels by Mark Twain and the list goes on and on. Even some quite modern books and series that many children and teenagers read have been challenged such as J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, and Philip Pullman's the Golden Compass and the other two novels in that trilogy.

Even many magazines and newspaper have been asked to be banned from many libraries across the country. The magazine Maclean's was challenged in 2007 for being "islamophobic" after publishing an excerpt from the book America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It. The Edmonton newspaper VueWeekly has also been challenged many times.

It seems as though the main reasons that books are found offensive by some people are centered around religion and sexuality, and books are mainly reported by parents who are worried about their children reading books about those topics. I disagree with the banning of books because I think that people should be able to choose what they read, and if you don't believe in what a book is writing about, then just don't read it! It's as simple as that! I especially do not agree with books being banned simply because parents do not want their children to read about topics such as homosexuality or atheism. Challenging books like that seems extremely ignorant and parents who challenge books like that probably shelter their children too much from the rest of the world that they do not believe in.

All around Canada events are being held to celebrate Freedom to Read Week. Here in Edmonton, one main event being held is the Freedom Ball which is being held by the Edmonton Public Library at the Art Gallery or Alberta. This event is on February 27th and to learn more about it, visit EPL's web page about it. To learn more about Freedom to Read Week, visit their website and to see a list of books that have been challenged or banned, visit their list of "challenged books and magazines." I might be going to the Freedom Ball this Saturday and if I do, I'll be sure to write about it on my blog. But until then, Happy Freedom to Read Week!

My 2nd Olympic Experience

On Friday I went to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics for the second time. This time, I was going after winning the ATCO Celebrating Excellence contest in which I had to write an essay about how I celebrate excellence in school, swimming and all other parts of my life. ATCO awarded a one day trip to the Olympics to one boy and one girl in each Provincial constituency in Alberta. What's amazing is that I was the boy winner for Edmonton-Strathcona, and the girl winner was Jade Robinson, who was also in my class! During the very exciting 20 hour day, we went to a hockey game between Sweden and Belarus, visited Alberta House for lunch, got to explore busy downtown Vancouver, and go to the Victory Ceremonies for that night. All that, and then to come back at 2am in time to get up for swim practice at 6am!



Our day started at 7am at the airport where I met up with my friend Jade who was the other winner in my constituency.



When we arrived in Vancouver, we immediately were bussed to go see the Olympic Torch. This time, we were able to see the torch a lot better than when I was in Vancouver the previous weekend. I'm not sure if we were just in a different place, or if they actually lowered the fence or something, but we got much better views of the torch which was great!



As we walked to Canada Hockey Place to see the hockey game, we were quite the site with many dozens of people walking down the street wearing identical red jerseys. Some people actually stopped to take pictures of us as we walked through downtown Vancouver!



It was very exciting to be in GM Place (renamed Canada Hockey Place for the Olympics) during an Olympic hockey game! The game was also a lot more exciting and interesting than I had anticipated! I thought that Sweden would win be a landslide, but Belarus actually played quite a good game. Sweden was winning 3-0 halfway through the game, but then Belarus started to pick up the pace and soon the score was 3-2. You could hear everyone cheering for Belarus to tie up the game so that we could see an overtime win, but Sweden scored the last score which ended the game at 4-2.
I noticed and learned a few things during the game. First of all, did you know that Ice Hockey was first played at the Olympics during the 1920 Summer Olympics?! Also, I noticed that during the game between plays, ABBA seemed to be the music of choice, probably because that band's home country was playing the game.
It was quite exciting and after seeing that hockey game, I was surprised to find myself watching the Canada vs. USA game tonight, which, to mine, and probably the rest of Canada's disappointment, we lost.



After the game, we were taken to Alberta House for lunch and after that, we had 2 hours of free time to roam downtown Vancouver. My mom and I walked up Robson street and wandered around the busy Granville street to see the activities there. All over downtown there were Canadian flags hanging from buildings to support our athletes.

The whole experience was great and very exciting, but there were some things that were disappointing and that made me question the whole consumerist approach that the Olympics have taken on in these past few years. For instance, during the second intermission of the hockey game, I tried to phone my dad, which proved to be quite difficult. This was because neither my mom or I have a cell-phone and GM Place didn't seem to have any pay phones! We later learned that all the pay phones were actually covered up because the pay phones were Telus phones, and Bell is the sponsor of these Olympics. This meant that I had to use the Information Centre's phone.

Of course, there were also many other eye-opening things that I noticed, such as many protesters downtown, which I will write about in a post once the games are over. All in all however, it was a great experience and it sure was a lot of fun!

I'm Back!

I'm back! After a long, four month break from writing on the blog, I'm back and I'm going to try and write a lot more now! I had to take a break while finishing up my final edition of my newspaper Die Zeitung. Now that I'm done the newspaper for good (or at least for a year or two), I'll be putting a lot more time and effort into the blog, so keep checking in once or twice a week!

A lot has happened in the past four months, a bit too much to try and do a brief summary, so I'll just start with what's happened to me so far in February. On Tuesday I returned from Vancouver to visit my dad. This visit just happened to coincide with the Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, and it was cool to be able to go into downtown Vancouver to see some of the free events and pavilions. We didn't see any Olympic events, but it was interesting to see how the whole thing was being run and how it effected downtown Vancouver.

It was very unfortunate that on the first day of the Olympics, the day of the Opening Ceremonies, the Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died while doing a training run on at the Whistler Sliding Centre. This event seems to have cast a shadow over this year's Olympics, and it was very sad to see an Olympian die so young and before he had a chance to compete. However, the tribute to him during the Opening Ceremonies was very good, and I think that the Vancouver Olympic Committee dealt with this tragic event very well.

On the second day of the Olympics, I went downtown to visit the Canada pavilion and to check out some of the other events available to the public downtown. There was one thing that I noticed right away - the incredibly long line ups! To get anywhere it seemed like you had to get into some sort of line up! I guess that's just what happens when a city hosts the Olympic games though. The pavilions were great though! They were quite interesting and I thought that they represented our country and our provinces very well.

The next day I went into Richmond to see the O-Zone Celebration venue where you can watch live events and go to a skating rink. What I realized that day was that Vancouver should not host the Winter Olympics. It was a very summery 15 degrees outside... in February! Perhaps the Summer Olympics would've been a better choice for Vancouver. The skating rink at the Richmond O-Zone was great however, and later we took the SkyTrain to see the Olympic Flame downtown. The Flame was a huge disappointment. Not only could the public not get within 25 meters of the Flame, but it was also fenced off and the fences were covered with a fabric so that the public couldn't even see the Flame! I've heard that now they removed the fabric and made a viewing area for the public, but still many, many meters away. That just didn't seem like it went well with the whole Olympic spirit!

Another note about the Olympics - YAYYYY!!!!! So we've finally won a gold (now in fact three gold) medal at an Olympics at home! Congratulations to Alexandre Bilodeau, the first Canadian to win a gold medal on home soil!!! It really seems like the first gold could not have gone to a nicer guy, he really deserved it.

Tomorrow I'll be heading off to the Olympics once again - this time to see an actual event - after winning the ATCO Celebrating Excellence Contest in which the first prize was a one day trip to the Vancouver 2010 Olympics! I had to write an essay about how I celebrate excellence in school, in swimming and in my community and submit it to ATCO. There are 166 (I think?) youths going from Alberta - a boy and a girl from each political constituency - going to the Olympics and the boy and the girl in my constituency, Edmonton-Strathcona, are in my class! I'm the boy and my friend Jade Robinson will be going as well! We will both be going to the Sweden vs. Belarus hockey game, as well as to Alberta House for lunch, and to a Victory Ceremony at BC Place in the evening.

I will be posting an update after my second visit to Vancouver as well as some pictures from both trips - so check in sometime this weekend!

Stand Up Against Poverty

Today, my school participated in the Stand Up movement, which is an event put together by the organization Make Poverty History. I read the Stand Up Pledge over my school's PA system during the morning announcements and asked everyone to stand up as I read the pledge. Here is the pledge that I read:

STAND UP PLEDGE

We are standing now with millions of people around the world
on this historic day, to show our commitment to the fight against
extreme poverty and inequality. We only have six years left to the
2015 deadline to realize the Millennium Development Goals.

Today, we Stand Up together to say to our leaders:

Act now to achieve and exceed the Millennium Development Goals.

Commit to bold leadership at the G8/G20, to combat extreme poverty,
transform global economic and financial systems, tackle the impact of
climate change on poor countries and eliminate poverty in Canada.

We will continue to Stand Up, not just today but every day, to say:
No more Excuses, End Poverty and Inequality Now!”

In total we got approximately 600 people to stand up as I read the pledge, and I put our contribution on the Stand Up Map on the Stand Against Poverty Website.