one of the more surreal things about the house next door is that there's a pregnant woman living there.

i saw her brought into this apartment building today by one of the potheads, and it got me wondering: wouldn't it make sense if they swapped?

i mean, this is supposed to be converting into a non-smoking building. next door is a crack house. one is pregnant; the other's a pothead. why not switch?

and, that kind of got an idea in my mind.

what if i put up an ad for switching? that is, what if i can find somebody trying to get out of a non-smoking apartment? maybe we could swap leases...with management's approval...

lease swapping? is that a thing?

i think it's an idea, anyways.

hrmmn.

that's almost three months straight edge now, btw.

well, except the second-hand smoke...

this wasn't intentional, but i do plan to remain straight edge until i can get in somewhere. - even if i'm homeless for a few months.

the same thing has happened over and over again.

and, i'm not going to adjust.

i'm just going to remain frustrated.

i don't want to be a hot guy. sorry.

and, then she wondered why i prioritized sitting at home and reading textbooks over going out and chasing her around.

i'm living with a hot girl, and i just want to stay inside and read while she goes out in search of fun?

yes.

because i'm a nerd.

always was.

it's funny, though, because it'e exactly what sarah used to say.

"you make a totally nerdy woman, but you're a really hot guy. so, why don't you be a hot guy instead of a nerdy woman? i don't get it."

what she didn't get is that my personality doesn't change with my haircut. i don't transform from a nerdy woman into a hot guy by taking myself off of estrogen; rather, i convert from a nerdy woman into a nerdy guy.

because i'm a nerd whether i'm on estrogen or not.

and what's happening is that you're deluding yourself: i'm not a hot guy, i'm a nerdy woman.

think of it like this...

if i were really the pothead guy you'd like to pretend i am, would that not transform itself into a very different type of female?

would the female equivalent of the male you imagine i ought to be come off as i actually do? i would think she'd be rather different - more interested in fashion, and current trends and etc.

now, if you interpret me the way i intend you to, i'm actually a pretty nerdy female, aren't i? i usually wear pants & tanktops, or tshirts. not very stylish, really. and, i don't go to the kinds of things that popular girls go to, or have interests that align well with the in group. my female side is positively loserish, right?

so, why would you transform this loserish female side into this dynamic male? wouldn't it actually make more sense to convert the nerdy female i present myself as into a nerdy male counterpart?

but, you just want to see what you want, right?

and, i'll disappoint you all year, if you insist.

i'm not trying to look like a pothead rock star.

i neither create, nor listen to nor even like that kind of music.

i've been clear on this point. over and over again.

i'm trying to look like what i am: a fairly studious, well educated female with a hobby in music.

and, i'll tell you - i wouldn't do it, but it's true....

if i were to cut my hair and wear nerd glasses and polo shirts, you'd just tell me i make a shitty dad - and i would make a shitty dad, because i don't want to raise a family any more than i want to sit around and do drugs.

i neither want a job, nor do i want to be a drunk. yeah, well, it's your preconceptions that are fucked.

i think that the very clear point that i'm trying to get across is that i don't want to hang out with you, either.

i want to spend my time alone with my projects.

i'm sorry that it took such a ridiculous demonstration of this point, but we could have avoided this if you had just listened to me in the first place.

i shouldn't have to do this.

but, the order was $1350. i used my deposit to pay july, and withheld august - meaning she owes me $650 (and i have no deposit).

so, if i stay for september, i'll owe her $50 - because the rent is $700 minus the $650 she owes me, and i don't have a deposit.

if i leave september 1st, she will owe me $650.

04/15 is now updated.

hungry...

you shouldn't toss those lids in the garbage, you should hang on to them and take them to a specialized recycling depot. they are recyclable...

i'm a smart person.

high iq.

multiple university degrees.

so, this is something you'd expect somebody like me to be able to figure out. but, i just learned a few months ago that the recycling programs don't take coffee cup lids...

it's not that they aren't recyclable - they are. it's that the recycling companies refuse them due to weight - a clause you'd have to take considerable time to figure out.

most people are going to take a look at one of the lids, like this one:

...notice the recycling symbol, and toss it in the bin.

it's plastic, right? it has the symbol! what could go wrong?

it's too light....

this is a minor concern in comparison, granted. but, everybody is doing something wrong, here.

leaving the bins on the road is no answer.

people really ought to get fired.

so, it seems like, instead of hiring more sorters, the windsor recycling plant has halted pickup to this block altogether. it's the streets on both sides of the building, between the two cross streets....

i took a walk up the street, and they have a point. people seem to think that putting clothing in their recycle box is donating it to goodwill - it's a thought that should be nurtured and corrected, rather than stamped down. people have items in the wrong bins. it's a legit catastrophe.

but, the people on the block don't understand what they're doing wrong - and they're just going to let it sit on the curb, perhaps until the garbage trucks pick it up.

it's not an answer. it's just idiocy.

it's just laziness.

yes - i understand that the people that live in this neighbourhood are frustrating. very, very well, actually. they're almost universally drunks & potheads. they smoke in church, if they go - and, i suspect that most of them actually do. and, yes - there's a few crackheads, too. if somebody were to survey the average education level, the results would be disturbing - it may honestly be grade school.

these are people that are stupid and uneducated and poor - but they are recycling. at least. they're trying, dammit. you have to be patient. it's hard, but you have to. don't stamp out the effort...

frankly, i think the plant should hire more sorters. you're never going to fix this problem at the source. you can pamphlet. you can put ads on the radio, or on tv. maybe in the tv guide? like, you have to understand what you're dealing with before you launch an ad campaign...

....but, it's just a reminder that recycling is a business, and not a communal act of social conscience.

that's fine.

i'll take my business elsewhere.

so, did i miss out on a lot of shows this summer, or what?

clearly, i would have rather had this dealt with, by now...

i missed out on the weather, certainly - i'm sure i would have gone out a few times, if i wasn't worried about everything. but, did i miss any actual shows?

i just checked a few venues, & i honestly don't see anything i'm upset about missing.

if that surprises you, you should modify your conceptions of me.

in fact, october looks like it may be busy, if i'm still here. if this works out, i'm going to have a nice sum to spend in the fall - and that may be preferable to me.

remember: i don't like going to shows with more than a few hundred people.

i mean, that's how this is supposed to work, right?

immigrants aren't supposed to take up all of the low rent housing downtown, they're supposed to buy new houses in the suburbs. they can then raise their families with their two-car garages and vote conservative in safe conservative ridings. that leaves low rent areas in downtown available for single, poor people like me, that live liberal lifestyles and vote left.

but, instead, the refugees are flooding the shelters downtown, which are not intended for immigrants. that's why what's happening here is creating so many problems - this isn't how our system is designed to work.

tell the refugees to move to the east side - it's a better place to raise a family.

if i were to move to the east side of town, i would simply increase the amount of time i spend travelling to the west side of town.

the new bridge is being built on the west side of town. so, i would be moving even further away from anything i'd want to do.

the simple fact is that there are no concert venues on the east side of town - or, at least, no concert venues i would want to go to. i think there's a lame hair metal bar that i'd never go to. there is therefore nothing to do on the east side of town.

if you want to play these stupid games, i'd rather move to lasalle. at least it's closer to the new bridge.

i don't think i'm depressed.

i think this city is disgusting.

& i think the situation is surreal.

and, then there's stuff like this.

https://www.kijiji.ca/v-1-bedroom-apartments-condos/windsor-area-on/basement-apt-for-rent/1376905430?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true

this apartment has been relisted repeatedly since at least may.

it's literally the guy's half-finished basement.

now, what kind of person with a job wants to live in a space like that? for $750/month?

you could get a nice apartment for $1000/month. and, minimum wage, nowadays is over $2000/month.

it would be great for a teenager, perhaps. and, it's the ideal space for somebody on longterm disability. but who wants to go to work all day to live in somebody's basement?

so, the landlord is just a complete fucking idiot...

the reason it's maddening is what it's leaving open. no matter how you parse this through, this landlord's right-wing stupidity is directly responsible for somebody sleeping on the street.

and, yeah, that pisses me off.

when we talk about abolishing private property, when we talk about how property is theft, this is a good demonstration of the point.

that property owner is stealing a home from somebody.

i mean, i can try, right?

if i can't get anybody to bite, i'll have to move, instead.

i may see some cuts myself.

so, i think i can budget for a year.

and, i think i can be honest in pointing out that the situation is chaotic right now - and almost impossible to plan around.

and, how many of these idiots voted for this, anyways?

"but he wanted to get rid of sex ed."

"and the other one was the gay."

in windsor, especially...

if they cut welfare by 25%? the rent is going to have to come down by 20%, anyways.

eventually.

not everywhere, but in certain units...

maybe i can find a little box up in the sky to watch it from for a few months.

so, cutting social assistance means reducing rent.

get it?

i mean, any critique of social assistance of any kind has to be undertaken in the context of understanding that almost all of this money ends up in the pockets of rentiers.

maybe ford can even direct some of that money away from welfare and towards subsidized housing, so it's not just padding the bank accounts of property owners, at the expense of availability...

i wouldn't count on that.

what i'm thinking is that there will be a lot more vacancies this time next year, once ford has pushed through those cuts.

it's very sad and everything, but the feds need to build more affordable housing, not saturate the market with refugees overpaying for substandard housing, with welfare.

we have space. we don't have infrastructure...

yeah.

ok.

i'm going to start thinking about strategizing around the next year, by actually increasing the amount of rent i can pay out, by appealing to my savings.

they're making an announcement nov 8th.

if i plan for a year, 1230 + 3500/12 = 1521. 1521 - 270 = $1252.

that's a lot more, isn't it?

even at $1000, total expenses for the year become 1270*12 = 15240 < 18252, and by quite a bit.

i'm going to have to find somebody reasonable, of course.

but what i've learned is that the vacancies actually open up quite substantively when you increase the rent just that extra little bit, because nobody wants the midlevel housing they're building around here....

it's the only category where prices are actually coming DOWN.

if i can talk them into a year lease, with the intent of plotting further courses next year...

there's just not another no smoking option, around here. and, like i say - they can't rent these units.

the reality is that the best thing that could happen - from my perspective - is to see them hold disability rates steady, while cutting welfare rates, specifically welfare rates for families.

i noticed a spike in vacancies near the university after the saudi announcement. that is good news...

....& the fact is that cutting welfare rates is something that would open up a lot of housing options in this city.

this is the nature of capitalism: i'm competing over housing with people due to a deficit of supply, which means i'm hoping them harm, to better my standing. that's how this system operates.

About 40 per cent of immigrants to Windsor are refugees, compared to 15 per cent for Ontario and 12 per cent for Canada.

i'm sorry, but i don't think this bodes well for the region. as 30% are immigrants, that means 10% of the population is refugees. and these are 2016 numbers...


Iraq is the place of birth for 20.2 per cent of immigrants coming to Windsor between 2011 and 2016, while Syria represents 10.5 per cent, and the United States 8.6 per cent. China and India are next, tied at 7.9 per cent.

the indian number has definitely gone up recently.

i don't need or even want to live in whitetown. but, these are the structural refugees - the lifers. & they're just adding to an existing situation of widespread structural poverty...

this city is the place that is least able to deal with this, yet it is absorbing the problem, disproportionately.

the reality is that we're on a one-way ticket to bankruptcy. the refugees aren't at fault for this, but they will tip the scales on it...

if i leave, it will be because i can't find a smoke-free apartment. august was brutal, but the vacancy rate seems to be opening up a bit, and i suspect the market will open quite a bit in september. the refugee situation is clearly creating unwanted market pressure from a tenancy perspective, however it's only one of a few different things happening. right now, it seems like the biggest factor is the international students. but, i may look back at this as an escape from an impending social mess.

there's no tax base, here.

it doesn't make any sense.

https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/2016-census-windsors-population-is-27-8-per-cent-immigrant

they're actually still going to give me $700+ a month, after i move out.

i'm going to mostly eat in homeless shelters...they can cram their religion up their asses, but i'll take the meals. fuck, it should be secularly run. i'll tell 'em to fuck right off if they try and proselytize - dump the soup in their goddamned faces. but, i'll eat it, and keep coming back until i figure it out...

and, if i stay at an air bnb here and there to take a shower and do laundry, i can claim that on the $489.

but, regardless, i'm going to have a lot to spend on storage. $500+. that is without eating into the savings, which i'll need to use to actually move.

obviously, i want to find something as quickly as possible.

but, i should be able to fund this indefinitely.

so, let's dispense with the "lessons learned". i may even enjoy the backpacking.

surely, i can find somewhere in this province where i'm free from second-hand smoke...

hey, i didn't have thousands of dollars in the bank for the first three times...

i'm in a far better position than i was then.

it's part of being an anarchist.

in fact, i believe this would be my fourth time homeless.

i'll work this out. i always do.

second-hand marijuana smoke is not a small concern, or a minor annoyance - it is a serious health hazard, and a dangerous risk factor for the onset of early dementia.

i am constantly sick, living here. i can barely ride my bicycle down the street without coughing...

further, there's not a lot of use in sitting in an unhealthy environment for the benefit of my gear, if i cannot secure access to a sober state in which to utilize it with.

meaningful artistic creation is impossible under the influence of drugs.

i need the space for the gear. but, i can't do anything in the space - i can't record, i can't read, i can't exist. all i can do is stumble around like a retard, under the influence of my neighbours' drugs.

i would have to become like the people around me, in order to exist here. and, if that is my fate, i would rather be dead - inexistence is preferable to an existence of waste.

i'm sorry if you're too stupid to understand any of this. but, my options are escape or death - death as an individual, death as an artist, death as an entity.

for, that is what drugs do to a person - they destroy our minds.

i could continue to live here. but, i would be dead, inside - as dead as the people around me.

and, why don't you take the flight yourself, john?

oh, that's right.

they'd decapitate your dumb ass.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/canada/this-has-not-been-a-good-hour-for-canada-john-baird-slams-trudeau-government-on-saudi-state-tv/wcm/21d494d7-9ade-481b-9dae-6360c2ec9d70

so, i mean, it's not like i'm going to take the cash i got from the court case and go on a trip to vegas or something.

that purpose of this fiasco was to ensure i'd have access to sufficient housing.

it will be spent responsibly.

what i'm getting at is that if i'm overpaying in the short term anyways, that $30/month doesn't really matter much....or at least it doesn't if i have enough in the bank to compensate for it....

30*12 = $360.

i have more than that available for this purpose. it's just a question of budgeting it.

i expect that the sad fact is that there's going to be a lot of evictions in the next 2 years.

and, it's going to drive rents back down again...

i mean, the boost isn't being driven by an increase in wealth, it's being driven by a decrease in supply. and, that is why it's unsustainable. you can only squeeze poor people so far, before there's nothing left to squeeze, and you have to throw them out - but then the opposite problem happens, and you end up with empty units that nobody can afford, unless the rents come down, which is what should have happened in the first place, rather than the eviction.

1) the low vacancy drives the rents up
2) the rents become unaffordable for poor tenants
3) these tenants get evicted
4) because there is no wealth creation happening, the vacancy rate increases. 
5) rents fall back down again

but, how long does that take?

and, am i even going to want to stay here post-discography, anyways?

they would take me seriously if i had enough to pay them the year in advance...

sign a year lease, pay it down at the signing - then, who cares if i'm on disability, it's already paid, right?

with what i've got, i'd be looking at 3 or 4 months. and, unless i sign a 4 month lease - not enough time - it's of little consequence.

of course, i'm pretending that i would have ever seen that money, too, right...

the fact that it's two months rent on two months' notice is probably as best as i could have hoped to get.

it's just that i have to think that what's happening in windsor is short term.

the basic problem of there not being any jobs here has not changed. we're probably on the brink of even losing auto jobs. at some point, the flow into the city is going to dry up - or we're going to end up going bankrupt.

is it worth trying to find my way into a penthouse suite for the next year or two to wait it out? can i get anybody to listen to me long enough to show them the budget?

i don't need money for the opera. i need a place i can breathe in.

if i had won an extra $2000-3000. this argument would be a lot easier to make...

$3500 is not a lot in the bank. it seems like it is, to me - it'll take a long time for me to get through it. but i'm not winning a lot of arguments with a $3500 nest egg.

$5000+ is more serious, but still thin, in context.

ugh.

i've been planning long term.

is that a mistake?

well, i need to complete my discography, right? can i do that in two or three years?


if i change my mindset a little bit, and consider that i have some cash in the bank,should i be looking at more expensive units with the argument that i'll eat away at it, and intend to move in a few years?

hrmmn.

i could make that argument with a local landowner, not with a property management company...

i don't want to lose money, at least.

it would give me $950 as max - and i'd be breaking even every month, with no spending money.

then, at the end of the term, when i'm done the discography, i'd have to sell my gear and move on what i make from it.

it's weird, because it's less that i need two bedrooms, and more that i don't need a kitchen - or, don't need a living room.

so, when i see a unit with a big kitchen, it lets me imagine using the living room as a studio - and the kitchen as a living room.

the reason is that the only thing i actually do in the living room is eat, right?

there's actually one place i'm going to call tomorrow that has a really big kitchen, that may be useful as the studio space - and a very small living room to eat in.

it's just total floor space i'm after, and the ability to section it properly.

i am appalled at the premise of having a white side of town and a brown side of town. i would not support this, in any way, or seek to uphold it at all.

but, i need to make the point clear: i'm not white.

my father was of mixed jewish, native american, italian & french background. he also seems to have had some deeper ethnic ancestry, which may have been african american or southeast asian. it's not clear. we just know there was some very dark skin in there.

my mother is finnish & celtic (irish/scots/welsh) - technically white, but not really considered it through most of this continent's history.

for 10 months of the year, i am full on brown.

under the wrong public policies, hundreds of years worth of progress can be wiped out in a matter of weeks.

is it because god?

lol.

like i say: we've very quickly reverted to a far more primitive time.

with every passing day, the depth of this sudden backwardsness just serves as a reminder of how fragile what we used to have really was.

you know, there seems to be a group of people that think single people are in some kind of conflict with families.

i'm not even going to try and get my head around this, other than asking for further clarification. but, is the idea really that deciding to be single is some kind of an attack on families or....?

i dunno.

i suspect this is one of those things that you'll need to explain to me very slowly before i'm able to identify the fallacy in it.

is the fact that i don't want a family somehow seen as threatening to people that do want families? how so?

do we all have to make the same choice, is that it? do we all have to be the same? is it the 50s again?

by the end of all of this, i could end up teaching your kids. how'd you like that? and, at the least, i'll make sure that they won't make these kinds of errors in reasoning, if i do.

i just have better things to do than raise kids. sorry.

fwiw, the date for payment of the court order was yesterday. so, they now owe me interest on the $650 they still owe me.

the official response from the paralegal is that the landlord claims she didn't receive the documents in the mail.

that's right - they're claiming they didn't receive the documents in the mail.

obvious bullshit, of course - but a good demonstration of why i know they're not going to follow any order at all.

i may have won a larger settlement if i was out before the court date, but i wouldn't have seen a dime of it.

i just want to make the point clear.

i don't know exactly how many places i've seen. 30? 40? 50?

i've put in three applications and have not heard anything back. these have all been with management companies, and i understand that these people operate like actuaries - they just crunch numbers. i don't know what the ratio they want is. 30? 40? i can correctly argue that i'll live happily with 60-70, but you can't argue with a robot. 60>40. error.

of those three applications, two of them were in buildings with smokers. one of them was over top of a storefront, and i think it would have been ok. the other was in a corner unit and, while away from the smoking traffic, much more of a gamble. the third application was a ground floor unit. so, none of these units were what i really want.

and, only one of the actual applications i've put down has been in a smoke-free place.

in fact, of the 40 or so places i've seen, only three have been non-smoking. i saw a non-smoking unit in july that i couldn't secure last month's for. there was the aforementioned ground unit. and, there was an attic north of tecumseh.

37/40 = 93%.

do i believe that 93% of the buildings here have smokers?

no.

even the most pessimistic estimate would have to be in the 70s or 80s. 93? no way.

so, i'm going to argue i'm undergoing some bad luck.

there's two deductions from this:

1) it's not like i'm rejecting spots. i would have moved into the non-smoking building in a second, but i would have thrown away last month's rent and probably the $1350 settlement along with it. this landlord is not going to obey any court order whatsoever. $2000 is a lot of money to me. i couldn't pull the trigger on that. the attic was...it had a lot of features, so it probably wasn't over-priced in a closer analysis. but, it didn't make sense - not for me. and the manager for the ground floor unit wanted to rent to a "professional", which is sort of laughable. i actually think the unit is still available, as i saw an ad for it come up and then down again in the first week of august. so, of the three, two aren't my fault, and the other just wasn't a good fit.

2) it's gotta turn over, soon. even the worst case analysis of an 80% rate means i'm getting a bad sample. as t--->oo, this should even out. i don't have infinite time, here, but i'm going on three months looking, now...

the greatest geniuses in the history of the world - from socrates through to turing - have all been attacked and killed by the societies they inhabited.

i'm not saying i belong in that list.

i'm just asking you to think carefully about what the outcome of this situation implies.

i still don't know if i wanted to stay in that basement or not. the fact is that the smoke was awful, and the landlord was an idiot. but, it's clear enough that they didn't want me there, and they would have figured out a way to get me out of there, eventually. i think i reacted the way i had to. i can't and don't want to stay here.

but, the basic truth is that when you force a smart person to exist amongst stupid people, the stupidity usually wins. you could even argue that intelligence is very actively selected out...

if the muslims had their way, we wouldn't have any diversity here at all, would we?

only in a backwards, orwellian reality would we speak of muslim immigration as creating diversity.

muslims are the least diverse in thought and most conformist people on the planet.

i was citing orwell.

maybe you might want to think about what i was getting at a little more carefully.

there's "diversity", in this religious or corporatist context where you have these categories of retrograde conformists that have no ability to think for themselves whatsoever, and then there's diversity in the actual sense, which is synonymous with individualism - and in complete contradiction to any kind of organized thought control, be it religious or capitalist, at all.

but, none of that creates housing where there is none.

there's too many poor people in canada, right now. and, it means something for me to point out that i was here first.

as an anarchist, i actively encourage you to reject your culture and learn to think for yourself.

i can help, but only to a point - you have to do this work on your own.

i'm not interested in a debate about diversity v. homogeneity in the way that bourgeois liberals want to define the terms; i'm an anarchist, i reject culture altogether in favour of individualist expression. i don't care where you're from or what you look like; i'm going to treat you like an individual, either way.

but, that's just it - i'm not going to interpret you as a muslim or a hindu or a sikh or a christian, because that limits your individuality and restricts the amount of diversity that exists.

nor am i going to let you use your religion or your culture as an excuse for oppressive attitudes towards gays, women, animals or anything else. diversity does not imply a rights hierarchy.

a more coherent understanding of my critique of religion - as well as my critique of capitalism - is that it destroys individuality and replaces it with these cookie cutter concepts of identity.

a black woman from jamaica should be free to listen to rachmaninov and dress like a german aristocrat, if she wants. an indian male should be free to eat beef as he curses the gods and tries out for the local hockey team, if he wants. a muslim woman should be free to work in the pornography industry, have multiple partners and reject motherhood - if she wants. and gay & trans people of every background exist, whether anybody likes it or not.

that is diversity.

a sea of hijabs and yoga mats, made by children in guatemala, is not.

when somebody calls to ask you a question, regardless of context, you should always shut the fuck up and let them ask it, not try and steer the conversation somewhere else.

i can never understand these property managers that want to take control of the conversation on the phone.

i'm calling. i'm initiating the question. and, i don't want to hear your fucking sales pitch - shut the fuck up and let me ask the question.

"but, it's big, and there's no noise, and..."

...and, i don't fucking care. i didn't call to get a recording. i called to ask a question. i'm calling you to ask about whether you'll be enforcing non-smoking requirements, not to hear about what colour the fucking walls are, or when the kitchen was redone, or....

and, then, it's "i don't have time for..."

well, you're the one wasting my time, you fucking idiot.

you don't think fags and losers should have the right to safe, healthy, smoke-free housing?

why not?

i will escape your barbarism before i participate in it.

yes, i am dealing with depression right now.

and, i'm depressed because i can't find a healthy place to live.

and, i shouldn't have to compete on a market for an apartment. that's barbaric.

you want to be better? you can be better. i don't care.

you can win and i can lose. fine.

just give me a nice corner to read in, by myself.

if you force market conditions on me, i'm not going to adjust, or try harder, or change myself to fit the market - i'm going to get up and leave.

i don't want to 'win'. i want out.

yeah.

i'm looking at 50-100 people applying for any given apartment. i can't - and don't want to - compete for a place to live. it's just a shitty way to live, and a shitty way to organize a society.

i mean, do you want to race me to the corner for the apartment? ugh.

i've argued repeatedly that what i want is a way to escape from a market-based society, so i don't have to deal with this. that's a big part of the reason i moved here...

i knew it would disappear, eventually.

so, i'm going to have to get out of here...and find some other place where the market has collapsed, for at least a little while...

how does it make sense to say "i smoke drugs because i have anxiety", if your habit is to sit in your room and smoke by yourself?

"i smoke because i have anxiety" only makes sense in the context of social interactions, does it not?

it's a bullshit excuse for a drug addict...

03/15 is updated.

that's another brutal night for the smoke, here. bad enough that i'm getting chest pains...

the purpose of social assistance is to prevent revolt.

you want to take that away? well, then we'll have to revolt. and, it will be people like me that will lead those revolts.

hey, they always said i was a leader...

a homeless march on city hall sounds like fun.

i'm a political activist, as you can see here.

if i end up living in a shelter, you can be sure that i'm going to try and organize the people that live there.

and, i think it's obvious enough that we have a problem here that requires some activism.

and, it's not even an accident.

it's designed this way on purpose.

woah.

no matter what happens - accidents, catastrophes, unbudgeted expenses, etc - they always pay me the day before rent is due.

always.

every time.

so, i'd basically have to be a complete drug addict to not pay you. and i'm not.

so, even if i spend more than i wanted to partying in may, they'll always give me enough money on may 31st to pay rent for june 1st.

and, then, even if i need to go to the food bank for june, they'll always give me money on june 30th for rent on july 1st.

and, then, even if i need to take out a loan to pay for an unexpected expense in july, they'll always give me enough money on july 31st to pay rent for august 1st.

and, then, even if my identity gets stolen, and my bank account gets hacked, and my apartment gets broken into, they'll still give me enough money on august 31st to pay rent on september 1st.

and, then, even if i get abducted by aliens, and dropped off in a rainforest, and need to hitch home through central america, they'll still give me enough money on september 30th to pay rent on october 1st.

is my point clear?

fuck.

i'd draw a picture, but the platform doesn't allow for it.

maybe point form?

- 31st: +1151 into my account.
- 1st: -750 from my account, and into your account.
- 750<1151, so the money is always there - guaranteed.

every single month.

no exceptions.

until the rapture.

(no, i don't believe in the rapture)

the check is $1151, and it comes in on the last day of the month, every single month.

you're asking for $750 in rent, on the first day of the month.

750 < 1151.

what's the problem, here?

it's not complicated.

unless the banking system collapses, or the computer networks implode, there's not much chance that that cash isn't going to get you, the next day...

for all the bullshit i've dealt with over the last two years, i've never had a problem paying for rent.

and, why would i? i get a check on the last day of every month....

i go out for a few drinks in detroit, and people don't believe me when i tell them i'm too poor to hand out money.

but, i try and apply for an apartment in windsor, and people don't believe me when i tell them i can budget well enough to afford the place.

maybe i can get these people to call each other?

it's stupidity from every direction, in every conceivable way.

it's always bizarre to hear a homophobic slur in this day and age.

it's just like, "yeah. so? have you never seen one before, or what?".

it really feels like we've lost fifty years in the last six months. and it reminds you of how tentative social progress really is.

so, objects - like dresses - exist in an objective reality. light reflects off of these objects in specific wavelengths.

in order to determine what colour an object is, you measure the wavelength of the light reflecting off of it. this is not subjective - this is quantitative data. numbers. facts.

you can then compare what you experience to what the data says in order to determine if your eyes work right or not (preferably double-blind, to control for biases). if what you see is consistent with the data, congratulations - your eyes work right. if not, the mechanics of your eyes are malfunctioning and you are consequently interpreting the world through a flawed filter. you'd want to seek medical attention.

so, here are three things the ndp should be doing.

1) exploiting the refugee crisis to push for more subsidized housing.
2) exploiting the saudi over-reaction to bring back the wheat board.
3) getting vocally involved in the nafta negotiations, to prioritize policies that benefit canadian workers.

instead, they're piggy-backing on american media to parrot soft-left talking points from american democrats, that benefit bourgeois employers at the expense of all workers.

i'm not taking about tariffs, i'm talking about a bds-style movement - and asset seizure, very explicitly.

the rational deduction from this fiasco is that we don't want to allow them the leverage to destabilize the economy.

if the saudis are going to react like this, we should completely sever ties altogether, including seizing and nationalizing assets that they have in the country.

this is a good crisis to exploit in bringing back the wheat board. do western farmers really want to sell to a saudi run monopoly?

they have demonstrated that they are an unreliable trading partner, and a potential national security concern.

the tory press is actually standing up for the saudis.

lol.

welcome to the dark ages, canada.

where...

war is peace.
freedom is slavery.
ignorance is diversity, and diversity is strength.

if these morons wrote their own laws, i'd be guilty of harassment for standing up for my rights.

but, all the property owners in town think the same stupid way, so i can't just go elsewhere for sanity - i'm just getting more craziness, everywhere i turn.

it's like the fucking twilight zone.

the smoker doesn't understand what's wrong with her behaviour.

the property manager doesn't understand why she's negligent.

the property owner doesn't understand the law.

it's just a complete lack of understanding.

and, it's endemic. it's cultural.

i need out....

the only way i'm going to get the money she owes me is by not paying the rent.

she doesn't understand what she's done wrong.

it's a culture of abject stupidity.

frankly, i would rather put my things in storage tomorrow and be homeless immediately than stay here for another month.

but, my idiot landlady is not paying me the money she owes me, so it seems like the only way to recoup this is going to be to stay here until october 1st.

if she would write me the check, i would think strongly about getting out right away.

it has been clear since april that staying here is not a choice.

i can't stay here; it's not a habitable space. i'm not young anymore, i need to avoid carcinogens as much as possible.

this apartment will kill me. i must leave.

but, there's nowhere to go - or at least not in this city.

so, what do you want me to tell you? i can't stay here, and there's nowhere to go, so i need to find a way out of the city.

and, in order to do that, i'll need to put my things in storage and hit the road.

i don't have another choice.

and, so, was this a good gamble? well, anything is a better choice than sitting here and waiting for the cancer to consume me. any way out of here is preferable.

so, of course i made the right choice - there wasn't a choice to make. i had to do whatever was necessary to evacuate this space, as soon as i could.

02/15 updated....

as far as i can tell, the worst thing that could happen is that i may have to stay homeless until  a smoke-free space opens up in subsidized housing.

five years?

six years?

lots of books...

and, you can't smoke in the library.

of course, i don't expect it to take that long.

i would rather leave my items in storage and live in a shelter for the next five year than get a job.

that's a lot of time to read, if that's what i have to do to wait this out.

i've explained myself as well as i can.

i'm sorry if you still don't understand.

and, i'll explain by example if that's what you need - if you're more of a hands-on learner.

but, i thought we went through that already...

i don't want to climb ladders or get titles or raise kids or anything else attached to capitalist goals.

i just want a little quiet, healthy space to myself where i can think to myself.

and i'll happily spend the winter homeless if that's what i have to do to get to that end point.

the simple fact is that employment offers me no solutions, just a set of extra problems that i don't want.

even if i did have money, i still wouldn't want to own a house.

maintenance. upkeep. taxes. yuck.

there are lots of things i'd like to spend my time doing, and maintaining a property is simply not one of them.

i don't think that a smoke-free apartment ought to be a luxury, or a difficult to obtain commodity. the situation i'm in is really absurd. it shouldn't happen. ever.

this is actually a smart approach.

if we're running through a period of regression here, where backwards attitudes become dominant in terms of sheer numbers of adherents, we're going to need the court to set things straight.

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/08/09/ontario-sex-ed-human-rights-challenge_a_23499205/?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=spotim_recirculation&spotim_referrer=recirculation

so, if your building recently gave you a letter indicating that the building is now non-smoking, should you take that as a less than subtle hint that they want you to leave?

yeah.

probably...

can i even put out an open letter to smokers, not just in windsor, but ontario more generally?

the rules in ontario around smoking inside have recently changed quite a bit. landlords now have the ability to insist that new tenants sign leases that prohibit them from smoking, even if they can't enforce it with old tenants. while smokers may think of this as a headache, it is actually in everybody's best interests to self-segregate around the habit.

while i cannot speak for other municipalities, there is clearly no deficit of landlords willing to rent to smokers in windsor. if anything, it appears to be difficult to find landlords that want to rent to non-smokers. i've found a few families that don't want smokers, but none of the management companies appear to care much about the issue at all.

i know that moving is annoying. but, if your landlord has decided that your building is now non-smoking, please understand that there are non-smokers that are having difficulty finding a place to live that is non-smoking - and plenty of options where smoking appears to actually be preferred. you will solve a lot of problems by relocating yourself to somewhere where you're more welcome, and allowing the space to open up for somebody that wants to follow your building's new rules.

a little bit of voluntary co-operation is going to work in everybody's interests.

even biking home exposed the depth of the situation.

biking through a residential neighbourhood on a saturday afternoon, all you can smell from every direction, is smoke. every house has somebody out smoking.

it's unscientific, but it seems like the smoking rates in the downtown core of this city are approaching 80%.

you can't understand it until you've experienced it.

maybe it's just the simple fact that so many people have left, leaving the most hopeless people behind.

like i say: i came here expecting collapse. this just isn't the form i hoped it would take.

i saw three places today.

two of them were advertised as non-smoking, and both had smokers. i thought maybe the one that was advertised as not non-smoking would be smoke-free, but there was a huge butt can out front.

even the places i've put applications in on are compromises - smokers at the other end of the property, kind of thing.

there does not appear to be anywhere here for a non-smoker to live without jeopardizing their health.

it really seems like i'm going to have to leave this town because i can't find a healthy place to live.

as surreal as that seems.

01/15 is updated...

the only effect that drugs have on your brain is that they make you stupid.

maybe you'd rather be stupid.

i'll pass.

when i'm sitting at home in my apartment, i don't want to turn my brain off - i want to use it.

it's when i'm interacting with other people, out and about, that i want to turn my brain off.

again: it's one thing if i'm using it as a way to escape the stress of social interaction.

but, it's another if i'm unable to focus when i'm trying to read or write or think or create or record, by myself.

the best way i can describe this is asking you to try to imagine waking up unable to speak.

so, you try to do what you want to do, whatever it is - and all that comes out are jumbled words. you try and focus, and you can't. you might need to communicate with a fast food worker to get a coffee, and you can't get the order out. or, maybe you're trying to communicate with a co-worker and just getting confused glances.

this is what it's like trying to read or write or create when you're involuntarily under the influence of drugs - you want to do something, but it's just impossible, or it can only be done slowly, or at a reduced rate.

i'm operating at 60-70%, if that.

so, it's like stumbling around at work with a lobotomy.

so, i'm just sitting here trying to read, and i can't - i end up coughing. having difficulty staying awake, difficulty focusing...

if there was somebody to talk to, i might have a different perspective.

but, i don't want to talk to anybody, right now. i'm not out - i'm at home. alone. trying to work. i want to read. or write. or create. and i can't do that. and it's frustrating.

in my mind, it makes absolutely no sense to stay home and smoke drugs.

it's just a waste of time.

& a waste of drugs.

the smoke tonight is ridiculous. i've got my front door open to try and clear it out.

"it's a friday night."

but, i'm at home. i don't want to be stoned when i'm at home. pretty much ever.

when i go out somewhere, it's not to get drunk or stoned, it's to see a concert. you'll note that i don't go to parties, that i don't go to get togethers, that i don't have a group of friends, etc - that the only time i ever go anywhere is to see a concert. and, that is the purpose of going out - to experience the music.

but, i have a lot of difficulty socializing with people. i need the intoxiucation to deal with the people.

so, i go out to see the show - but i can't handle the social interactions unless i'm inebriated. the need for inebriation is consequently a function of the social interaction. so, if you take away the social interaction, i have absolutely no interest in the inebriation.

so, it's easy to ask "why don't you just stay home and get drunk?", but you're missing the point - the only reason i'm drunk is because i can't deal with the social interactions. if i were to stay home, ii wouldn't have to escape from the social interaction, and i'd rather be sober.

i hope i'm helping people understand this conflict a little bit better. it might not seem like it makes any sense for me to complain about marijuana smoke, if i'm stoned every time anybody sees me. but, the only reason i'm stoned is because i can't handle talking to you when i'm sober. do you get that? that when i go home, i want to be straight edge, and i'm only fucked up because i can't handle talking to you, otherwiise?

the efficient flow of traffic in a city does not rely on generous gestures, it relies on everybody understanding and obeying the concept of a right of way.

if you have the right of way, you should never slow down or stop or let somebody past. that is not doing something nice, it is slowing down traffic.

and, if you are going to slow down traffic, you deserve an angry response.

windsor is not a major city, but it is not a small town, either. this is the canadian side of detroit - a major, if scattered, metropolitan centre. if you had misplaced ideas about small town canadian life, and want to live in a small town with a midwestern mentality, i'd suggest moving to one of the outlying areas, or perhaps the northern part of the province, if not the prairies themselves.

in a city, people expect you to carry on and not disrupt the flow - because they don't appreciate waiting for you to stop and smile.

donald trump, like much of washington, including the clintons, is in the pocket of the saudi theocracy.

that is the basis of his hostility towards iran.

and, it is the basis of his hostility towards turkey, as well.

the russians are on the other side of this conflict, both trying to pull iran into it's sphere and take advantage of turkish-saudi tensions.

the russians and turks are on opposing sides of a long byzantine civil war, and a union, in the long run, is almost inevitable. america should be trying to keep them apart, not pushing them closer together.

the foreign policy narrative that the democrats are pushing is an outgrowth of the propaganda spewed by the clinton campaign and has no basis in reality whatsoever.

it is important that we have a principled foreign policy critique from the opposition, at this time; they need to just drop the bullshit altogether.

bend over, donald.

the prince is here.

america had moscow where it wanted it, but it fucked it up with it's own mismanagement.

of all of the stupid things trump does, actually siding with the saudis against the turks will likely be the dumbest.

i mean, it's one thing to stand back and let them destabilize each other, or even create the instability that does it.

but, to actively pick the side of the weakling saudis over the powerful turks is just simple stupidity. that is a war that is over before it starts.

"but, the saudis buy more weapons..."

right now, maybe, sure. in the long run? and over the last hundred years? and in the next hundred?

there's a powerful critique of capitalism in picking short term profit over long term geostrategic stability, isn't there?

the russians will clean up the mess, in the end.

and, this is potentially historic - because it is potentially stable. a turko-russian alliance has the potential of very deep integration.

so, is prince mohammad fucking you in the ass or what, donald?

how much did they pay you?

russian jets at incirlik? hrmmn.

they're setting up the discourse as demanding we make a choice between banning guns and hiring more cops.

i reject both approaches as equally stupid.

...and equally right-wing, fwiw.

i mean, a proper authoritarian vision would ban guns and hire more cops. what we really get to pick is which one we want first, right?

what we need to do is open a dialogue on reversing the americanization of our culture. we need social programs aimed at young kids. we need poverty reduction mechanisms. expanding educational opportunities.

but, this is going to be the new normal for the next four years: i'm going to find myself continually rejecting both sides of the argument, as two different types of conservatism.

so, he's going to reroute money away from programs that work and spend them on stupid ideas that no expert in the field thinks will be effective.

why doesn't he just round them up and yell at them?

in a van?

down by the river?

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/08/09/doug-ford-toronto-handgun-ban_a_23499331/?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=spotim_recirculation&spotim_referrer=recirculation

ok.

the rebuild is now complete, from the beginning of 2013 forwards.

i'll need to push through 2015 quickly, to double check. but i should be back to where i was shortly.

and, i guess i'll need to be studying the market out of town, soon.

at the least i can say i got this done...and there's not a lot else i could be doing right now....

if trudeau wins in 2019, and he might, it will be on the strength of the celebrity brand he's built, and not on the liberal party brand or historical liberal party principles.

it will be because people are voting for his hair, not his policies.

it might happen, too.

in order for me to vote for the liberals again, they're going to need to do more than get rid of trudeau, who we've learned is basically trying to govern out of the back of some new age spiritual text. this guy is neither into passion nor reason but obsessed with magical thinking.

it's like voting for deepak chopra or something.

but, he's always been a front.

i'm going to want to see most of the backbench gone, too.

the party has fundamentally shifted, ideologically, in a way that i can no longer interpret as an acceptable governing party.

and, i expect that i'm going to be voting for smaller parties - or not at all - for the foreseeable future.

what we've learned is that if you vote for the liberals, even when they have a very left-leaning platform, you just get the conservatives, anyways. that was never true, previously. now, they have a very deep hole to climb out of in winning back their core base of supporters...

so, either as an environmentalist or as an anarchist, if you can vote for a major party that you think can actually win then you help do that. and, the liberals had both a good track record at the local level (if a less good one at the federal level...) and a good platform. so, you do that. perhaps cynically, sure, but you take that gamble - you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

if the liberals had done anything in their platform, it would have been a worthwhile vote. and, neither the conservatives nor the ndp presented an acceptable environmentalist option....so it's not like there was some better outcome....

but, if you can't do that - which is now the case - then you vote for a protest party, or you don't vote at all.

i repeat that i think i made the right choice in 2015, even if they turned out to be dishonest, in the end - the evidence projected something else.

in 2019, i will be choosing between the smaller parties, if i bother voting at all.

voting with your heart is just stupid.

but, there's a place in anarchist theory for carefully, if cynically, voting with your brain.

in canada, you don't vote for the greens if you're serious about what you're doing. it's a protest vote.

there are usually two or three serious options in canada - and four in some ridings in quebec. elections generally reduce to which party is best positioned to defeat the conservatives this time around if you're not one; conservatives default to the conservative party. and, we often split the vote.

this might be changing, particularly in parts of bc and parts of ontario. but, this is a reaction to a rightward movement in the major parties.

up until now, the fact is that voting green has just helped the conservatives. this is just simple math. there is a strong argument that the greens cost stephane dion the election in 2008, although they were much less of a factor in 2011 - partly because of an ndp surge.

further, the liberals have generally presented enticing platforms to environmentalists, even when the ndp haven't. the ontario liberals made a lot of very good progress on converting the grid to sustainable energy. the bc liberals introduced a carbon tax. the quebec liberals have been relatively good on this, as well. the federal liberals basically ran on the green party platform in 2008. so, this hasn't just been empty promises - they've made concrete steps. people suggesting otherwise are being dishonest.

trudeau's platform was really not in any way inferior to the green party's platform, and you'd realize that if you actually read both of them. most interesting to me was the idea of a green infrastructure bank that, as a subsidiary of the bank of canada, would essentially print money and use it for transition. that is the way you actually transition - not through market schemes. what we need is massive direct government investment, and they were broadcasting it. i realized at the time that this seemed too good to be true, but the ndp were in the pocket of the oil industry and the conservatives were the conservatives, so it was a hobson's choice - you picked what seemed best.

based on the information available, the liberals were the right vote for environmentalists in 2015.

unfortunately, they've abandoned their platform - and demonstrated that all three major parties are beholden to the oil industry.

but, see, this ironically opens up the situation where voting green becomes necessary as an act of protest. it is only when all of the major parties are the same, when there is no possibility of using the ballot as a means of change, that you revert to voting as an act of protest....

anarchists prefer to broadcast lifestyle changes, and i agree with that. i don't drive. i don't create waste. my carbon footprint is truly negligible. but, insofar as we interact with the voting system, we need to make changes intended to maximize potential outcomes. all anarchists recognize that this is not a full solution, but the smart ones realize it is a tool for our use, too.

it is when we reduce voting to a meaningless statement of values or principles as an act of self-righteousness that we are giving in to the apathy of the voting system - and that is what we are doing when we vote for a party that we know has no chance of winning, when there is an acceptable option in front of us that does have a chance of winning.

it's true.

if you were to go back in a time machine and have an economic discussion with adam smith, he wouldn't know what the word 'capitalism' means - because it was invented by karl marx to describe the phenomenon of appropriation, many decades later.

adam smith would have just called himself a liberal, and his theory of free markets liberalism.

but, you have to remember that he also had that book on morality. he might have been naive, but he wasn't evil.

the word 'capitalism' arises out of the marxist critique of liberalism.

but, listen.

girls....

the fact is that you'd be bored of me in five minutes, once you've realized that i don't live in the same universe that you do. it's not even that i'm not going to have anything in common with you, it's that we're not going to know what the fuck the other one is even talking about.

i have more in common with your mom.

i'm 37 going on 67.

they're just little kids, to me....

if you send young girls at me, i'm going to be more concerned about calling their mom to get them home safe than i am going to be in hitting on them.

i didn't want to date, i just wanted to skip to being a retired couple.

i mean, that could have been a part of my total disinterest - i was mentally twenty years older than everybody around me, and kind of had to wait for them to catch up.

i am simply not attracted to "girls" at all, and never was.

i am single and like it.

but, i can't tell if you're 20 or 30 - and going to treat you as a child, either way.

i would only even be considering people that are 40+ - and dress and act like it.

hey, you're upset?

whaddaya gonna do?

put me in jail?

huh?

didn't wanna sheik yerbouti, mohammaamamamamamad?

c'mon. let's get him dressed up for an ironic response. i want a roll of quarters in his pants...

ok, so i can do a terse but serious analysis of the saudi thing.

clearly, if chrystia freeland had any intention of actually doing something concrete to release this blogger or her sister, she wouldn't have posted it on twitter. a lot of the media is suggesting this was unprofessional. but, that's kind of just the point - this was the government engaging in useless clicktivism, for the sole purposes of internal consumption. the fact that she posted it on twitter is a clear indicator that the government does not actually care about the situation at all.

generally, this kind of thing is intended as a distraction. the question is what they're distracting from. the refugee situation? our apparent removal from nafta? a pointless squabble with the saudis is an opportunity for better media...

...or so they no doubt thought.

it's hard to tell whether the saudis are reacting because they've been attacked as a part of a media ploy and are pissy about it, or because they see as much to gain from the reciprocity - if our government can benefit by using the saudis as a decoy, can the saudis do just as well by decoying us, too? or are they legitimately irked?

i frankly don't care much about what the saudis think at all. i've been calling for regime change in this country for years, under the understanding that they are the problem in the middle east. every stupid conflict happening there right now is entirely their fault, from libya to afghanistan. this regime must fall, if we want peace.

so, are they upset? really. awww. the wittle saudis are upset. awww.

but, there are benefits to kicking their students out, too - we need the housing, right now. and, we don't need more muslim doctors, either, as they don't follow the law here - they just whine about how it doesn't align with their religion.

i'm not going to get distracted about this. it strikes me as bullshit.

but, frankly?

i don't care if they are legitimately angry. good riddance.

so, when apple shares burst, will we get apple sauce or apple juice?

those stock prices are comedic.

i don't want to be rich.

what i want is to be free.

i'd stumble in late every day.

complain.

yell at people.

it's not the money. it's the wasted time.

if you did give me a job making $200,000, i'd invest all of it and retire off of the dividends within 6 months.

after all, i only need $1200/month to survive.

i would rather be desperately poor and totally free than filthy rich and hopelessly enslaved.

and, don't believe me?

just watch me.

if you're equally disinterested in both jobs, then it doesn't matter how much they pay you.

it could be $20,000/year or $200,000/year.

it's slavery if you don't want to be there, either way - and if you don't have a choice not to be.

and, i don't care if your company fails.

i don't care about your customers.

i don't care about your product.

i'm only here because the government insists i perform some kind of slave labour in order to pay the rentier class.

and, i'll let you know all about it at every opportunity, too.

i've been over this.

i'm an educated person.

i could probably get a government job. i haven't really tried very hard. it would probably be enough to buy a house, and pay off my loan.

but, if you're going to force me to work against my will, i'm not going to do that.

rather, i'm going to get a part-time job in a fast food restaurant.

why?

because i don't want to waste my brain at work.

a capitalist will compare these two jobs and conclude that the government job is preferable because it has higher pay. but, i'm not a capitalist. so, the important & quantifiable thing to measure is not money, but time. when i look at the government job, i see a heightened level of responsibility. i'd need to buy respectable clothes. i'd probably have to work on the weekend. i'd have to socialize with co-workers.

and, i don't want any of that. at all.

the fast food job, on the other hand, will offer me flexible hours. it will give me the option of working part time (and reducing my hours to the minimum necessary to pay rent). and, it will let me leave my job at work - so i can focus on what i actually care about when i get home.

is any of this getting through to anybody?

so, put them in jail, then?

well, i thought you were trying to save money?

these people live in a delusional market fantasy that projects the absurd belief that when you take away subsidies, people will adjust by teaching themselves marketable skills and competing freely on an open market.

no, lisa.

they're going to rob the fucking convenience store.

but, you have no job creation plan, lisa.

i've been clear over a long period that i don't share your views on labour, or on your religious outlook on work. we are philosophically diametrically opposed to each other, on this point. i do not believe that hard work sets anybody free, and will fight as hard as i possibly can to prevent you from enslaving me.

but, relative to your own skewed morality, or your fucked up logic of capital, shouldn't your first priority be to create jobs, and not to cut welfare? by your own belief system, shouldn't people choose to work, if the jobs were only available to them?

we're mere weeks into their mandate, and they've immediately announced plans to cut social assistance - without even musing about ways to improve the economy. so, it seems like they care more about cutting welfare than they do about creating jobs, and aren't really interested in the question of whether there are jobs available for people or not.

they presented absolutely no plans about cutting social assistance to the electorate, either.

the fact is that they just want to cut spending, at any cost. and, if the result of their policies is simply increased homelessness and higher crime rates, they'll just dump the responsibility off to the church - because they don't believe that government has a role to play in social cohesion, they just think it's a waste of money.

well, when the crime rate picks up, lisa, because you tossed all these people out on their ears, we'll see how well that money is really being spent, won't we?

it's just mind-boggling to me that these people need to make the same mistakes over and over again - that they're incapable of learning from history, or understanding the outcomes of science.

but, they just cancelled the ubi rather than wait for the results. they're not interested in data. they don't care about science....

as of today, my income is $1215 and my expenses are $970. so, i have $245/month spending money. that made it easy to get to detroit and have fun, and also made it easy to save money - that will be $750 saved by just staying in this summer. but, i never budgeted for discretionary income anywhere near that high. if i can somehow move laterally and actually find something acceptable for $700 in the next six weeks, i could find myself saving over $1000 this winter - which means i'm likely to have a fun spring, but is far more than i'd think is even reasonable, given that i'm on disability.

keep in mind that rents in toronto are far higher, so the answer isn't to slash odsp - it's just to realize that if i don't spend the money on rent, i'm not likely to spend it at all, or likely to spend it on beer and popcorn. i'd rather spend it on rent!

the market has opened up a lot in the last week. so, hopefully, i can find the kind of landlord i'm looking for, soon.

and, if i can find something for the $650 i signed up for initially? at $1230, i'd have $310 worth of spending money. a month.

if this works out, it will have been worth it...

in some ways, this is a kind of a shitty analysis. but, maybe it's more realistic, too.

the fact is that i didn't have the choice to stay where i was - all i could do was make it expensive to get me out.

and, i've wasted a year, but i've now got the settlement i should have gotten in the first place, too.

so, i've been looking at percentages and inflation and calculating that i'd need to find a two bedroom for $700/month - inclusive - to be in the same situation i was in when i moved here. if i can get to that end point, i've lost nothing, in the end, except time - meaningful, but there's no value in complaining about it.

but, if i look at total dollars instead, it's a different computation.

i was initially getting about $1075, total, when i moved here. my hst checks were a few hundred dollars, and came in in the summer; i wasn't getting these monthly deposits. so, my total income was $1075...

the rent was $650 all inclusive. so, that's 61%.

then, i started getting the hst checks in monthly instalments the next summer, which brought my monthly income up to more like $1130. i decided that the hst checks were the way the government paid for my estrogen. but, $650/1130 is now 58%, which is where i'm getting these $700 numbers from.

but, even that's an exaggeration, isn't it? i wasn't budgeting that money, initially. i was planning on using it to buy wood to build furniture.

to be fair, if i'm going to use the 61% then i should also apply it to the pre-hst income, which is $1151 - and scales to $700, as well.

but, in practice, the change from a lump sum hst that i used as found money to a monthly check that i'm budgeting is very much an actual rate increase. so, i should be applying it to the $1215, or the $1230 in a few months - and that's almost $750, inclusive. but i've got free hydro, now, too...

so, that's really the more realistic calculation, percentage wise - $750 + hydro, or $750 all inclusive.

but, what about actual dollars?

i had budgeted $150 for food, initially. internet was about the same price. estrogen was more expensive. laundry was $20.

$1075 - 650 - 150 - 30 - 50 - 20 = $175.

and, i had $100 budgeted for cigarettes.

it was $75, left over.

by the time i moved out of this place, i was getting $1190 monthly, and i had quit smoking. it was more like $180/month, put aside.

if my income is now $1230, how much can i spend on rent (including utilities) to have $75 left over?

and the answer is $885.

but, the place had better be totally smoke free, because i'd essentially be taking the money i saved from not smoking and giving it to the landlord.

so, i applied somewhere yesterday for $850 + hydro, assuming i wouldn't pay hydro for at least a few years. and, i can see that that's actually more reasonable than i thought....if i can control for the smoke in it as well as i'd like to...

so, what is less wasteful, in terms of utilizing time - going to work to pay for a nicer apartment, or backpacking around the province looking for somewhere to set back up again?

i mean, if i'm wasting all of my time looking for somewhere to stay anyways, why not just get a job?

the difference is that the backpacking is short term. i could very well waste far more of my time looking for an apartment in the short run than i would if i just got a job, but at least there's an end point to it. so, short-term homelessness provides a level of hope that long-term employment cannot provide for.

it is consequently preferable to be homeless in the short run than it is to be employed in the long run.

i would need a change of clean clothes & a laptop.

i'd just need to find something cheap with a functioning screen, as i'd be putting my existing hard drive into it.

do i think i could trust people in a rooming house more than people in a shelter?

no.

do i think i'd get along with people in a rooming house better than people in a shelter?

i think i'd actually get along better with people in a shelter than i would with people in a rooming house.

do i think i'm safer in a rooming house than a shelter?

no.

i'm not exaggerating about it making more sense to be homeless than to get a room.

let's say i get a room. i will then need to put my things in storage, until i can find somewhere to put them - a room would be transient, short term, by definition. even if you could find me a big enough room, i still couldn't leave all my gear in an unsafe location like that. so, getting a room means i'm paying for storage.

and, if i'm paying for storage and living in a strange place anyways, why bother paying for it? i mean, here's the fundamental question from my point of view: what is the difference between living in a rooming house and living in a shelter?

well?


it's basically the same thing, right?

and, if i have my things in storage, and am looking for an apartment, all paying for a room is doing is tying me to a location.

so, it makes more sense to be homeless than it does to pay for a room.

the way the managers at the so-called non-smoking buildings want to interpret the idea is not as a selling point, but as an annoying rule that has to be enforced.

so, they'll say things like "only new tenants are not allowed to smoke".

it's not seen as a welcome positive right to a healthy, smoke-free environment, but as an annoying rule to limit behaviour - one they ultimately don't want to enforce.

the attitude i want to hear is "existing tenants now have the right to a smoke-free environment", and not "only new tenants are prohibited from smoking.".

do you see the culture shock, here? the difference in values? the backwardsness inherent in the misunderstanding?

can i get disability to pay for storage under the understanding that i can't find acceptable housing?

if not, my check is going to come down by $489. if you consider that my expenses will come down by $730, that's a net increase of $241. can i find a storage space for <$241? i'm going to have a few thousand dollars sitting, so if i'm paying $350, i'll have something like two years to find something....

can i live on $200 food if i'm back-packing? well, i'll probably need to hit some food banks. soup kitchens. etc. i think so, though. i'll need to be careful about it.

i've got two months, still. this is premature. but i need to be thinking about it...

this city is hopeless.

the landlords don't think it's a real problem.

the management companies don't want to rent to non-smokers.

even the managers at the non-smoking buildings (a policy that is mostly being pushed down by corporate head offices out of town) don't want to rent to non-smokers. you call them up, and they tell you they don't enforce it.

the people that live here want to smoke, and want to tell the world to fuck off if they don't like it.

and, maybe the world should just get up and leave them to their lonely deaths - and take the jobs and wealth with us, when we do.

i came here hoping to build a new society in the wreckage of the old one, and found a population that is clinging to the society that has abandoned it. you can't rebuild unless people are willing to destroy what used to be, first.

they just want to sit back and chain smoke in the smouldering ruins...

maybe i'll come back when they're dead.

i dunno.

what i'll need to do, if it comes to it, is put my things in storage in the first week of october and hitchhike around until i can find somewhere acceptable to live where people don't smoke.

c'mon, windsor.

you're going to tell me i can't find a non-smoking apartment on disability income?

what a pathetic indictment of a disgusting place to live, that would be.

windsor: where you're always downwind of somebody chain-smoking, whether you like it or not.

we need regime change in saudi arabia.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/saudi-arabian-group-apologizes-for-posting-image-appearing-to-threaten-canada-with-9-11-style-attack-1.4775509

can we do that experiment?

so, how much does it cost, now, for doug ford to get so fucked up that he falls down the stairs?

an independent canadian policy on emissions standards should seek to predict more stringent future epa requirements, and get a head start on canadian productive capacities, so that firms can choose canadian production over american production in the long run.

further, american unions should see the folly in the epa rollback and seek to prevent management from what is bound to be a pointless regression, in the long run.

and, this logic is broadly applicable.

if you want investment language, canada should not be disturbed too much by short term fluctuations, and focus instead on long term predictions.

a usual, the business press has the interests of investors in mind, and not the interest of workers.

it is of course better for investors to ensure common standards, but, one way to guarantee that the auto companies have no choice but to keep jobs in canada is to create different standards here, that force them to do things differently here.

it follows - if you are interested in workers, rather than investors - that separating the standards is actually a good thing, as it will create jobs in this country.

canada is a lot smaller than the united states, but it's still a wealthy country with an important auto market. nobody is going to forfeit the canadian market.

and, the flip side is that, once the americans elect a non-idiot that returns to a sane perspective on emissions, canada will have the capacity to export.

if i was ford or chrysler, i would just go ahead with the obama-period plan, anyways - it's not going to be more than a few years before the next government brings back even tougher standards. and, that should be the thinking across the industry, in both the united states and canada.

donald trump can't actually reverse the flow of time.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-vehicle-emissions-1.4775503

she did this kind of bullshit as health minister, too.

the ndp needs to target this woman to get her thrown out of the house of commons.

this is absolutely disgusting.

the idea that there's not enough money for funding is bullshit. regardless, why not just tax the fuckers, instead of entering them in a lottery?

it's not clever. it's utter stupidity. and, it really reflects the absurdly low value that these people place on indigenous people - and poor people, in general.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-trudeau-government-trying-to-expand-indigenous-housing-options-through/

it's easy to state all of this from a distance, once i've had some time to process it.

but, at the time, i'm just sitting there trying to figure out why she won't talk to me, if it's something i can do, if it's permanent, etc.

as mentioned: as far as i can tell, she kind of 'gave up' on me after i told her i was back on hormones, which seems to mean something relatively romantic - she decided i wasn't going to be a father figure, or i wasn't going to be an income source, or i wasn't going to be some abstraction of a provider.

but, it was absurd for her to have thought that, because i had made it clear to her that i was never going to be that person, as early as 2002.

i guess i didn't really believe that she actually had those delusions, so it was just a kind of kneejerk reaction, and she'd get over it. and, that makes perfect sense from my perspective - we'd been friends a long time, we'd been through a lot, and she was just mad at me, and she'd get over it.

but, the only rational way to understand the situation is that she must have actually believed i was going to end up as a provider at some point, so that the realization that i never was going to must have eliminated some use value i had for her - otherwise, why would she have bothered to talk to me and invite me over for all those years, and why was she so upset about the final conclusion?

what i'm getting at is that she wasn't over me - otherwise, my gender identity wouldn't have mattered to her.

what she wanted was to put me aside for later. she wanted to be a slut, but she didn't want to break up. she wanted to go away on weekends, but she didn't want me to move out. and, when i got up and left, she couldn't compute what was happening.

she took me for granted.

and, i walked out on her.

...and then she came crawling back, and i told her 'no' - go be a slut if you want, but i don't want to be your partner if you insist on living that type of lifestyle.

but, this is absurdly silly, and outside of the scope of any meaningful discussion: we were still going on periodic catch-up dates more than five years later, and quite a while after we stopped being physical.

again: i'm still not fully certain what happened, but it's absolutely clear that it had nothing to do with the events around the initial break-up, because we were still friends for a very long time afterwards.

i was actually happier just being her friend. it was a lot less stressful to meet her once in a while and catch-up. and, yeah, there was some lingering sex, but it actually felt more healthy when it had a bit of a distance to it.

i was not leading her on, either. i made it crystal clear that we weren't going to get back together....

i told her two months ahead of time that i was moving out, and she simply couldn't accept that she was being dumped, so instead of planning for it, she ended up homeless.

but, was i supposed to continue living with a slut? is that a real option? in what fantasy reality?

but, i didn't want to completely throw her out of my life, i just didn't want to sleep with her any more.

she can say what she wants, but the fact is that i walked out on her for cheating on me.

she got dumped for being a slut. ok?

then, she showed up at my new apartment and begged me to let her move in.

i've been over this.

i don't know what i would do with the extra money.

i can't drive.

do you want to tell me to live in a room so i can go out to fancy restaurants to eat?

this is just stupid.

i have a stable income. i have money in the bank. we can budget the thing up together, if you want.

but, people are idiots...what do you say....

i need to be clear.

i will put my things in storage and accept homelessness before i move into a room.

well, i mean, i would have no choice but to put my things into storage anyways, so why would i pay for a room?

it's not in the list of possible options. and, there's no reason for it to be. i have up to $950 that i can spend on rent.

these landlords are just being stupid about it - and they will lose money for it in the end.

that listing i applied for is still available. i could have moved in august 1st. that's at least $700 lost.

there are some units that have been sitting empty for months, and the idiots are losing thousands on them.

and, the economy here is just going to get worse, as the jobs move into the suburbs.

it's really an absolutely ridiculous place to put a hospital - a ten minute bike ride from the nearest major intersection.

i would certainly hope they're planning bus service; as it is, it would be impossible for most people to get there without calling an ambulance, and it's going to increase the travel time for ambulances five, six, seven fold.

the only logic to attach to it is the idea that the staff wants to abandon the downtown core, which is more or less what's happening - this is essentially very expensive white flight.

if it brings housing costs down in the city core, i'm ok with it. it'd just be nice if they'd hurry it up...

so, i'm arguing with somebody that just bought a complex around the corner from the hospital that is being closed. he thinks he'll rent to hospital staff. my guess is he's from toronto.

these people are delusional, and they're just going to lose money.

but, it's shitty timing for me.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/it-s-done-hospital-ceo-says-about-site-of-windsor-s-mega-hospital-1.4433241

...& that does complete november, although i still have to format that mega post to november 30th.

you could publish that thing as a socratic dialogue. it's 50 pages on office paper, so you're looking at a 100-200 page paperback.

i'm going to nap a little this morning, though. the headache is gone, but i'm zombified. hopefully, i wake up a bit more fresh...

well, that got rid of it for a while, anyways - we'll see how persistent it is.

it could be anything, really.

i could be stressed out.

i'm not getting auras, at least.

so, sleeping the headache off appears to have been unsuccessful.

it's raining. she's smoking. but, i'm also congested, so i'm wondering if it's even allergies. this is another reason why this place is impossible: i do appear to have some kind of allergies, but i can't close the window. so, i get to choose between pollen and smoke. great.

i can't be immobile right now, so let me try some aspirin.

yeah, my head is just throbbing...i dunno....gonna eat...

so, how bad is it really?

it's gonna depend on a lot of things, obviously.

but, the 7/11 in my neighbourhood has actually had a problem with refugee kids stealing milk creamers, presumably because they couldn't afford to actually buy a carton of it.

well, you can't raise a family with ten kids on welfare. it's crazy.

as i've pointing out for a long time, what i'm interested in are the local consequences - the effects it's having on housing shortages, the increasing racist attitudes, the strains on food banks & etc.

i'm not sure that we needed to do this at all. the situation in the country is stabilizing. and, these people are probably better off back at home, in the long run.

but, if you're going to do it, you gotta fund it...

trump is a canadian liberal, and trudeau is an american democrat.

everything's fucking backwards.

it's just bizarre to me that the tory media in canada has this desire to push american value systems on to canadians.

if we're going to switch spots, can i get an american citizenship and move to california?

'cause i kind of like being a canadian, and don't really want to be an american.

sorry.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/canada-border-1.4774704

you know, i haven't had any serious headaches since i moved here, i don't think.

but, we've had some rain today, and one came in pretty quickly when i closed the windows.

i don't seem to like the inside air very much.

you're looking at two major cause of crime:

1) property rights (sometimes stated as 'poverty'....but the reason we have poverty is because of property rights). you can usually fix these things.
2) stupidity. stated bluntly. i mean, we can state this in different ways: mental illness, mental retardation, developmental disability, etc - but the broad, over-simplified way to grasp the issue is to state tersely that there are a great deal of stupid people on the planet, and they can't be fixed.

so, we have to separate the stupid from the poor, basically.

we can help the poor.

we can't help the stupid...

what we call jails should essentially be mental hospitals, and the only people in them should be people that doctors have declared incapable of rehabilitating properly.

the purpose of a jail should be to protect society from people that can't be reformed, not to punish people for breaking the law.

so, should repeat gun offenders be jailed? well, if the system was working properly, it would catch these people before they're repeat offenders - because it would diagnose them properly, rather than waiting for them to misbehave.

it shouldn't be a question of how many times you've broken the law, but a question of whether you're able to understand what you're doing, or not.

so, you've got a couple of conservatives taking advantage of the situation to push for more dumb-on-crime rules that prioritize retribution over resolution.

if we consider repeat gun offenders - which none of these mass shooters ever are - we need to ask the question as to why it is that this person has picked up a gun not once but twice or however many times, and there's really no answer, in the case of repeat offenders, besides mental illness.

so, what we need to figure out with repeat offenders is:

1) do they understand what they're doing?
2) are they capable of understanding what they're doing?

it's not an issue that we can solve with laws and rules and cops and brute force - it's an issue that we need to deploy science and reason towards. we need to get to the psychology of it.

the science is clear: punishing people simply doesn't work. so, we have to figure out who can be rehabilitated, and who can't - and then keep the people that are incapable of understanding their behaviour off of the street, while rehabilitating those who are capable of being rehabilitated.

https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2018/08/06/tory-asks-trudeau-to-end-bail-for-repeat-gun-offenders.html