Maëlys McArdle

Category: Life

Every other post.

  • New Creative Project

    New Creative Project

    I’ve started a new creative endeavour: a video game which is at this time named Solaire. I’ve been working on it pretty heavily for the last week, and anticipate to have it done in about a month or so.

    The premise of the game is to have you draw a space ship and have it explore/battle through space, with everything taking on the appearance of being hand drawn. Rewards come in the form of ink, which you can then use to draw more stuff on your ship.

    I’m coding this using HTML5 and Javascript. The same stuff websites are made of. What this means is that this game will work on Windows, OS X, Linux, or even an iPad. As long as the device has a browser that follows standards, it can play this. You can access the source code here.

    It’s been interesting to take this on. The existing graphical facilities in HTML5 are very rudimentary, with few primitives (which doesn’t include circles) and text placing capabilities. I had to write a very limited game engine so that I could go from that to something with menus and user-interaction which animates at 100 frames per second. I love doing this kind of stuff though.

    Expect more news once I get closer to completion.

  • Extrajudicial Censorship

    Extrajudicial Censorship

    Extrajudicial censorship is not a new concept. However, two factors have greatly contributed to increasing its presence in the Western sphere over the last decade: the passing of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), and the rise of the Internet as a platform through which to disseminate ideas.

    The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) was passed in 1998 by American law-makers, and was their ratification of the WIPO treaties from two years previous. It was intended to modernize the Copyright Act so that it could deal with infringements in a digital world. It included provisions to punish those who harboured illicit content, unless they took steps to remove the material upon notification. Unfortunately, thanks especially to this last provision, the DMCA would become the tool of choice to censor content, including that which was entirely non-infringing and legitimate by copyright standards.

    The rise of the Internet has meant a few things. For one, unlike the mediums of past, it is malleable. Once something is out in a newspaper, or magazine, it cannot be redacted after the fact. The original words that were written down will exist for as long as a copy survives. With the Internet, one can go as far as erasing content altogether and make it as if it never was. It’s a censor’s wet dream.

    Secondly, the rise of the Internet has meant that now more than ever, people are dependent on private interests to disseminate their ideas. They need platforms such as WordPress, YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and so forth. Alternative forms of communication (zines) are dying because of the significant advantages that the Internet-based platforms provide, increasing dependence on those private companies.

    However, those companies are loyal to their bottom line, and not to the content owners. While there is overlap between the two, it does mean that the companies are not sympathetic to the few that might affect their bottom line in a disproportionate manner.

    Enter the DMCA. With one trivial email invoking that name, censorship has become anyone’s game. The private companies who host the platforms acquiesce to the takedown demands of the electronic communication, often without even looking at the alleged infringing content. It’s much more financially prudent for them to dump the potentially offending content than to invoke their legal team.

    This has resulted in an environment that hurts free speech, for we are not just subject to the law, but to the interests and sensitivities of companies. There is no place on the Internet that is safe from this sword of Damocles – even if you host your own website. The hosting company, and those who provide bandwidth to the hosting company, can be hit with one of these takedown requests as well.

    Content creators who live outside of the United-States are also affected. Most companies that own these platforms are American, and subject to American law. The remaining, with few exceptions, are reliant on US-based business and would not choose to contravene American interests.

    We who live in highly developed nations should not be under the illusion that there is no undue censorship of our content. We are exposed to its effects all the time, and it is our responsibility to be aware of it, and to fight it, wherever possible.

  • Weekend in Paris

    Weekend in Paris

    An operations manager approached me last Thursday.

    Him: Are you busy this weekend?
    Me: Yeah, a little.
    Him: Oh.
    Me: Why?
    Him: Well we’re looking for a volunteer to go to Paris.
    Me: Ontario?
    Him: France.
    Me: I’ll go!

    Within 24 hours, I was on a flight. I did what I had to do there, and then I had nearly three days to myself. The hostel was a little interesting. Because I was at the airport a little longer than expected, I arrived at the hostel at 1PM instead of the expected 12PM.

    The girl at the desk of the hostel promptly informed me that I was late, that she had given my room away, and that there were no more availabilities. When pressed, she said she had a bed for tonight – but nothing else. This added a bit of stress, but I didn’t concern myself too much. I suspected that she had a chip on her shoulder.

    I came back after the girl’s shift was over, and approached the new person at the desk. “Oh yes, we have tons of free beds tomorrow night! You might have to change rooms, but there’ll be no problems.” Good news.

    I set off for the city. I’m weary of touristy stuff, so while I did go up the Eiffel tower, visit Notre Dame and l’Église Sacré Coeur, I did make sure to walk around the lesser travelled parts of the city as well. I got off at random metro stops and explored, and also walked the stretch from Sacré Coeur to the Latin quarter, stopping often along the way.

    A few experiences stood out. It was late Saturday night, and I couldn’t sleep – so I set out for the city. As I walked, I heard guitar playing. This wasn’t the type of smooth mainstream sounds you’d hear at a restaurant. This was the guitar-playing of people doing it for friends.

    I followed the sound. It brought me to the side of the Seine, where I found hundreds upon hundreds of youths, all engaged in picnics. Some had candles, nearly all had wine or beer, along with snacks. Everyone was having a great time. I sat down by the guitar-playing group. We started to chat.

    As it turns out, it was the beginning of Easter break, which is two weeks for them. I people watched and looked on to the river with the music as a background. It was magical.

    The next night, after a full day of exploring, I went to an indie movie theater. We crowded to watch the Swedish-French film, “The Sound of Noise.” It was a cool film, and the audience didn’t hesitate to laugh out loud.

    At the hostel, I met some great folks. One was a university professor in Morocco, who was there for a conference. He had snuck through oranges from a tree his garden in his baggage, one of which he gave to me. It was the best orange I’ve ever had.

    All in all, this was a great trip.

  • Calling a spade a spade.

    Calling a spade a spade.

    An article came out in the Xtra today discussing the current state of the ban on Gay-Straight Alliance clubs at the Halton District Catholic School Board. It’s been four months since the issue garnered the attention of the national press, but for all the talk, there has been no progress.

    The situation with the Ottawa Catholic School Board has been as dismal. When they don’t spend their time stipulating why they ban GSAs, they deny even having the ban. As I’ve explained before, their denial relies on a game of semantics, but it works. Just like their framing of the situation as a move that’s good for equity and social justice.

    If it weren’t the well-being of students at hand, I might find the entire situation comical. Here we have a collection of school boards, all fiercely opposing the existence of these weekly lunch gatherings of students who talk about ending bullying and making their schools safer for everyone.

    From the perspective of one who is without prejudice, there is no downside to these clubs. The Ministry of Education praises them over and over for making schools better. They don’t cost anything to operate. The students run them themselves. It’s another club to add in the pool, along with the chess and debating clubs.

    Things get a little more complicated when prejudice is thrown into the mix. Only then does all of the good of the above appear in a negative light. I’ve found that people have been apprehensive of calling the Ottawa Catholic School Board and those like it homophobic, but there is no denying it. It’s time to call a spade a spade.

    Hesitant still? Let’s go over the facts. In Ontario catholic schools:

    • Guidelines are issued on how to constrain a specific minority. It calls the entire minority “objectively disordered.”
    • The name that the minority goes by is banned as a word.
    • Those from the minority are prohibited from having relationships. It’s encouraged for everyone else.
    • Student-run support groups for the minority are forbidden.

    Imagine if the minority was anything other than queer youth. Politicians would jump into action and the policies would be rescinded immediately. Sadly, the thought of discrimination is still acceptable when it comes to this issue.

    ‎”The goal of Catholic school boards “is to end discrimination against anyone in our society,” said Nancy Kirby, president of the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association. “But we still have to follow the church teachings.”

    Only on this issue does it seem to be okay to have the words “end discrimination” share the same sentence with the word “but.” Only on this issue have we said that there can be exceptions with regards to protection from discrimination.

    Homophobia is ripe throughout the Ottawa Catholic School Board and the other Catholic school boards here in Ontario. It is a travesty that no one in a position of power has had the courage to do anything about it. It’s a tragedy that it requires courage at all.

  • Gay-Straight Alliances Update

    Gay-Straight Alliances Update

    Much has happened since I wrote my last entry on the matter of Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) clubs and the Ottawa Catholic Schools. The Xtra wrote a piece on the petition, which has now exceeded 550 signatures. I was interviewed on CBC radio, and their online news section gave it some attention.

    Meanwhile, a girl from a separate Catholic school board in Ontario was denied her request to start a GSA. It made the news, and prompted an opposition minister to bring it up during question period. Put on the spot, McGuinty finally responded:

    “We are making it perfectly clear to all our school boards, all our schools, all our principals, all our teachers and all our students that it is unacceptable in Ontario to discriminate based on race, gender, religion or sexual orientation,” the Premier said in Question Period.

    But Mr. McGuinty stopped short of stating that the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board was actually in breach of the ministry’s code on equity, saying that “boards can find different ways to ensure that they adhere to those policies.”

    The provincial government wasn’t going to intervene, leaving the handling of the matter to the Catholic school boards – the very people who saw nothing wrong with their policies in the first place.

    Unsurprisingly, two weeks after his statement, the girl’s request to start a Gay-Straight Alliance club was denied a second time. Her school board would use McGuinty’s speech in their justification for the ban in the statement they released to the public.

    Amidst all of this, a reporter from the Toronto Star decided to take a look at Gay-Straight Alliance clubs in the Toronto region:

    In a rare look inside four gay-straight alliances (GSAs), the Star found the focus is on fighting homophobia, especially the teen slur “That’s so gay” and the disclaimer “No homo!” many kids add when they compliment someone of the same sex, even on Facebook.

    These are the quaint weekly lunch-time gatherings that the Ottawa Catholic School Board objects to and continues to ban. The inanity of their opposition is made more evident by the obvious positive nature of these gatherings.

    Throughout this experience I’ve been asked some good questions which I felt I needed to address, and have done so below.

    If the clubs changed their names and had a general focus, they would be allowed.

    This view was expressed by the OCSB in their initial interview with the Ottawa Citizen, and I’ve heard it repeated many times since. I have a two part response to this. First, it makes no sense to undermine the targeted support of those who need it in order to appease those who would yield no benefit either way. Doing so would only negatively impact those who needed that support, and they do need that support. Let’s not forget that 51% of queer Canadian students reported verbal harassment at school because of their orientation, that 21% reported physical assaults, and that a full two-thirds did not feel safe at school. There’s no reason you couldn’t have both a group with a focus on general equality and a Gay-Straight Alliance. They are not mutually exclusive.

    Second, when you say you have a problem with a title because it has the word “gay” in it, you’re saying you have a problem with the word “gay.” When you single that word out and ban its use in the context of identifying a group of individuals who self-identify as such, you’re stating that there’s something wrong with that self-identification. This negative message undermines anti-bullying efforts by the Catholic boards with regards to sexual minorities.

    Finally, groups with a more general focus are not effective substitutes. As Dylan McKelvey, a grade 12 student, explains:

    “Our school has an equity club which I joined, but even there, some students weren’t comfortable with me being gay,” said McKelvey, 18. “I still hear kids call out ‘faggot’ and ‘queer,’ so the GSA is a sanctuary. Having ‘gay’ in the name gives people something to relate to.”

    Students are free to switch out of the Catholic school system.

    So let’s set aside for a moment this idea that it is wrong to place the burden of change on those being discriminated against (the bullied), as opposed to those who support discriminatory policies (the bullies.)

    It may be possible for some students to switch schools, but not all. In the end, there’s still going to be queer students in the provincially-funded schools, and marginalizing them because of the minority to which they belong will still be unacceptable.