{"id":1555,"date":"2010-08-01T01:36:28","date_gmt":"2010-08-01T05:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=1555"},"modified":"2018-08-05T23:21:57","modified_gmt":"2018-08-06T03:21:57","slug":"sunday-august-1-2010-new-site-old-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=1555","title":{"rendered":"Sunday, August 1, 2010 \u2014 New Site, Old Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wel\u00adcome to the new ver\u00adsion of PhilPaine.com<\/em>. A new site and for\u00admat are long over\u00addue. The old site, con\u00adstruct\u00aded with a now out-dat\u00aded pro\u00adgram, was labour inten\u00adsive, clut\u00adtered, and vul\u00adner\u00ada\u00adble to cyber-sab\u00ado\u00adtage. The new one cor\u00adrects these ills. Most of the mate\u00adr\u00adi\u00adal from the old site has been trans\u00adferred, at least in rough form, and it will all grad\u00adu\u00adal\u00adly be retro-fit\u00adted with graph\u00adics and con\u00adsis\u00adtent formatting. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been an exhaust\u00ading year, so far. I\u2019ve been jug\u00adgling dif\u00adfi\u00adcult per\u00adson\u00adal mat\u00adters, as well as try\u00ading to do some seri\u00adous work. Some\u00adtimes, it has seemed to have the emo\u00adtion\u00adal tex\u00adture of this pic\u00adture tak\u00aden on the Demp\u00adster High\u00adway, near the bor\u00adder of the Yukon and North\u00adwest Territories. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

But I\u2019m one of those peo\u00adple who takes a cer\u00adtain sat\u00adis\u00adfac\u00adtion in know\u00ading lone\u00adly places, whether in out\u00ader or inner expe\u00adri\u00adence. I\u2019ve spent so much time in both, that, like some crazed prospec\u00adtor in from the bush, I tread war\u00adi\u00adly where soci\u00adety swarms. Peo\u00adple, espe\u00adcial\u00adly the all-too-com\u00admon vicious ones, will always seem rather strange to me.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Doing the text trans\u00adfers to the new site has required me to look over the web writ\u00ading I\u2019ve done for the last five years. Some of it is bad, some of it is good \u2015 I\u2019m as uneven in my writ\u00ading as in my tem\u00adpera\u00adment. But if there is one uni\u00adfy\u00ading theme, it is some\u00adthing that I always believed was an inte\u00adgral part of a Cana\u00addi\u00adan her\u00aditage: a hatred of bul\u00adlies, and con\u00adtempt for pom\u00adpos\u00adi\u00adty and arro\u00adgance. I grew up hav\u00ading been taught, and believ\u00ading,<\/em> that to be a Cana\u00addi\u00adan meant that you doffed your cap for nobody, and that you regard\u00aded all the obnox\u00adious crowd of Big Shots with dis\u00addain. You were sup\u00adposed to know in your bones<\/em> that the osten\u00adta\u00adtious rich are crooks, that preen\u00ading politi\u00adcians are cheesy huck\u00adsters, that the intel\u00adlec\u00adtu\u00adal\u00adly super\u00adcil\u00adious are igno\u00adrant phonies, that the cler\u00adgy\u00admen preach\u00ading hell\u00adfire and holi\u00adness are a bunch of sicko per\u00adverts, that those who day\u00addream of war and mil\u00adi\u00adtary glo\u00adry are retard\u00aded nitwits, and that any\u00adone who claims to be your \u201csocial supe\u00adri\u00ador\u201d deserves noth\u00ading but a kick in the pants. I grew up believ\u00ading that only morons and sav\u00adages fol\u00adlow \u201clead\u00aders\u201d, and that any\u00adone who claims to be a \u201cleader\u201d should be slapped down \u2014 slapped down<\/em> hard<\/strong><\/em>, until they learn to mind their manners. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Now, I don\u2019t know if this is the self-image of most Cana\u00addi\u00adans, any\u00admore, or if it ever real\u00adly was for more than a quirky minor\u00adi\u00adty. It is just a ghost out of my past, a sense of a nat\u00adur\u00adal way of being that, for me, is inex\u00adtri\u00adca\u00adbly bound up with the scent of snow and tama\u00adrack, wind\u00ading dirt roads, forests, lakes, and flick\u00ader\u00ading auro\u00adra. It cer\u00adtain\u00adly does\u00adn\u2019t tal\u00adly with, for exam\u00adple, the dis\u00adgust\u00ading, un-Cana\u00addi\u00adan behav\u00adiour of our Prime Min\u00adis\u00adter, Stephen Harp\u00ader, whose every word breathes cor\u00adrup\u00adtion and trea\u00adson. I don\u2019t know if this atti\u00adtude has any mean\u00ading for the peo\u00adple who have grown up in an inco\u00adher\u00adent jum\u00adble of mass media, shriek\u00ading end\u00adless\u00adly about celebri\u00adties, \u201clead\u00ader\u00adship\u201d and bling. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But I do know that, what\u00adev\u00ader my fail\u00adures and missed oppor\u00adtu\u00adni\u00adties, I\u2019ve remained true to it.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wel\u00adcome to the new ver\u00adsion of PhilPaine.com. A new site and for\u00admat are long over\u00addue. The old site, con\u00adstruct\u00aded with a now out-dat\u00aded pro\u00adgram, was labour inten\u00adsive, clut\u00adtered, and vul\u00adner\u00ada\u00adble to cyber-sab\u00ado\u00ad\u00adtage. The new one cor\u00adrects these ills. Most of \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-aq-blog-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1555"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7788,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555\/revisions\/7788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}