This year has not been the best year in terms of escaping without injury when doing stupid things. I’ve refrained from posting about many of them as chances are word will reach my parents and then all hell will break loose. However, since I will be travelling to see them in a few weeks, I suspect that I will have to explain to them in person how they raised such an accident prone son. Yes, I do realize that “accident prone” may not be a good description but instead “stupid”. However, I leave that to your fine judgements.

At the beginning of the year I managed to discover that flying can really hurt. I became airbourne going down a run at the Kicking Horse Mountain Resort and managed to spectacularly wipe out into a belly flop that left ribs cracked. I was most saddened that there was no one to witness this heroic feat. Of course things might have been better had I not gone out partying that night or perhaps attempting to snowboard again the next morning despite the best advice my friends could give. After a few months of excruciating pain when laughing, I thought the worst was over.

My next set of injuries hurt my ego more than anything else. The week before I left Alberta for good, I decided to visit the Rocky Mountains one more time and climb Grotto Mountain with the Alpine Club. It was as if the mountain itself was angry with my decision to leave Alberta and therefore, literally, and thoroughly kicked my arse. I managed to fall down a fair bit, including once when I was just standing and not even moving. My tail bone hurt and then I managed to stub my knee into a jagged rock while trying to take a photo.

I decided that, well, I could understand the mountains being angry with me, after all I was leaving them. Little did I know what was to come next.

While visiting my friend’s parent’s farm in Ontario, I managed to almost chop my finger off with an axe. I had been resting the axe (which had just been sharpened) on a piece of wood on the sweltering day. Stupidly my hand was on the wood, which at that very moment decided that it had had enough of being set upon and slipped out of reach. The axe fell and went almost clean through my finger. With a great shout I ran indoors shouting to my friend’s dad: “Mr. MacDonald, Mr. MacDonald, I’ve done something bad!” I might as well have been seven years old.

But that turned out okay, the doctors sewed my finger back on, made fun of me at the hospital (“So any of you single nurses feel like taking this man on?”) and they gave me a lollipop.

Now you would think that that would be enough for one year right?

You forget whose blog your reading. This is the man whose tent almost floats away in a Siberian river flood, who wonders whether Air Canada has a permanent file on him, who manages to get in trouble on a sunny day when there is no one around him for miles.

Last night while cooking supper for some people, I tried to pick up a pot whose temperature had reached well beyond the point of boiling. With my bare hands… guess which finger I have now had to apply burn medication to?

In a couple months, I’m sure I’ll manage to get it frost-bitten.

Canada’s Parliament named the democratically elected leader of Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi an honourary Canadian today. She has been under houser arrest for the majority of the past two decades. Let me say that I am very proud to have you as a Canadian and hope that some day we can share something truly Canadian when you visit us as part of a free Burma. Congrats to Parliament for recognizing the plight of the Burmese people in such a high profile manner.

I was asked yesterday what more someone could do to help the people of Burma. I want to reiterate that at this point, our help must come in the form of support for the people of Burma in their struggle against the military junta. There is almost no way that we can help the Burmese people in a real physical sense, at least not from here in North America. But there is plenty that you can do. The way that this works is to keep raising awareness in the media, make sure you tell someone around you, write a blog and show support. Just by remembering and keeping the spirit of the Burmese people alive you will show that they are not alone in the struggle to establish freedom. Do not let the military junta forget that we are watching them and that we have not forgotten as they continue to arrest more protesters.

So what can you do?

In Montreal, support the Burma Solidarity Collective (McGill University)

There are many activist groups that you might be able to support in your local area. If you are in Montreal, I suggest you look up the Burma Solidarity Collective which is a student activist group based at McGill University. If you want to get involved and feel as if you are doing something towards raising awareness on the plight of the Burmese people, you can come support this group whether you are in university or not. The following activities are planned for the next few weeks and you might want to take part in one or more of them:

• Tuesday October 23: Come donate to the Burma Solidarity Collective between the hours of 11:30am and 4pm at the McGill University Roddick Gates (Metro: McGill). Donations will be used to fund various activities aimed at promoting awareness about Burma and the plight of the Burmese people.
• Tuesday October 23: Come learn about the Burmese protests including a movie about the 1988 protests. Samosas will be provided at a cost as a fundraiser for the Burma Solidarity Collective. 5pm to 7:30pm at the Clubs Lounge in the SSMU Building on McTavish, 4^th Floor, (Metro: McGill)
• Thursday November 8: Travel Photography Show as a fundraiser for the Burma Solidarity Collective. More details to follow… watch this space!

Letter campaigns

For decades Amnesty International and other groups have used letter campaigns to try and get people and governments to listen and sway opinions. If you have a few moments here are some people that you might want to contact:

• Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, Harper.S@parl.gc.ca
• Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maxime Bernier, Bernier.M@parl.gc.ca
• Leader of the Opposition, Stéphane Dion, Dion.S@parl.gc.ca
• Leader of the NDP, Jack Layton, Layton.J@parl.gc.ca
• Leader of the Bloc Québécois, Gilles Duceppe, Duceppe.G@parl.gc.ca
• High Commissioner of India, R.L. Narayan, a close trading partner of Burma, hc@hciottawa.ca
• Check out Amnesty International and other rights groups for other campaign ideas

Support humanitarian aid through Azaaz.org

Avaaz says: “We can’t allow the Burmese blackout to succeed. Avaaz is working to support highly respected Burmese democracy and civil society groups by sending them $100,000 in crucial technical and humanitarian support this week. These groups, working in the region with the right equipment and tools, can help bring stories out of Burma and poke holes in the blackout, shining spotlights on the ongoing cruelty in Burma. They are desperate for help to give humanitarian assistance to the victims of the crackdown and tell their stories to the world before the current window of media attention passes. Other donors take months to raise money; only we can be fast enough to meet this urgent need. Can we raise $100,000 (75,000 Euros) in the next 24 hours so the money can be transferred this week? Click to make a donation online.”

I wrote the following on a flight from Montreal to St. John’s this past summer. I was in a rather weird frame of mind and had just finished reading a couple of articles, one on the Mayan civilization and one on Hurricane Katrina. Both were in the National Geographic that I had purchased on my way through Trudeau Airport. I’ve decided to print it as is. Warning, it’s long…

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It’s hard to imagine as I stare out from my aircraft window that we are causing the world’s destruction. As the plane makes a steep ascent through the prism of clear blue skies to 30,000 feet the world falls away serenely in a sensation of weightlessness. Clouds rush by with very little care careening into one another with careless abandon. Giant puffy clouds look down their noses at their small ferreting brethren which are absorbed in quick order. Green patches of ground snake in and out between the clouds. Our world is rushing so far away. The plane is so high now that human habitations barely show upon the world’s open face. With such space and distance, it’s hard to imagine that such small creatures as we could possibly be blamed for the destruction of the world’s varied ecosystems.

And yet, it is true. I am not talking about global warming. Rising temperatures may or may not be the fault of humankind. But we are most certainly to blame for other great atrocities of the world, of that I am sure. I wake in the morning and look out at the haze of the city of Montreal and see in it the pollution of a million cars. I walk the world on a carpet of concrete leaving only small holes in the pavement for lone trees to grow by design and not by nature. I travel in the underland through great holes bored underneath our feet. I stare from the belching bus and see people running around consuming, living, breathing, burning and inadvertently, unconsciously killing. I travel in a plane across great distances, streaking through the air in mother Earth’s pristine high atmosphere and I know I’m part of this problem.

I am not going to try and convince anyone that human beings are a detriment to the survival of the Earth as we see it currently. The evidence is around all of us. We’re endangering the survival of increasing number of species. Our pollution renders our cities and waterways toxic to many forms of life, and potentially our own. Vast swathes of countryside are destroyed each year for farming, recreation and through misuse. Increasing numbers of wild animals are forced from their habitats and wander onto our lands: bears, tigers, lions and more. We hunt the narwhal, leave Siberian tiger cubs to perish in the cold winter and depopulate seas of fish. In a world in which we are the supreme beings we have never been benevolent caretakers.

The plane is now straightened out, the world is far beneath us and we are streaking towards a darkening horizon. After all the media attention, after all the media hype you would think that we would learn. Every child now knows to recycle, to reduce and to reuse. In reality, western society is probably best at the first, less on the second and potentially non-existent on the third. Recycling programs work in almost every city. I have a twinge of shame every time I cannot find a recycling bin to throw an empty can. However, we have certainly not learned the arts of reducing and reusing. How can we? Every day we are bombarded with advertisements. Every day there is the temptation to buy more, consume more, and embrace the latest technology, save three minutes where once it took five. We must have the latest computer, the latest book, the latest piece of furniture. Our society and way of life demands and exists on our ability to consume and if we do not consume our economies will collapse.

The horizon outside has caught up to us now. The plane’s lights are blinking in the inky blackness of night and now the effects of human habitation are clear beneath us. A shimmering web of lights stretching through the ground like fairy lights growing like a stain through the darkened void.

The future is not so bright. We have yet to learn the lessons of what past civilizations and countless species learned as they faced extinction. The reality of all this is that we have architected our own demise. Our large brains have conceived of ways to let humanity survive great diseases which once kept our population in check. We have fought and conquered weather and all but the greatest of storms now pass us by. We have swarmed the earth and managed to tame land to produce for multitudes that the world never thought it would see.

When Hurricane Katrina sank much of New Orleans we should have learned lessons. Gilbert F. White claimed that the Levees should never have been built around New Orleans in the twenties on through to the present day. “Floods are an ‘act of god’. But flood losses are largely an act of man,” he said. The Levee Effect was the creation of habitable areas out of uninhabitable ones always with the knowledge that should a big hurricane ever come through, nothing that was done by man would be fool proof against the mighty forces of nature. History has shown us the wisdom of that, and the losses were incredible.

Now imagine the world as we stand today. We have solved so many problems and we continue to solve more. This is in our nature. Our species survives and thrives by conquering that which does not want to be. Where conventional wisdom of nature says “not”, human beings say, “why not.” We have created a human empire fuelled by technology that is unparalleled. But what so many of us forget in our daily lives of abundance is that the Earth is finite. Eventually, if a host of other disasters do not get rid or contain our expansion, we must hit that limit. No matter what science fiction has taught us, the ability to create matter out of nothing, food and fuel from the air and so on, is all still the matter of fiction and hardly science. As we create even larger and more massive sculptures to our aggrandizement, like the doomed natives of Easter Island did, we will find ourselves more and more constrained. Our species will contend with each other as they did in ages past for remaining resources, for water, for fuel, for technology. As if from a bad science fiction novel, we will find our empire in decline.

It took the Mayan civilization of several million people a couple centuries to decline. The great and mighty Roman Empire collapsed also in mere centuries. The British Empire gave up the ghost in a mere 50 years, and that to this day was a larger spanning empire than that of the great Mongolian Hordes. Will we collapse faster than that? Or will we see the lingering descent into madness and decay? Will we finally look at ancient ruins and instead of saying “that was then and this is now”, we might look on them and say perhaps this is our future.

Normally in articles such as this, I would end with a thought of happiness and say that perhaps something can be done to avert such disaster. The answers are not there yet. We have not come to a point in our civilization where we can look at the world with eyes greater than what we want for breakfast, how we will spend our money, or which religion or colour to associate with. Perhaps it is a function of our short fleeting lives, or perhaps it is a function of our own inability to comprehend anything larger than what we see around us. Until we can stop religious fighting that has lasted a thousand years, until we can look at what we have done as a whole and exclaim “wait, this is a problem”, until we can elect people whose vision is greater than the short immediate term, the human race is bound to continue to make the same mistakes.

Do not get me wrong, it is not the Earth I am concerned for, it is the very survival of our species. The Earth will be rid of us at some point. For every species that we kill off in our lifetime, new ones will evolve in the environments we create or leave behind. Evolution does not stop for humanity.

The world is rushing towards us now. Our descent has begun. I cannot help but think whether our current empire has perhaps reached its apogee. The greatest heights that this western-led, petroleum-fuelled society will reach might actually just be dawning. Enjoy it while you can, as with all good things, whether it takes ten years or two hundred years, it will end. Only hindsight will ever tell us whether it ended with a whimper or with a bang.

The wheels touch and we screech to a halt.

If you were to see a starving child lying groaning on the floor, I suspect that many of us might approach and attempt to help. However, how many of us would go to the child and suggest that in return for the food we give them, the child must buy only from certain shops in the future? Without such agreement, are you prepared to not help that child?

A new report from Médecins Sans Frontiers is urging that food aid be changed to be more nutritious. However the article from the CBC has an ending that simply chills me. The United States is one of the most generous countries in giving foreign aid. No matter what one may say about the foreign policies of its leaders, the US people have risen to the challenges of tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, famines and more. But my specific concerns are the conditions that developed nations (not just the US) slap on aid given to anyone, especially when the aid is food for starving people.

To be sure, there is a certain amount of skepticism when it comes to giving large amounts of cash to any country. To this day I doubt the majority of the money raised in the Asian Tsunami ever made it to the poor people who suffered the most. In Colombo, Sri Lanka and Bangkok, Thailand, there are rumours ever swirling that massive monetary donations ended in the coffers of the rich and powerful.

However, when it comes to other specific goods, such as meals and medicine, I find it somewhat abhorrent to hear of any conditions which are there to benefit the country that is providing the aid.

In the documentary Corporation the producers examined the idea that while corporate entities are made up of human beings with morals, when people all come together and have to protect the individual corporation, they work in the best interest of the corporation and forget about their individual morals, ethics and ideals. Could the same be true of governments? Very few of us would provide conditions on help such as feeding the starving. I doubt individual donors watching something like Live Aid ever thought: “Feed the hungry as long as they buy American”. I would imagine they just wanted to help. Government bodies are the ones which see protectionism in this kind of arena where normal individuals would not and often do not.

The whole concept makes you wonder about the other morals that government bodies are willing to suppress despite the fact that if this were one individual to another, the normal human laws would simply not allow certain actions to happen. I suspect covert killings, spying, torture and all the rest would fall into this category. In the Corporation the conclusion was that if one were to psychologically analyze the corporate entity as a human being (which is how the law often treats it) then you would have to claim that such a being was psychotic. Could the same conclusions be made about our governments?

Over the many thousands of human history we have a relatively common human moral and ethical code which is consistent with the majority of the human race. I wonder how different it would be if governments let this moral and ethical code override the codified and written laws and economics which seem to rule the practices of legislative assemblies. Indeed, is it even possible?

It’s just a thought.

Today marks the rise of Danny Williams and the Newfoundland and Labrador Progressive Conservative (PC) Party to the stratospheric club into which few in North American history have been inducted. You heard correctly, Danny Williams is the latest inductee into the hallowed membership of the Dictators Club. As of 10pm tonight, Williams and the PCs had captured 43 seats, the Liberals a paltry three and the NDP a solid one.

Congratulations Danny, you can now rule Newfoundland and Labrador with just five of your members to vote against the mighty Liberal and NDP voting bloc left to thwart the ambitions of those in power. It will mean a mere three members of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition in Newfoundland and Labrador will have the sleepless task of fulfilling all the shadow positions in the government. Indeed, the Liberals in NL might as well simply just ignore the next few years, go bask in some Caribbean beach and simply wait for the likely implosion.

Having said all that, Danny, I envy you your position. Let’s have a look at all the things that you could get to do now that you have nothing and no one to stop you:

1. Create your own standing army. Come on Danny, you know you’ve always wanted to declare independence. I mean the next time Harper reneges on a promise, you’d look that much more invincible with an army at your back while you wear your Kim-Jong-Il-esque army fatigues . Just, errr, don’t recruit from the RNC.
2. Build a giant monument. Every dictator ruler has a giant phallic monument. You should too. You could build it atop the Southside hills so that all can bask in your glory as they get drunk on George Street and “toast” you at two in the morning.
3. Encourage innovative industrialization. Come on, Joey’s work with Valdmanis had nothing on what you could do today. Who cares about Peckford’s giant cucumber greenhouse, you could take it a step further, after all, why couldn’t Newfoundland become the world’s leading exporter of coconuts to North America?
4. Get rid of that stupid half hour. Yes, I know you can’t physically move Newfoundland (the island), but you could “move” it in the world timezone business. Put it in the same timezone as St. Pierre et Miquelon and make it a full two hours ahead of Eastern. You would have a lot of happy people who would no longer need to adjust that half-hour difference. You could even name it NWT – Newfoundland Williams Time.
5. Declare war on Alberta. I just think that would be cool. I mean really, it’s just been too peaceful and we should really consolidate all the oil wealth under one administration. We have enough Newfoundlanders there anyway, it would simply take a few calls, a few shipments, a promise of free flights between St. John’s and Alberta and bingo…
6. Put a hefty bounty on Pamela Anderson and anyone else who supports anti-sealing with PETA. It would be like the Fatwa on Salman Rushdie. You could have covert Pro-Sealer bounty hunters tracking Sir Paul McCartney down around the world.
7. Star in your own documentary. Look, you might as well follow in the footsteps of Joey, the last true dictator of Newfoundland and Labrador. Joey did Waiting for Fidel, I think you should go one step further. Go where few Canadians have gone, seek out your fellow dictator, Kim Jong Il in North Korea. Though, I do have to tell you that you might have to acknowledge the fact that Kim might have a bit more exalted status in his homeland than you do, for the moment at least.
8. Finally, I’d just like you to grow a mullet. Look, I can’t think of a single Premier who has had a mullet, and damn it I want someone to grow a mullet. It’s not like you need to watch out for your public image anymore right? You could go out and get drunk and kick homeless bums ala Ralph Klein and you wouldn’t even raise a fuss in the House of Assembly (I mean, how much fuss can four lone people make anyway?). So yes, you need a mullet.

Today is the global action day about Burma and there is a march scheduled at 1pm starting at the Roddick Gates of McGill University. However, it all seems like such an odd thing to do. Why are Montrealers, almost half a world divorced from this small Asian country, marching in protest? What could we possibly achieve by our silent march through the downtown streets of Montreal? Can we possibly stand up to the military government? Can we possibly hope to bring freedom to Aung San Suu Kyi and the democratic movement in Burma?

The reality is that we cannot do any of those grand things. If it were that simple, what country would persist under the yoke of cruel and brutal dictatorship? So then, what is the point of marching?

When you take to the streets this afternoon and hold up the banners and silently walk through downtown Montreal, affix in your mind what it is that you are there to do. We want to show the Burmese people that we care. That thousands of miles away in a country that most Burmese will never get the chance to visit, are people who they have never met who actually care that they, the Burmese, are being repressed. We want to give them hope that someday they will have the same freedoms that we enjoy. We want them to remember that we applaud their courage in going out onto the streets against armoured men with their guns and batons. We want to tell them to not give up hope.

Freedom is something that cannot be given to a people. Freedom is not something that can be installed for a people. Freedom can only be earned from deep within the hearts of the people that clamour for it. We want them to remember for what it is that they should fight: freedom, peace and prosperity.

When you march along those streets, if but a few look upon you and think about what it is that you do, then you have succeeded in getting the message across. If our government watches and sees its citizens marching in dignity for the support of freedom, then perhaps they too will see the need to do something on a more global stage with tools that we do not have. Our goal isn’t to bring down governments, call for violence or bring about bloodshed. Our goal is for the long suffering Burmese people, through non-violent and negotiated actions, to find resolution, freedom and peace without a repressive military regime.

Moreover, remember that you are also marching for yourselves. It is important that we support our own freedom. To exercise one’s freedoms is to keep them alive. We must never forget that we too must take long hard looks at our own situation so that it never becomes that which the Burmese people now endure. Freedom must not only be earned, it must be respected and exercised.

So when you take to the streets of Montreal or anywhere on today’s global day of action, hold your heads high, smile, be dignified, be respectful, be joyous, be compassionate, be the change that you wish to see happen. Despite the length of time it has taken in the history of the Burmese people, I know that someday I will stand face to face with a free Burmese person in the centre of Montreal and we shall toast their beautiful homeland together.

Today, please march for peace, freedom and above all, pray for the Burmese people in their struggle.

Law 5: The Gandhi Law

I call this final law the Gandhi Law. One of my heroes is Mahatma Gandhi, aka Mohandas K. Gandhi. I’m not Indian, but some part of me wishes I was so I could call him my own, but truly he was a man who stood apart from any one culture or one society and appealed to the entire world. The fifth and final law of the politics of protest is that you will eventually succeed if you truly believe in what you are doing.

One of my favourite Gandhi quotes is:

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

If you have followed through and you have fought the good fight, remember that in seeking true change in the world, you must never give in, even when it seems easy to do so. You have to fight through the pain, the anxiety and the loneliness to get to the end of the marathon. It is exactly like running a marathon. At the beginning the entire world seems fine and wonderful. The air fills your lungs and you can feel your body throbbing inside you. By the time you have done a quarter of the race you are asking yourself why you started. Soon you feel the fatigue, the pain and the rest of the feelings that go with a grueling long stretch of an uncomfortable task. Eventually though you know that you’ve weathered the worst and you use those lessons to keep you going.

Every race has an end, and every protest when it is done with sincerity, honesty and feeling, will result in good in the world.

There will come a reckoning for all: even for Burma with its decades of suffering; even for the Burmese who live away from their homeland, away from their relatives and family; even for the Burmese military junta who so repressively places themselves above the ordinary person. Eventually I know in my heart that the protests that we’ve been on, that we will continue to fight, will make a difference.

Gandhi fought a battle that no one thought he could win. He appealed to the masses and asked them to follow him, because it would be in their best interests to do so. He led them on a large peaceful march to gather salt. The might of the British Empire was powerless to stop him. He fought through years of fatigue, of wondering if this was worth it at all, but eventually, the British Empire acquiesced to the wishes of a modest man.

Perhaps it is my immense respect for Gandhi which saddens me to see the country he helped create not support the people of Burma. India has so far chosen oil and material wealth over the principles under which that country was founded and escaped repression.

When awarding the Nobel Prize to Aung San Suu Kyi, the committee wrote (taken from Wikipedia):

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 1991 to Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (Burma) for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights.

…Suu Kyi’s struggle is one of the most extraordinary examples of civil courage in Asia in recent decades. She has become an important symbol in the struggle against oppression…

…In awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 1991 to Aung San Suu Kyi, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to honour this woman for her unflagging efforts and to show its support for the many people throughout the world who are striving to attain democracy, human rights and ethnic conciliation by peaceful means.

Gandhi showed that civil, peaceful protest can change the very face of this world. We can help Aung San Suu Kyi achieve the same goals against the military regime in Burma.

Saturday, October 6th is the Burma Global Day of Action. Sadly I will not be able to make it, but here is what is happening in Montreal:

SATURDAY , October 6th, 1 pm:

International Day of Solidarity with the Burmese protesters.  BSC and Amnesty International invites community members to take part in a silent march and rally.  The silent march, led by Quebec-based monks will begin at at 1 pm at the, intersection of McGill College and Sherbrooke St. (Roddick Gates) and will continue to the Norman Bethune monument, at Guy and de Maisonneuve. At the Bethune monument of international solidarity messages of support will be read and a public meditation will be performed. This rally will be in coordination with political actions of solidarity throughout the world.

SAMEDI, le 6 octobre, 13h00

Journée internationale de solidarité avec les manifestants Birmans.  BSC et Amnestie Internationale invitent les Montréalais(es) à participer à une marche silencieuse et manifestation.  Une marche silencieuse sera dirigée par des moines Québécois et débutera a 13h00 a l’intersection McGill College et rue Sherbrooke (Roddick Gates) et se terminera au monument Norman Bethune  (intersection des rues Guy et de Maisonneuve). La lecture de messages d’espoir et une séance de méditation se tiendront lieu au parc Norman Bethune. Cette manifestation aura lieu en même temps qu’un des plus grand évènement politique de solidarité internationale.

Law 4: Protest Fatigue sucks

I once described the process of sensory fatigue. The same theory can be applied to protests. Yes, you’ve convinced people to follow you, you’ve convinced them why, and you’ve even managed to make those outside of your group listen. Congratulations! Now you just have to keep it together. And this couldn’t be harder.

This is when you start hearing that voice in your head asking “Why am I doing this?” And it’s not just you, everyone in your group or attached to you is feeling it to. Everyday life is so much more important. Those car and house payments don’t pay themselves you know. Need to cook the food, run that half mile, write that letter and study for that exam. This is Protest Fatigue. And yes, it sucks.

Worse is the fatigue felt by those who are consuming your message. The same pamphlets, tree hugging (or chaining), street protests and so on just don’t win the media over after a while: no one is listening. Welcome to the point when everything is at an all-time low. The fight for democracy in Burma is a good example. I became involved a few years after the 1988 protests that left thousands dead. Aung San Suu Kyi had just been locked up again and elections annulled. There was a rallying cry.

But as the years dragged and little seemed to change, the media forgot. Burma became a footnote and those caught in the repressive regime whispered to visiting tourists. Capitals changed and the regime hunkered down. The world went on its merry way and even the movements I was a part of slowly fractured and disappeared into far off places. Then we have the new issues and again the world clamours for change and one can only hope that real change is finally coming for the Burmese people.

Fighting protest fatigue is hard. Sometimes you have to give it a break and come back to it. Other times, you need to find new ways of protesting. Perhaps through the Internet, email campaigns, letters, marches and so on. Sometimes you need to move on and let others take up the battle. They will come in with new ideas, and they will go through the same processes you went through and they will keep the battle alive.

I have a theory about those who are constant volunteers in actions and cause organizations. By being involved in many things you tend to be able to weather protest fatigue much better than the devoted individual with the one cause to fight. For that devoted individual there exists that final and fifth law.

Tune in tomorrow to finish this incredibly dry set of articles! Same Bat Time, same Bat Channel!