Last Round
by Andrew Brown, Editor–in–Chief
This is my last editorial for the Navigator.
I hope that I have given you some
things to think about, inspired you to
take action, or at least to be aware of
the world around us.
We are at a strange place in our
growth as a society and as a species. It
is difficult not to be disillusioned with
our environmental situation, our accelerating
loss of civil liberties, the
corruption of governing and policing
bodies, and the apathy that most
people seem to have toward all of it.
We are at a point where we either care
now and drastically change our values,
or give in and enjoy the last few
years of our lives with the luxuries we
seem to view as necessities.
It’s foolish for us to think that we
can “buy” our way out of this. Buying
more products because they are
marketed as “green” is laughable. It
is still creating more waste. We need
to simply ask, “Do I really need this?”
Chances are you don’t. I’m not against
green products—they are actually
pretty much all I use—but they are
the products that replace the old ones
that have worn out. We have so much
knowledge that it is hard to imagine
that we still have products that aren’t
green. The technology is here, but
as long as we consume the old stuff,
manufacturers will continue to make
it. We do have power as consumers,
and we can force change.
I thought I would leave you with
a few of my favourite tricks to reduce
damage to the planet.
•Garden. Even if you are in an apartment,
you can still grow some lettuce,
a tomato plant, or any other vegetable
that grows in a pot. It’s easy, it’s delicious,
it’s far more nutritious, and it is
localizing some of your food.
•Carpool or take the bus. It’s an oldie
but a goodie, and you get a chance to
push your radical environmentalist
ideals on someone else, hehe. (You’re
awesome Renee.)
•Make lots of soups and stews. It
makes your food go farther, and you
get lots of leftovers. The less food we
use, the lower the number of transport
trucks that get used—and we
free up our food crops.
•Only flush if it’s solid. It’s self-explanatory,
and obviously if it is looking
gross you should hit the switch; but
in my house of four we probably save
around 20-25 gallons of water a day.
•Walk or ride a bike. It’s good for
stress, and keeps you fit, and it gets
you away from the TV and those
damn munchies.
I hope that these ideas help you, and I
hope you take an interest in the world
around you. It’s important to be active
in the movement towards sustainability.
If we allow big business to make
the decisions that shape our world,
we are in BIG trouble—look where it
has got us so far. Get up, be active, and
stick it to the man any chance you get.
It’s revolution time.
Peace out.
Pop Will Never Die
by Rachelle Stein-Wotten, Associate Editor
Pop music—we all hate it. Either that
or we secretly love it but are too embarrassed
to admit it in public. Those
who hate it wish it would walk straight
into oncoming traffic and get hit by
a double-decker bus—a marvelous
dream, but a dream that will never
come true. The fact is, there will always
be an audience for pop music,
and a big one at that.
Pop means popular music. I
don’t know who defines what music
is popular, but in the 15 or so years
that I can remember tuning in to the
radio, it has evolved more than a few
times. In the mid to late ’90s there
were the famous, if not infamous, boy
bands and female singers like Britney
Spears and Christina Aguilera.
Then came the Latin explosion in the
summer of ’99 with Jennifer Lopez
and Ricky Martin. A few years later
in came punk pop with the likes of
Sum 41, Good Charlotte, and Avril
Lavigne, and more recently R &B and
hip hop with Rihanna and Beyoncé.
In the last year or so, club music and
techno seem to be getting their spot in
the pop sunshine.
With pop, it always seems like it’s
just a watered-down version of the
actual genre. Maybe that’s why a lot
of people who are dedicated to two or
three genres, and really love the sound
of it, don’t get into pop music because
it tends to take influences from multiple
sources. It never really gets into
one specific style. But pop can be like
a gateway drug; you get a taste of the
light stuff and if you like it you dig further
into the mix.
I’m not going to lie—I like some
pop music. What’s the point in denying
it? If someone peeked at my
iTunes library they’d see Lady Gaga,
Timbaland, and Madonna along
with Bruce Springsteen, The Strokes,
and No Doubt. However, even I, who
probably has a higher tolerance for
pop music than many music listeners,
can’t stand listening to some of
the drivel that’s on the airwaves these
days, including the gem “Nothin’ On
You” by some group called B.O.B.
One line in the song goes, “Baby you
the whole package plus you pay your
taxes.” Wow, I’m in love.
I know the simple and logical
thing to do would be not to listen
to these obnoxious songs—and I try
my best not to, but they always play
them on the radio and I like listening
to the radio. I’ve always liked listening
to the radio, especially in the car.
Even though I have a six CD changer,
I still like flipping through the radio
stations, listening to the lunch hour
jams or the drive-home marathon.
So, when the really bad pop songs
come on, and after fervently snapping
through all 12 programmed FM
stations for something better, I disappointedly
switch to the CDs.
I used to have a higher tolerance for
the music played on the pop stations.
Five or six years ago there seemed to
me to be a higher ratio of good songs
to bad. Lately it feels like the number
of bad songs played is increasing at
an exponential rate, like a microbe or
a virus, constantly multiplying. I’m
not completely sure why this is. One
theory I have though is that the music
actually isn’t getting any worse. What
has changed in the equation is my
taste in music. I’m an old and wise 22,
so naturally my preferences for music
are more sophisticated than they were
at 16. But just because I’ve grown out
of a lot of the pop songs doesn’t mean
others have (have you been to a club
lately?) And of course there is the next
generation of music listeners to carry
the pop torch for years to come, until
they move on, and so on and so on.
The constant cycle of pop music will
continue for as long as music is made,
just as it has in for all this time. I wonder,
what did pop music sound like in
the 1500s?