The first point I want to address is the fanwar.

I love DBSK, JYJ and Homin… but sometimes I cannot stand the fans.

Why?

The fans are the ones who can’t agree on who to support, and it is the fans who decided to judge the idols based on rumors and information that might not even be correct. It’s the FANS fault if they don’t have the brains enough to think before they act and it has nothing to do with SM or the cosmetic company or Homin or JYJ or DBSK or the lawsuit. It’s about their attitude towards each other and how they have to blame someone or something for the split just because they can no longer get their DBSK fix. It’s selfish and self-destructive at the same time because it’s also the fans who are doing all the bashing, the hating and who are spreading this negative atmosphere in the fandom.

(and let’s not try to prove or blame the worst among the fan-haters. Being the worse doesn’t erase the wrong doings of the other group. We all know there was a fanwar, and in a war, both parties fight and both parties get hurt. It’s time to reconcile and move on.)

And in addition to bashing each other, the fans take out their anger on their idols!

This is ridiculous behavior and I can’t comprehend how bashing or hating will accomplish anything at all. There is no point to it and in my humble opinion, it has to stop.

We fans really need to get over the fact the DBSK is no longer performing as 5 members (not for now, at least). We cannot change this fact no matter how much time we spend researching on why the lawsuit was filed, no matter how much we disagree with the theories out there, no matter how much we blame someone or something for the split, and no matter much we would love to see them together again.

We cannot turn back time and we cannot undo the things that have happened. Let’s please just move on and love our idols.

If it means we have ignore the comments we don’t like, or avoiding certain topics, then so be it! But please, respect each other and be civil! Friends can disagree about something and still be friends. Likewise, fans can disagree about something and still be friends.

The person you are arguing with may have been a person who sat next to you in a concert. It might have been the person who uploaded a sub for a DBSK/JYJ/Homin video you just watched. Stop hating, just share the love. DBSK are human too and they need our support.

The next point I want to cover is the actual split/lawsuit.

DBSK are just like any civilian and citizen, so they also have the rights that any other citizens have. They have the right to sue a company they believe is taking more profit than it should, and they also have the right to stay with a company considered to be one of the leaders in the korean music industry, a company which many young aspiring stars wish to join.

Please don’t judge them on their decision.

You may disagree, but you are not living their lives. Please be respectful.

Yuhno, Changmin, Jaejoong, Yoochun and Junsu have sacrificed a lot to get to where they are. Please don’t judge them. They are still the same idols who have given us unforgettable music and choreography. They sing and dance for us, and the only thing they ask in return is our love. Let’s live up to this, and give them, as fans, the love they deserve.

In conclusion, we must stop making things difficult for them. We need to respect not only other fans but also our idols by stopping disrespectful comments, by sharing our common love for our idols, by supporting DBSk/JYJ/Homin and by understanding our position as fans.

We have to think about what it means to be a fan and the reason why we are fans. Is it impossible to be a fan without being a hater? Let’s spread the love and wish our boys the best of all successes!

Many provinces have been working hard to reduce their greenhouse gases.

For example, Quebec, Manitoba and Ontario as well as British Columbia and many American States have joined together to form the Western Climate Initiative, which is a partnership aimed at “developing a joint strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the region.”

As for the tar sands, they will do nothing but increase the emissions. What does it matter if some countries, territories and provinces work hard to reduce their emissions if others simply increase their production of greenhouse gases?

This is what Greenpeace says about tar sands…

If production increases as planned, annual tar sands emissions are expected to quadruple from 27 to 126 million tonnes by 2015. In order to avoid runaway climate change we need to be drastically reducing these kinds of emissions – not increasing them.

Continuing to develop the tar sands is pushing us closer to catastrophic climate change, which will mean death and displacement for millions of people. Allowing projects, like the tar sands, which will contribute towards this future, to continue is a crime and our world leaders must be held responsible for stopping it.

The best chance we have is coming up at the end of this year when the UN Climate Summit will be held in Copenhagen.

World leaders must attend this meeting and agree to a just and equitable deal that will drastically reduce our emissions and prohibit projects like the tar sands, whose emissions are planned to increase.

Greenpeace activists are currently taking action:

Right now 23 Greenpeace activists have blocked a bridge and shut down a conveyer belt at a Suncor upgrader facility in the tar sands of northern Alberta, Canada.

Another interesting fact about tar sands is the method of extraction. In an article titled, “Let Them Drink Oil”, on Celsias, Craig Mackintosh points out that the tar sands aren’t worth the money we put into them….

“Companies also use fresh water to make steam to force petroleum out of the oil sands and to make mud for drilling. There are no clear numbers on how much the industry actually uses but last year it had permits for more than 278 billion litres of fresh water.

That’s more water than is used every year by three of Alberta’s largest cities, and the companies get their water for free.”

Water, which is often known as blue gold, is said to be the next resource being fought over after oil. Are we really making the right decision by investing in the tar sands industry?

Tar sands don’t only concern the resources, emissions and the kyoto protocol, but also the animals, plants and organisms are involved and at risk of extinction. According to Robert Kunzig from National Geographic:

The Canadian boreal forest covers two million square miles, of which around 75 percent remains undeveloped. The oil sands mines have so far converted over 150 square miles—a hundredth of a percent of the total area—into dust, dirt, and tailings ponds.

Expansion of in situ extraction could affect a much larger area.

At Suncor’s Firebag facility, northeast of the Millennium mine, the forest has not been razed, but it has been dissected by roads and pipelines that service a checkerboard of large clearings, in each of which Suncor extracts deeply buried bitumen through a cluster of wells.

Environmentalists and wildlife biolo­gists worry that the widening fragmentation of the forest, by timber as well as mineral companies, endangers the woodland caribou and other animals.

“The boreal forest as we know it could be gone in a generation without major policy changes,” says Steve Kallick, director of the Pew Boreal Campaign, which aims to protect 50 percent of the forest.

This is sad news… I pray that the government and the companies will not have their way with the tar sands. There are other ways of making money and profit that would do less harm of the environment…

This infuriates me. I’ve got to do something about this.

I dug a little deeper, and in essence, writers all across Canada are being asked to stop writing for Transcontinental Media because of the unfair contracts and agreements(call the “Master Author Agreement”) between journalists and the company. Craig Silverman writes about it here. There’s also more info about the actual agreement.

Here’s an excerpt from Silverman’s blog:

Agreement grants copyright of each work to the author but then undercuts this copyright by licensing the following extraordinary rights: “The ongoing non-exclusive right to do in respect of the Work any other act that is subject to copyright protection under the Canadian Copyright Act (including, without limitation, the right to produce and reproduce, translate, develop ancillary products, perform in public, adapt and communicate the Work, in any form or medium) as well as to authorize others to do so on behalf of or in association with the Publisher.”

Not cool, huh?

Even the Quebec Writer’s Federation as well as a dozen other associations have signed onto the boycott.

Otherwise, tonight I’ll be handing out some flyers and stuff for CHOM radio station and Virgin radio. My friend who’s an intern there asked me to help him because they really needed some people. I’m quite busy myself, but helping out each other once in a while won’t kill me. I have my newspaper hours tomorrow too, so I can catch up on any work I haven’t done during that time. =)

I’m off to work on my composition now,

Peace & love,
the kiwi~

PS: I fixed the time issue on my blog, haha! =)

There’s a tree outside my school which stands alone with its bright orange red leaves.  Every time I walk by it, I feel like it’s blushing for being the only one that’s different…. Autumn seems different this year… Not enough red leaves, haha!

It’s getting really cold though. So the autumn cold is here without the beautiful leaves. I’ve been told that the sky is higher when fall comes around… I wonder if it’s true?

My piano lesson went really well today, although we spent the entire lesson perfecting the Chopin Nocturne…. I’m sort of worried because I intend to go to McGill in composition and it’ll be very difficult to get into. I don’t know if I’ll be prepared enough… But so long as I practice hard, I think my efforts will pay off. ^^

Anyway, it’s way past my bedtime!

Good night,

With love,
the kiwi~

PS: I don’t know how to fix the time… because it isn’t right, haha!!

Well, I’ll try to be more diligent from now on.

About the contents of this blog….. I’m a music student and I guess I’ll be writing a lot about musical subjects. I’m also writing for the school newspaper =) I live in Montreal, which is, by the way, one of the most amazing cities ever!

I love composition and one day I hope to write music for film and video games. I also love performing on stage, so maybe I’ll tour the world as well, with a band of some sorts. I’ve always wanted to be part of a band. I have a lot of dreams and ambitions, haha! But I think that’s what life is all about. =)

I go crazy over Miyavi. He’s really an amazing artist and musician and hopefully one day I’ll meet him, hehe!

Anyway. It’s homework time for me =)

With love,
the kiwi~