Poltics in Plain English

I spoke with Michael Crawford today and explained my project to him: politics in plain English. Crawford is the NDP candidate for Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo riding, an assistant professor at TRU in the social work department and a very insightful guy.

He instantly warmed to the idea of making politics and news accessible to everyone and over the next hour we discussed everything from HST to Haiti and the proroguing of parliament and creosote burning in Kamloops. He thought it was interesting that I had asked about these topics specifically because they all reflect similar themes in politics: transparency, cynicism and democracy.

Everything has a connection with politics, he said at one point. Even going to the grocery store.

There was a point, before my time but in his youth that you could not go to a grocery store and simply buy whichever produce you were looking for. He gave the example of a banana: if they were not in season you could not find it. It is because politics have opened the world to trade that we have been able to purchase foods and merchandise from all around the world.

Even buying a cup of coffee is thus a political act, he said.

"People have a habit of distancing themselves from what they don't understand," he said. But just because we don't under physics doesn't mean we don't understand that if we fall it will hurt.