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Taking risks

" We are now in a period of crisis. Every [one] who is acutely alive is acutely wrestling with his own soul. People who can bring forth new passion, new ideas will endure.
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" We are now in a period of crisis. Every [one] who is acutely alive is acutely wrestling with his own soul. People who can bring forth new passion, new ideas will endure. Those others that fix themselves in the old idea, will perish with the new life strangled unborn within them. We must speak out to one another."

- Writer DH Lawrence. 1913 (thanks to a Jan Simpson post)

I was sitting in Maxx Fish the other night listening to bohopunk poet C.R. Avery. The room was half full and he was half lit. Growly tone. Growly words. Just what I needed.

Avery was deploring the dearth of leadership in this country and I was nodding my head to the beat of his voice. That's when it hit me. Whether writer or poet, teacher, singer or public speaker, anyone who is bold enough to stand up these days and point out that the emperor has no clothes is sure to attract some arrows.

Ouch. And Avery's attracted his share. He even has the scars to prove it. Still, fear of controversy doesn't play big in his repertoire. A hard-living music vet (who proudly wears his East Van anarchist roots on his sleeve), the sharp-tongued beatboxer is brash enough to address what many others in this country are too meek to say.

Meaning? Avery had the orbs to claim in one of his songs last Friday that Pierre Elliott Trudeau was Canada's last great political leader.

I know. I know. The Trudeau-haters out there are already shaking their heads in derision. "Bull puckies," they're saying. "He almost destroyed our country." But Avery disagrees.

And who can blame him? Given little Stevie Hapless's run to date (thanks Max for the moniker - it fits so nicely), I'm sure Avery's not the only member of Gen X bemoaning the past.

What I loved most about his Trudeau song, however, was the way he justified his claim. "Any prime minister who can reach the top of Tricky Dick Nixon's sh**t list," he told the crowd, "is, by definition, a great Canadian leader..."

Indeed. And the Whistlerites in attendance ate it up. Cheers and hollers filled the room.

Butt that's not always the case. In a post-concert conversation, Avery did admit to a wild range of responses. "In Alberta," he told me, "the boos often drown out the song. They take it real personal there. In Montreal, you get a bit of both... It's pretty interesting that way. Trudeau still gets people passionate. And I love that."

What he doesn't love, however, is the inane blame game being played on the political front these days. When Canada was refused a seat on the United Nations' Security Council recently - a TOTAL rejection by the international community of our new Americanized foreign policy - little Stevie Hapless was quick to blame Liberal leader Iggy Mike for Canada's latest black eye.

Say what? But then, in this culture of fast-food and even faster media, pointing the finger and telling lies (and repeating them over and over) seems to be just as effective a strategy as biting the bullet and telling the truth. "Sorry. We screwed up," just doesn't seem to play anymore...

Look at what's happening to our neighbours down south. For the last two years, a group of very disturbed people have been repeating the fiction that President Obama is a secret Muslim. Makes me think of the Converso claims against Jews in Europe in medieval times. Turns out that strategy was a great way to scapegoat a segment of the population that chose to live outside the maintream. Maybe that's what these modern racists are thinking too.

But what really disturbs me is that in a country increasingly dominated by talk show hosts discussing the sexual peccadilloes of its celebrities, a growing minority of people are actually beginning to believe that Obama is a Muslim. Doesn't matter that this has absolutely no basis in fact. Doesn't matter that Obama and his family are regular church-goers. It's all about destruction by innuendo. And it seems to be working.

Which begs the obvious question: would it matter if Obama were a Muslim? Would it really change what Americans thought of him? And if so, what does that say about the state of that once-great American "democracy." Sounds more like cultural fascism to me.

But I digress.

I was reminded of all this earlier this week, when I pulled a copy of the latest Pique off the shelf. As a writer with my own hefty bag of opinions - some, I admit, more contentious that others - I'm always fascinated to see how my stories are received by Whistler readers. A quick perusal through the Letters To The Editor section revealed that I had ignited sparks once again.

But this time it was getting personal. I wasn't accused of being a Muslim. Not quite. But as far as letter-writer Eric Callender was concerned, my opinions were no better than crap.

Alas, poor Mr. Callender either can't read very well or he's a disciple of the new "bash-and-dash" school of scapegoating too. Whatever. Given his position - he's a 15-year associate at resort-design firm Ecosign (a fact he conveniently forgot to mention) - his letter reveals much about the current state of discourse in Whistler.

Titled "Tired of Tirades ," his angry diatribe accused me of a whole slough of misdemeanours. I hated "all things Whistler." My opinions were "rancid" and "rarely grounded in the slightest foundation of fact or reason." I had even - gasp! - slighted the legacies of Saint Hugh and Saint Paul. And horror of horrors, I had suggested that taking down lifts at Whistler Mountain might be a progressive act...

On that last point, his own boss, Paul Mathews had just told a Globe & Mail reporter the day before that Ecosign was planning to remove "at least half the lifts" in their new master plan for Courchevel in France.

So let me get this straight. It's okay for Mr. Mathews to remove lifts in France, but it's not okay for me we suggest doing the same at Whistler? "Oy vey," as my old grandfather might say.

As for my contention that the Smythhews groundbreaking work on Blackcomb Mountain in the 1980s did not turn out exactly as they'd planned, that too comes directly from Mr. Mathews's mouth. "We shrunk the mountains," he told me in a recent interview. "And now we're trying to figure out a way to make them big again..."

As for the "Beaudry hates Whistler" comment, anybody who knows me understands just how deeply this place has my soul in hock...

What really angers me, though, is his claim that I want to reserve Whistler for the five per cent of the market that are "not just good but great skiers." I never said that. I don't believe that. In fact, that claim is as far from the truth as you can get.

What I do believe is that Whistler is about mountains. It's about the trails that Don MacLauren built. The alpine plaques to Dean Smith and Trevor Petersen and a whole slough of others. It's Fissile off in the distance. Dropping into Cheakamus Lake on a late afternoon run. It's running and walking and paddling and skiing and riding and flying and smiling and being. Whistler is about Sea-to-Sky culture and all its magical attributes.

So what am I really saying? I'm saying that I'm afraid of the creeping urbanization here. I'm scared that unless we start showing our mountain environment the respect that it deserves, we're all going to fail here.

In the end, it wasn't Mr. Callender's truth-bending that bothered me most though. It was the unnecessarily nasty nature of his attack. And it's a trend on the upswing at Whistler. Whether it's the Cheakamus Crossing controversies or the launching of the new OCP process, the incivility of the discourse among residents of late has created deep impediments to clear and open discussion around here.

In other words, bullying is rife in this community.

Bad timing. Whistler is at a crossroads today. We desperately need new ideas if we want to remain relevant to both our core and our potential customers. We need to open up the discussion. We need to get young and old - newcomer and veteran; ski bum and entrepreneur - to step up and speak their minds. We can't afford to let the bullies rule.

So let's keep talking. Let's keep pushing the envelope. Let's be bold and strong and unafraid to address new ideas. But above all, let's be civil in our discussions with each other. After all, we need to work together if we're going to make it over the next hump.