I didn’t have much of an appetite for the Oscar’s this year.

Normally I’d be all in, enjoying the glittering and flimsy spectacle as much anybody, but this year felt different, and whatever spirit or anticipation I’d typically bring to the affair was just not there. In fact, I was dreading it, imaging it another long– really long– continuation of all the sneering, bitter arguments that were ceaselessly looping through my media feeds.

Social media has begun to feel like tuning in to some late-night AM radio call-in show. The voices, disembodied and angry, fire from the dark, each one inveighing some furious certainty. There is no complaint too small or too large, and each one comes obsessively detailed by the over-confident sender. There’s an urgency to all these declarations, too, as if impulse more than thought, and the momentum always moves forward– retreat or rumination, let alone a kind of sympathy, utterly unthinkable.

To willingly step into this each day, as I do, is an act of madness. To me, it feels like being closed in a room with a hundred growling dogs while the unmediated grievances of the world strobe in front of you. It colours your mood, this, so even before something of “actuality” happens in your physical life, you’re already tense and combat ready– you’ve already become somebody you don’t want to be. And I swear, if we could somehow tap into the cataract of doomed energy that feeds this monster, we would be masters of the universe.

Initially I had imagined the Internet as something almost utopian. It would be democratizing and unifying, kind of like The Force, and united by the millions we would be able to destroy evil Death Stars. Instead, it’s proven to be infinitely divisive, revealing that the Internet itself might be a horrible Death Star.

The limitless options presented by technology have moved us away from what had been commonly shared. Whatever our interests may be, however perverse, remote or idiosyncratic, we can find a subculture dedicated to that passion or hatred online. We are never alone, but our channels never seem to be open, either. Living in gluttonous echo chambers of our own devising, we now customize our experiences, changing them to suit our needs rather than adopting to the mean. In this way, popular culture is being eradicated, with each person becoming a hermetically sealed culture unto themselves.

Naturally, the idea of compassion or empathy withers in this climate of radical tribalization. It’s now completely normal for people to proudly boast of de-Friending somebody who disagrees with their politics or to happily live within the paradox of being tolerant of everything but intolerance. If you step into Twitter, far from finding a marketplace for the free exchange of ideas, you find a war zone. Every once in a while you pop up from your trench, fire off a few salvos at the enemy, and then duck down again—kind of like a shooter game.

The Internet in the age of Trump ( who I believe saw and exploited this rather than created it), is a grim landscape lacking in kindness.

Full of hall monitors ready to pounce on anybody not adhering to the common orthodoxy, it’s a place you go to confirm your certainties and your enemy’s idiocies. It is a place where fighting, where aggression is the entertainment, and it is perhaps the loneliest place on the planet.

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The other day President-elect Donald Trump gathered his cabinet together for a round of golf and some frank talk about America.

A transcript of their conversation in the locker room of Trump National Golf Course in Westchester, NY was leaked to the press:

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Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary:

Hey, you bitches know Florida, right?

General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, Defense Secretary:

Total smoke show.

Jeff Sessions, Attorney General:

That baby got back!

Mike Pence, Vice President-elect:

Testify!

Donald Trump, President-elect:

I love her coasts. Superb coasts. The best coasties in all of America. I love to get right in there, stick my face in the them and just splash them all around.

Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff:

It is no Russian propaganda that you sir, are the the greatest man on the planet!

Jeff Sessions, Attorney General:

You da man! Big dog always huntin’!

Ben Carson, Housing and Urban Development Secretary:

She ever let you into her Everglades?

Donald Trump, President-elect:

Let me tell you, her Everglades are very exclusive, like so, so super exclusive that you wouldn’t even believe, and let me tell you, I have been to her Everglades many, many, many times. She can’t get enough. When I’m with her, I make it rain.

Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff:

You’re the RainMaker, sir!

General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, Defense Secretary:

I once had a layover in Delaware. Did some real drilling there, let me tell you, yeah, some real drilling.

Donald Trump, President-elect:

Delaware?! She’s a village bicycle. Disease infested. Strictly bottom-rung. Not even a 6 out of 10.

Jeff Sessions, Attorney General:

Yo, you better get yourself checked by your doctor, could have the crabs.

Donald Trump, President-elect:

“Brain Surgeon!” Give The General here an examination, tell us if Delaware gave him the clap.

Ben Carson, Housing and Urban Development Secretary:

I can tell from here he’s got SDD, Small Dick Disease, and that it’s terminal!

Mike Pence, Vice President-elect:

That sick burn pleases the Lord!!

( High-fives and laughter from all)

Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff:

Anyone playing Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare?

Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary:

Fucking rules. Took three Ativan and played it for eight straight hours last night.

Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff:

Zombie mode is the tits!

Donald Trump, President-elect:

Okay, okay, girls, let’s focus. Listen up. Okay. There’s a black guy and a Mexican in a car. Who is driving?

(The cabinet is silent)

Donald Trump, President-elect:

The cop!!

(The cabinet howls with laughter!)

Jeff Sessions, Attorney General:

You got to Tweet that one, President-elect!

Donald Trump, President-elect:

Okay, who lost that round of golf? Was it Ross the Loss? No? “Brain Surgeon”? Was it you? Bad Hombre Priebus? No, okay we’ll make it Sloppy Second Pence. Pence you’re today’s loser and have to buy us all dinner. Has to be an exceptional meal, super exceptional, the very best, and if it is, I’ll bring out those Sarah Palin hot tub pics I was telling you about.

We’re holding up pencils, trading memes about not giving in to fear and bravely demanding news agencies reprint the Charlie Hedbo cartoons, often from the comfort of our sofas while watching The Mindy Project or the hockey game. We’re warriors for free speech and we will not be silenced.

It’s ironic that our courage for free speech is predicated largely upon being able to express it through the distant, quasi-anonymous medium of social media, and it’s even more ironic that the massacre in Paris has only an optical relationship to free speech rather than a substantive one.

It seems unlikely that there’s a single person in the West who believes that curtailing free speech in order to placate terrorism is a tolerable, let alone debatable idea. The cartoons in question will go on to colonize the world, and we will gather together by the thousands in public squares to safeguard our liberties. Free speech will not die, not on our watch.

We should presume that the people responsible for these murders knew that this would be the outcome. It is, after all, always the outcome. Whenever an act of terror is committed, a robust surge of patriotism and anger—which we often mistake for courage—follows. Our tribe rises up and begins to throw rocks at their tribe, and last night as people were gathering in Place de la Republique in glowing, peaceful solidarity, others were enacting the revenge narrative by attacking mosques and bombing kebab shops.

France, the nation that banned the covering of the face in public, has a reputation for being one of the more Islamophobic nations in Europe. The cartoons that Charlie Hedbo printed were puerile, designed for provocation more than satiric illumination, I think. By appealing to a ready-made, Muslim-averse public, they were picking low-hanging fruit. In a different context, the cartoons, instead of being seen as heroic, would be seen as offensive, bigoted propaganda.

There are roughly six million Muslims in France, and they comprise about ten percent of the population. Of that six million, approximately a third identify as practicing Muslims, with the rest, many of whom are marginalized immigrants, leading secular lives that presumably include things like Grand Theft Auto, football and beer. The terrorists don’t want these people to be assimilated into French culture, they want them to be radicalized, and to do so they must feel persecuted and unwelcome. I suspect that the point behind the killings was not to quell free speech, but to ratchet up tribal warfare against Muslims, ensuring that for new, would-be recruits, participation in a holy war will always seem like a decent option.

The response then should be to treat the people responsible as criminals, and not as a part of some invisible, ever-present army. Declaring war on an idea rather than a specific, definable entity seems doomed, and as we willingly suspend our civil rights and try to make our collective fear, anger and grief manifest in physical villains, our principles and values, our quality of life, begins to rot from the inside, and right there, the war is lost.

This week I told her students about the Guardians of Peace, the agency that hacked into Sony, spilled all the gossip on the movie stars and Hollywood executives, changed international policy and held a movie hostage. They were duly impressed, and in accordance with the way I described the group, they thought of them as a combination of God, Santa Claus and G.I. Joe. I asked each child to write a letter to the Guardians of Peace, and these are a few of my favourites:

Dear Guardians of Peace:

Are you related to the Guardians of the Galaxy??

My mother took me to that movie in the summer and it was AWESOME! There was a raccoon that shot a machine gun and a tree-person! It was the best. If you haven’t seen it, you should go as soon as you can! Anyway, do you think you two could work together, and if not, perhaps you could fight against one another and it could be made into a movie? I would buy all the action figures.

S. Age 9

I have a cat named Tinker. The other day she caught a mouse! It was disgusting and cool at the same time! I felt bad for the mouse but I also felt excited! Is that what it’s like to be a terrorist? Is Tinker a terrorist?

M. Age 8

Dear Guardians of Peace:

This year I asked for a cape for Christmas but I did not get it. I was good all year long and really deserved the cape, but still, Santa forgot it. I think he’s getting old and is slipping. It’s time for him to go. You seem to be very powerful, would you consider taking over Santa’s job? If so, I would like a cape for Christmas, the game Grand Theft Auto and to be allowed to watch Game of Thrones.

W. Age 10

Dear Guardians of Peace:

Why did you say the bad things about Angelina Jolie?

She’s pretty, and all she wants to do is adopt babies and make the world a better place. My father says that you are terrorists and cowards, and that everybody in North Korea is short. I have included a drawing of a short person.

S. Age 9 ½

This is the battle that ensued:

Greasy, loner neighbour: U DON’T KNOW HOW TO LOOK AFTER A DOG

Me: YOUR MAN BUN IS VERY BRAVE.

Greasy, loner neighbour: AT LEAST I HAVE HAIR

Me: YOU’RE SHAPED LIKE A PEAR & WE CALL YOU CINNABON

Greasy, loner neighbour: YOU LOOK LIKE MR. BURNS

Me: HAVE GONE OFF MY MEDS. FEEL UNPREDICTABLE

Greasy, loner neighbour: ADVANCED TRAINING IN NGUNI STICK FIGHTING. NOT SCARED

Me: VIDEO GAMES DON’T COUNT

Greasy, loner neighbour: YOU’RE ON DISABILITY, RIGHT?

Me: YOU LOOK SHARP IN YOUR BEST BUY T-SHIRT, CINNABON.

Greasy, loner neighbour: U LOOK WEAK & ALWAYS SEE YOU IN HOUSECOAT. CREEPY

Me: ALLERGIC TO GRAINS AND HAVE ASTHMA. WHY I KEEP GUNS

Greasy, loner neighbour: JUST KEEP YOUR DOG QUIET, OK?

Me: NO

Greasy, loner neighbour: WILL CALL ANIMAL SERVICES

Me: THEN WE WILL STICK FIGHT, BUT I WILL HAVE GUNS

Here are some excerpts from his book:

“ Young Luke was a very popular and utterly super boy who all the other kids in primary school looked up to. He had star qualities, was big for his age, and if you weren’t cool and sang in Choir! Choir! Choir! or did something else gay, Luke would let you know with his fists and sharp, insulting words. Luke was a force of nature, as powerful as a great Serbian earthquake and seen by many as the policeman of the schoolyard. “

“Young Luke broke his glasses with one mighty blow and the Oriental child fell to the ground weeping. “That will teach you to count in Chinese!” Luke bellowed, and his voice was like thunder caught on the wind. He kicked him one final time in the back. As Luke stood there with his fists held aloft in victory, all the other weak children applauded and trembled. It was at this moment, normally the best part of his day, that Luke noticed Vice Principle Lewis watching him.”

“The office Vice Principle Lewis worked in smelt like an old car that a poor person might drive. “Listen Luke, “ the decrepit Lewis began, “ you are an absolutely great kid and a terrific hockey player. You’re going to make the NHL one day and nothing is going to stop you. Make no mistake, we will have parades in your honour and you will have babies with many beautiful women, but I have to tell you that I have been getting some complaints from whiny parents about your dominance over the other children. It’s causing me some headaches. Do you think you could conquer the children and teach them lessons off of school property? Remember, it’s not cool to bully in school.” Luke appreciated the respect that the old man showed him.”

“It wasn’t that long ago that Luke had lost his virginity (to a developed girl in grade eight) and having just played Grand Theft Auto for three hours, Luke was feeling pretty good about himself. It was at this point, while on his way to school, that he saw a little boy who walked funny take his juice box out of his knapsack. People who walked funny always made Luke feel weird, so he grabbed him and began yelling, calling him “A little crip!” Just as Luke was about to punch him, he remembered what Vice Principle Lewis had said to him, “It’s not cool to bully in school.” As Luke lived by the code, he dragged the little, crippled boy off of school property and began to beat him up in an area that became know as the Thunderdome, a place where Luke was to become famous for keeping the schoolyard hierarchies in order.”

What follows is Rob Ford’s response:

“The pandas? What do I think of the pandas? I think I goddamn love pandas!! (Takes reporter and places him in genial headlock while giving him a Noogie.) Ah, just fudging around, look, to be serious with ya for a second though, I got to say that I’ve always related to the panda. They’re big, strong and fiercely committed to their people, just like football players.

And you know, they’ve always got the eye black on, so you just know that they’re ready to go into battle. I’d be proud to go into battle with an army of pandas, and Jesus, if I had a team of football playing pandas we’d be as undefeatable as the free market! Just think about it. We wouldn’t lose a single game. Not. A. Single. Fucking. One.

Anyway, I have to give props to our communist Chinese friends for loaning us these pandas and letting them live in freedom for a few years. Hopefully, once the pandas get a taste for the independent, small government, big city dynamo that is Toronto– it’ll really get them turned-on. Guns ‘N’ Roses turned-on. Toronto is like an awesome guitar solo, you know?  Toronto will make the pandas hot, really hot, feeling all sexy like they’re watching a yoga class!  Does it to me everyday. The city girl make me hot, man, hot, sweaty hot. But Geez, it’s hard to imagine that pandas don’t like sex, but it’s a fact of science. Weird, that. So it’s my hope that Er Shawn is like the Jennifer Aniston of pandas and Dammy can’t keep his paws off of her. It’ll be Panda Time all the time, and we’ll become an industry leader in panda breeding. That means more jobs. More jobs for people who never even dreamed that they might one day get to see panda sex. (High-five)

Toronto is the city, stinkin’ rich in Asian culture and with a great Chinatown full of real cheap eats (and a spitting problem that I will take care of) where dreams can come true.  We’ll be known as panda city and we’ll have those little warrior bears all over the place! It’ll be so cute it’ll make you barf, and listen, I bet you my bottom dollar, that when my fucking downtown fucking casino opens, that the whores will be two for one and that all those baby pandas will clean up the raccoon problem that has plagued this city for years! If I, or any of my constituents have raccoon shit in their eaves troughs again, the whole frigging species is going get it. Raccoons, consider yourself on watch because Rob Ford and the pandas have a plan, and you aren’t in that plan.

And you know, this might sound all freaky or something, but I’ve had a lot of funny dreams involving pandas. Can’t quite explain it. I once wore a panda mask on Chat Roulette, didn’t even know why. Saw the video after the fact. Anyway, seems like fate that my city is going to be the city of panda sex–wild, eh? ”

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Heidi always have vivid dreams.

Last night Heidi fly.  Heidi so fast through air, like bullet through clouds, dogrocket explode into flock of seagulls!

Seagulls try to escape but can’t, Heidi gobble them like she Ms. Pacman, and then Heidi start to feel all heavy and full, get sleepy and start to fall to earth then wake up! What dream mean?!

Heidi have her own TV show. Variety type.

Heidi on greenwet grass, mud and moon. Moving fast and low, all sense on high alert. Heidi at top of her game, can smell mouse fear two miles away! Tail wag, tail wag! And then Heidi begin to dig hole, digdigdig! Not know why, just dig, something to find, Heidi just know it, and then Heidi dig into open, perfect den and there Heidi see father dog licking teeth of another male dog! Heidi no know what to do, so Heidi bark, wake up barking! Awful, just awful dream! Bad dream, bad!!

Heidi standing on back legs for treat. Heidi hate this. Like circus monkey. Like slave circus monkey! Very humiliating. Four-eyed, two-legged treat giver lean in to give Heidi monkey treat and then Heidi lunge and bite face off!!

Heidi making mince meat out of fetch. Every ball that thrown, Heidi snatch in mouth just like that! Heidi in zone! Like ball moving in slo-motion. Then Heidi have to lick herself! Can’t stop licking! Ball keeps getting thrown and bouncing by Heidi, but she can no longer get it because she always licking. Other dogs come, but not nice dogs. Evil dogs with fire eyes and breath like chicory. They just circle Heidi and watch, watch Heidi with fire eyes and Heidi can do nothing but lick.

In dream Heidi living in den with cats. Heidi speak perfect Cat, understand everything. Heidi have good time and dance with cats.

Everything great and then we start to talk about politics and cats very arrogant in view, don’t believe in government! Don’t understand concept of pack sharing. Cats won’t listen to Heidi, who making good points, just say animals like Heidi just need to work harder. This infuriate Heidi! Heidi rip heads off cats!! Blood everywhere!

Heidi invent new type of heating pad that becomes meat after you warm. Get warm and then eat meat! Heidi become very famous dog and have many lovers. Very sexy good dream.