Serious Midnight

Eagles and totems and deer, oh my!

2011-11-03T23:58:00.011-06:00

All right, already!

Yes, I have been home from vacation not even two weeks, but I am already at risk of not posting at all, so here goes nothing.

First stop in October - a week in the Gwaii Haanas Islands, formerly known as the Queen Charlottes. I have always been fascinated by them, although I have no idea where that comes from. Probably the same place that harbours my adoration for Timbuktu, Zanzibar, and Casablanca. Old movies may have played a role, or perhaps my interest is linked to my enjoyment of the extreme graphic component of traditional Haida totem art:

I stayed in the main town, Queen Charlotte City, and rented a suite in a house overlooking the water. A typical morning view:

Love the mist rising from the mountains. Sometimes it was almost like vertical clouds. I should note that I haven't drained the colour from this shot - that's what the morning actually looked like in that crisp light.

Just down the hill from my apartment was the working harbour. This is a fishing town, after all, and the few restaurants in town all seem to have a great view too, like the covered patio at Queen Bee's:

Thankfully, the covered part let me sit out and enjoy the view while it was bucketing rain. And yes, it is raining and sunny at the same time. Awesome.

I spent most of my time driving the limited amount of paved road available between villages, soaking up the views and the wildlife. American eagles always look grumpy:

But that's balanced out by the quirky visitors, like these ornate Harlequin ducks:

Walking along the shore, I'd also stumble upon the most interesting visuals, like this piece of driftwood:

I still am not sure if this was simply wet, or if there was something else going on.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking day was spent in Tlell, visiting what is left of the legendary Golden Spruce. The original tree was revered by the Haida and figures prominently in many of their legends. It was a tree whose branches shone as if lit from within, and it was found in one of the last old growth forests on the main island. Of course, some destructive asshat had to come along and cut it down under cover of darkness a few years back, but thankfully, the Haida managed to preserve several cuttings. Only one is available for public viewing, in a small park in Tlell next to a historic church. Unfortunately, it is kept behind a tall chain link fence. Even so, you can see how different the cutting is, and imagine how majestic a full size, thousand year old, several hundred foot tall version would be:

There is a fantastic book on the history of the Golden Spruce, and in turn the Haida people, that won a Governor-General's award about 5 years ago. I re-read it on my trip and highly recommend it.

I could have posted a great many more pictures from this part of the trip, but instead I will next post from leg 2 - Vancouver long weekend.

Well, so much for that

2011-10-28T23:35:00.002-06:00

Tomorrow, I'll be home, after three weeks on the road in British Columbia.

And no, I did not manage to post from the road, all good intentions to the contrary.

Technology has failed me; or, perhaps more accurately, I have failed technology. I thought, naively as it turns out, that I'd be able to pull up a few pictures from my daily outings and post them along with some commentary. What I hadn't counted on was how hard this was going to be with the gear I had and my limited knowledge of my new iPad, which decided a few days into the trip that it needed a vacation too, mostly from me. So its internet functions just seized up, stubbornly turning the screen grey and refusing to open, or close, any screens. It also diabolically chose to mutiny when I was about 1000 kilometres from the nearest Apple store. Typical.

Yesterday, now back in Vancouver, I trudged over to the Apple store where the young "genius" at the bar fixed the problem in 20 seconds. They don't tell you when you buy one of these things that every application you open stays open, even after you think you've exited it. And so, after four months of putting up with me exploring all manner of things, it needed a rest - I had 37 apps open and running in the background. No wonder it was tired!

The good news is, my iPad is fine, and I now know how to not stress it out in future. The bad news is, I didn't have web access for much of my vacation. In hindsight, perhaps that was for the best, as my vacation has been great.

I'll download photos once I get home and post belatedly.

Anyone still there?

2011-09-27T01:19:00.002-06:00

It has been a long, long time since I last posted.

I am getting ready to travel through British Columbia in October, and am going to try posting from an iPad, and using it to download photos on the road. I have no idea if this will work. Technology wise, it should work, but tech is only as good as the person behind it. So we'll see how this goes. Is anyone even checking on this site anymore?

Expressions of life welcome.

Tagged! I'm it

2010-06-12T12:56:00.004-06:00

I was meme'd this morning by my friend Karan, the failed mommy, and now feel compelled to answer her questions (although I know she can't make me, I'm always happy to be included):

1. What do you love about where you live?
I love coming home to it. I am frequently on the road, for work and for fun, and I enjoy the travel in ways, perhaps, that others do not. But I am always glad to come home from my adventures and sleep in my own bed. I also enjoy the fact that the water is never more than 5 minutes away from any point in town, and this time of year, there's a whole day's worth of activities available after work lets out, because the sun isn't setting until about 2 a.m. (and then only briefly). But at the end of the day, what I love most about living here are the people I am surrounded by.

On a bigger scale, as a Canadian, I was asked this week if I would ever buy a home in another country. And as much as I enjoy visiting other places, I have learned by traveling just how lucky we are to live in this lovely, infuriating, peaceful nation of winter and mosquitoes. Where we talk about our differences endlessly instead of killing each other. Where we are allowed to tell our governments they are stupid, and no one comes to get us in the middle of the night.

2. What could entice you to leave it?
World peace and the elimination of poverty and hatred and xenophobia would be a start. I would consider a temporary assignment outside of Canada, but I would need to know I was coming back eventually. As for the North, I often thought I would leave, and I guess I will eventually (I can't imagine being an elderly person in this climate, being trapped in my house 7-8 months of the year because of weather and road conditions), but I have no idea why I would go other than weather and health. I suppose a place where the weather is better and my health would improve would seem enticing.

3. If you could go anywhere on a trip, without regard to resources, where would you go, and why?
I would take a year and drive around New Zealand. It has always seemed like a country that has every type of vista and climate and experience, rolled into one package. And I like leisurely road trips. And lots of scenery to photograph.

4. What inspires you?
Lately, not much, which is kind of a problem I need to work through. An opportunity to effect positive change is inspiring, and rare. A chance to experience something new - always inspiring. Being around others who do so much more with less than I have, and who are genuinely appreciative, that's inspiring, and humbling.

5. What makes you laugh the hardest?
Bing'ing off of friends until you are practically hyperventilating.

And Craig Ferguson.

comment changes

2010-05-25T22:31:00.003-06:00

Some of you have, over the course of my time blogging, pointed out that you couldn't leave a comment unless you were a registered user. Well, I have finally figured out how to turn this off. I will experiment with allowing any comments, including from anonymous posters, and see if that results in a ton of spam or random robot solicitations. If it does, I will make further adjustments. If not, comment away! I would like to know if more than 4 people are reading this at any given time.

Back to reality

2010-05-09T21:28:00.002-06:00

I am now back in Canada, after another 26 hour ordeal packed into one sold-out flight in economy class after another, including the 16-hour flight from BA to Toronto via Santiago, Chile. At least the polo player seated next to me was happy to trade seats so I could sit on the aisle, and he could sleep next to the window. I have determined to never again take any flight longer than 8 hours without doing everything in my power to upgrade to business class. Those lie flat beds were really impressive looking as I shuffled past them coming onto, and off, the overnight flight.

I have a few unfinished posts that I will keep working on and put up over the coming days, so keep checking back for more from Argentina. I'll then be taking a break from posting until the next trip, looking like September.

Iguazu Falls; or, I can see Brazil from my hotel!

2010-05-06T20:03:00.011-06:00

When the rain first came Monday afternoon, I could only hear the occasional splash of a large droplet upon a broad leaf in the canopy overhead, while I remained dry on the trail below. It was extraordinary to stand there, alone on the trail under the trees of the Mesopotamian rainforest, listening only to the birds and the “splosh!... splosh!“ of the rain. And then quite unexpectedly, came the deluge as the canopy gave way. It was as if someone had pulled the plug on a full bathtub, and I was now standing directly under the drain.

Soaked, and still perhaps a kilometre from the hotel, I had no option but to make a run for it - that’s when I happened upon an abandoned park ranger’s facility with an overhanging porch farther down the trail, where several other drenched hikers were already seeking refuge. And so we stood around, this mix and match crew of foreigners, not really making conversation, but standing comfortably with each other, sharing the experience and the moment, waiting for the rain to abate.

This three-day trip to Iguazu was my only significant side trip from Buenos Aires. I had intended to also go into Uruguay (just an hour by ferry across the river), but a combination of my misplaying the May Day long weekend, and my continuing enjoyment of BA’s fine neighbourhoods, led me to abandon those plans. But I could not come all this way and not take a trip to see Iguazu Falls, one of the largest waterfalls in the world.

Iguazu Falls lies at the far northern tip of Argentina, in Missiones province, where the country meets Paraguay and Brazil in one of the most dangerous, and most scenic, places on Earth. Dangerous because it is a haven for drug and gun smugglers and organized criminals seeking to move trafficked contraband across national borders with impunity; scenic because of a spectacular break in the rainforest created by the two branches of the Iguazu River coming together at a precipice that stretches for over three kilometres, and which comprises more than 250 individual waterfalls all running together in a torrent of water. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and rightly so. The national park is actually a cooperative project of Brazil and Argentina, and it straddles the border.

When coming to the park, there are basically two options; Argentina, or Brazil. If you’re on an Argentina-based trip like me, crossing over into Brazil for the day to see their view of the falls will cost you about $140 in a country entry fee, plus whatever the cost is for the tour package you’re on. For about 3 hours and one trail. I declined the opportunity. There are only two hotels in the park itself; the Sheraton on the Argentine side, and the Tropical des Cataratas in Brazil. They lie across the Iguazu River from one another and are perhaps 400 m apart. To say they are expensive and exploit their monopoly would be an understatement.

Your only other option is to stay in one of the many hotels in the town of Puerto Iguazu, about a 15 minute taxi ride away, and shuttle back and forth each day by cab or bus. I wasn’t entirely sure of the logistics of this operation, so I chose to suck it up and stay at the Sheraton and be able to walk right out into the park after breakfast. When the park opened at 8 am. The great advantage to this plan was, for about an hour each morning, the hotel guests had the place to themselves, as the tour buses didn’t tend to arrive until after 9. The downside, of course, was the cost. I’m not generally comfortable with places where I know the money I am spending for a night’s stay is probably as much as the chambermaid earns in a month. Or, for that matter, that anglicizes all of the waiters’ names so the largely American and European guests can, presumably, remember them easier. After all, Guillermo and Pedro are so much more difficult to retain than William and Peter.

Anyway, politics aside, I splurged on two nights at the Sheraton, with a falls view room. Here's the view from my balcony, with the morning mist rising off the falls:

Just out of frame to the left of this photo is the Brazilian hotel. That break in the trees on the left? That's the river valley, the dividing line between the countries.

In the park, there’s a system of elevated hiking trails, very well-maintained, and a eco-train that hauls you from major stop to major stop in case you get tired of all the walking around.

It is currently the rainy season, which means there's even more water in the rivers than usual. It is quite spectacular.

Argentines have what can only be described as a different sense of public safety than Canadians do. I highly doubt we would ever get away with building this sort of observation platform overhanging the rushing torrents of water, cantilevered to the point of inducing vertigo.

A number of fellow travellers, hearing I am from Canada, asked me how this compared to Niagara Falls. Let me be clear - these falls are beyond compare. Whereas Niagara has prostituted itself into basically becoming Las Vegas with a waterfall, all cheap casinos and wax museums, Iguazu has largely maintained a pristine natural state. And it is glorious to see. The park is full of wildlife, from birds like this Plush crested jay, the "urraca comun":

and the social flycatcher:

To the raccoon/badger cross, the coatimundi (the size of a Labrador retriever when full-grown):

Extraordinary butterflies:

flowers, like this bird of paradise:

and iguanas:

After the rain I was caught in finally stopped, the sun came out and brought with it the rainbows. Truly a magical day.

Guira Oga Wildlife Sanctuary

2010-05-06T19:19:00.010-06:00

I am a planner. At any given time, I am already researching 2 to 4 vacations ahead - currently, I have folders open for my next 3 vacations, through the end of 2011. Despite this, sometimes the best parts of my holiday are completely spontaneous and unexpected. That was certainly the case with the highlight of my awesome trip to Argentina.

On Wednesday morning, after two days of hiking around Iguazu National Park, I had a few hours to kill before flying back to BA in the early afternoon. I had read a post on some chat board a while back about a bird sanctuary operated by the local native group near the town of Puerto Iguazu, about 15 km from my hotel in the park, but my notes didn't specify exactly where it was. After a bit of online research by the Sheraton's concierge, we tracked down a physical street address, and I was off and running. I had absolutely no idea what to expect, but I was anxious to see some of the more elusive birds from the park up close, and figured this would likely be much more successful than wandering around some more trails hoping to have sharp enough eyes to spot these guys tucked into the treetops dozens of feet overhead.

Sure enough, the Guira Oga Wildlife Sanctuary is located about 15 minutes from the entrance to Iquazu Falls National Park, about 5 km from the town of Puerto Iguazu, and the name means "the home of the birds" in the local Quarani language.

The sanctuary is simply amazing. It is set back from the road in a corner of the rainforest. Every bird and animal here is in some way a victim of an interaction with man - either they were poached and subsequently confiscated by border patrol, or illegally kept as pets, or they were injured by a car along the length of highway that cuts through a corner of the park (a roadside sign urging motorists to slow down says 500 animals are killed each year on the highway; countless multiples are no doubt injured). The sanctuary is part rehabilitation center, part breeding center, and part zoo. Any bird or animal capable of hunting for themselves is released back into the park when they are healed; but the simple, tragic fact remains that many of these birds and animals will never be able to be released into the wild, either because they never learned to hunt or live in nature, or because their injuries will never fully heal and they would be vulnerable to attack if let loose.

There were only five of us on the 10:30 am tour, which was a shame, and I was the only anglo, which was an even bigger shame. There was a young couple from BA on their honeymoon, and a middle-aged couple from southern Argentina on a holiday in BA who'd pretty much done what I had and come up on a detour for a few days of nature. Evidently, this sanctuary is better known in the Spanish-speaking world than farther afield, but I am a big believer that it needs to be better publicized, since the entrance fee (30 pesos, or about $7.50) is how it funds its projects.

The tour is guided by a very well-informed ranger who has obviously spent considerable time working among the birds and animals. My guide, a young woman named Tamara, had been studying English for a scant 7 months, and was fluent in idiomatic English. She knew the history of each animal we observed on the two hour tour and answered a great many questions we all had. In some respects, I think the fact we were only five meant we got an even better tour, a more personalized tour, than if we'd been many.

The tour starts with all of us climbing into the back of an open bed cart being pulled along a dirt path further into the rainforest by a tractor. After about 10 minutes, it stops at a building, and we all climb down and start walking along a path which is probably a couple of kilometres long, and along which we will eventually find 15-18 large mesh domes under which groups of bird live. Toucans with toucans, eagles with eagles, parrots with parrots, etc.

The enclosures are quite large, and there are only 4-6 birds in each. Inside, the rainforest is replicated as much as possible, and there are any number of perches, etc for them to flit between. And the mesh is quite fine, which means the birds have a sense of being part of the bigger environment, while being protected from predators. I asked Tamara if the wild birds, monkeys, etc ever come out of the rainforest to investigate their brethren under mesh, and she said it happened all the time. The fine mesh also means it is possible to get really great photos without the typical fence-grid overlay which mars many a zoo shot, and the birds especially seem really curious when people come along and many came right up to the mesh to investigate us, which meant we were only five or six feet away on the pathway. They seemed to understand we were no threat to them, and that they were protected by the domes.

This is a standard green parrot:

and a scarlet macaw:

and my most favorite, the toco toucan:

It's not just birds who end up in the sanctuary - there was a family of capuchin monkeys, including this baby, and when he is old enough, he will be released back into the park, while his injured parents live out their days under protection:

The raptors, most of whom can no longer fly, spend their days outside the mesh domes, sitting on falconry posts out in the open, chattering to themselves. This is an Aquila Viuda black and white hawk-eagle, who had snapped a tendon in its wing when hit by a car. The wing had healed somewhat, but this fellow would never again have the strength to fly and more specifically, hunt:

Next to him, a Crowned Solitary Eagle:

This caiman had been a BA family's illegal pet as a baby, but when it started to grow and become aggressive, they surrendered it to the park. It is now about 12 feet long:

This is a pygmy deer. She is about the size of a border collie, which was surprising to me, being used to the full-size deer and elk of Banff and Jasper National Parks. She was having a snooze right next to the elevated walkway. Had I been so inclined, I could have easily reached over the handrail and patted her head. She was completely unfazed by the approach of people. Her babies however, stood off at a distance; born in captivity, this apprehension of people means they may eventually be released into the park.

Some of the species currently living at the sanctuary are nearly extinct in nature, their habitat destroyed by man and massive hydro electric dams along the principal rivers in the rainforest. When two or more of the same species are in the sanctuary at the same time, the rangers will try to induce mating, in order to rebuild the populations, and they take great care so the healthy babies do not become used to man or domesticated. Only by doing this do they have any hope of being able to release them into the wild when they are old enough to fend for themselves. They have apparently had great success with some species, but not others. There was an enclosure dedicated to enormous vultures, but I noticed off to the side a smaller pen with only one large black vulture sitting in it. I asked Tamara about that one. It had been found by a farmer as a fledgling, and raised in a barn before eventually being seized by officials. But the damage was already done - the vulture now only recognizes people as its "friends". The rangers tried to introduce it to the other vultures, and it attacked them as a threat. It seems incapable of recognizing its own kind, and as a result, will live out its days alone.

I never did get to see the purported highlight of the tour, however. The puma they had been caring for had recently recovered sufficiently to be released back into the park. Another success story for a well-organized and incredible sanctuary!

Feria de los Mataderos

2010-05-02T17:58:00.008-06:00

Buenos Aires is a very large city. The capital district comprises 29 districts, with nearly 13 million people living here. Thus far, I have spent my time mostly in the six districts that form the downtown and immediate surrounding area, but today I ventured further afield, to the district of Mataderos.

This is the last stop before crossing out of the city into the more rural areas that will eventually lead to the Pampas, the cattle ranches of the grassland plains, where Argentina's famous beef is raised. "Mataderos" means slaughterhouse, and this traditionally was the neighbourhood where cattle would be brought for sale and slaughter, with the surrounding apartments and flats housing the workers from the slaughterhouses. This is not a prosperous neighourhood, but it is working and proud and quite traditional, and it celebrates the "real Argentina" every Sunday during the fall and winter with a fair.

Because of its location, it is not nearly as tourist-oriented as the more easily accessible Sunday fairs, like San Telmo, although to be sure there were a number of tourists here (although most seemed to be from nearby regions or countries, speaking Spanish. I didn't hear anyone speaking English all afternoon). Getting here is a bit of a challenge. I took the subway to the very end, and then hired a car to take me another 12-15 minutes through some desperate looking areas to the fair grounds, formally named the National Market of the Hacienda, which is in reality an open stadium that might be used for soccer or rugby the other six days a week.

In hiring the remise, as the car service is called, I was assigned to a very nice young man named Sebastian, who spoke exactly no English. Either the local tobacco smells suspiciously like pot, or Sebastian enjoys his weed (particularly in his car), but in any event, he drove me very carefully to the fair grounds and explained quite adamantly that I should never cross Eva Peron Avenue, which was the main route to the fair grounds. It was quickly apparent why - on one side of the street, corner stores, supermarkets, clothing outlets, a Mercedes dealership - on the other side, the ravaged remains of buildings that looked like they had been through a war. The contrast was beyond striking. It might explain why no one at my hotel had themselves ever been to Mataderos, and all cautioned me to be careful and watch my camera.

Sebastian brought me right up to the main gate and explained to me what I would find depending on which direction I turned - the restaurant/grill zone, entertainment, lots and lots of arts and crafts stalls, and over here, the horses. Through my now-patented routine of hand signals and limited Spanish, he agreed to come back at 5:30 and pick me up to take me back to the subway station. I had the afternoon to myself. Or as much to myself as one can have with 10 or 12 thousand other folks out enjoying the rest of the Worker's Day weekend (May 1).

This is part of one block - it goes on for several blocks in each direction, with the central square hosting the musical activities. Over the course of the afternoon, a number of excellent bands and musicians played any number of what seemed to be well-known folk songs, such that large segments of the crowd were singing along, clapping their hands to add percussion, and even dancing in the street. Part of the Feria's appeal is the number of local people it draws with roots in the outlying regions, who come to the fair dressed in traditional garb:

These two were married, and along with another couple, seemed to be leading the street dancing. Between bands, we struck up a conversation, and they seemed fascinated that a Canadian would come to their fair. I guess it doesn't happen very often. But it didn't matter if you came dressed in jeans and T-shirts, like the young folk did, or in the more traditional clothes, watching everyone move with precision was amazing, like seeing a room full of Victorians waltzing at a ball, dozens of couples moving in sync crossing the floor in uniform direction.

A big part of the Feria is the traditional gaucho competitions, where horsemen (and one woman) undertake games of skill. My favorite involves galloping at full speed towards a small stand roughly eight feet tall, from whose crossbar hangs about a foot of rope and at the very bottom of the rope, a pin with a loop of metal, about the size of a key chain ring. The gaucho holds a silver wand out in front of him at arm's length, and must get the wand through the loop while standing in the stirrups of the galloping horse. It is impressive to watch. These fellows were waiting their turn:

The central square is ringed with parillas (charcoal grills) and food stalls. I was mesmerized watching the empanada assembly line at one, and here they are making tortillas for a very hungry crowd. The folks on the right, in the aprons, are rolling out and punching out the tortillas - they then go to the lady in the foreground, who is in charge of frying them up, and then they make their way up to the front of the stall for sale:

As with any fair, there is something for everyone, and some quirky place-specific stuff as well. Personally, I've never been to a fair where people brought their pet ponies, instead of their dogs, and this fellow every outfitted his pony in the traditional garb of the estancia horses. Perhaps the pony fantasizes about what he will be when he grows up?

I have to confess that I cannot tell the difference between an alpaca and a llama, and because of that, I'm not exactly sure what this is:

His keeper however, was parading him through the crowds, stopping to let small kids pose for their dads (it was always the dads with the cameras) on its back. It was quite cooperative, given the heat and the crowd, and I ran into him several times throughout the day at various places on the fair grounds.

It's a shame more tourists don't know about the fair. It isn't marketed to tourists, but maybe that's a good thing. Those of us who happen to find it can enjoy a glimpse of a more traditional Argentine life, among actual Argentines, instead of being treated to a more polished theme park "experience" that would no doubt be priced out of reach for the average local worker. As it was, I had no problems with the crowd, no one even looked at my camera, and I had a delightful afternoon browsing stalls and eating from food stands and having simple conversations with folks who were kind of excited someone from away took the time and had the interest to come to their fair.

The birds of Puerto Madero

2010-05-01T20:21:00.004-06:00

While out along the promenade, I came upon a number of birds who seem quite accustomed to the presence of people. I got within 10 feet of this little guy, who was quite enamoured of the grubs and ants he was pulling out of the tree truck crevices:

This fellow was waiting for me to drop some of my lunch on the ground, keeping watch from the trellises that shade parts of the promenade:

And then there were the parakeets. These little guys are not so good with people, so chasing them around was a bit more of a challenge. Still, they are impossibly green and incredibly playful, darting all over the place, usually in pairs.

I can't wait to see what next week brings at Iquazu Falls, in the Argentine rainforest. I won't be taking my netbook with me for the next couple of days, but will try to post on Wednesday night upon my return to BA.

Puerto Madero

2010-05-01T19:56:00.004-06:00

Bright, shiny Puerto Madero sits just east of downtown, across a narrow canal. It is the newest of the city's districts, being designated only in 1991. From the 1800s, this area was the working dockland of Buenos Aires. As ships grew every larger, docks that could handle them sprung up to the north of the city, along the actual River Plata coast and this area fell into disrepair, and was even off-limits during the military dictatorship of 1976-1983.

With the return of democracy came the return of real estate speculation, and suddenly Puerto Madero was hot stuff for foreigners with a lot of cash to spread around. Unusually, many of the warehouses in the district were recycled into office and loft housing space, instead of being torn down. Those that were too far gone were however, replaced with shiny tall towers, the largest in town.

The entire area is criss-crossed with spectacular pedestrian promenades, public art, and bridges crossing four basins of water (one of which now houses a very high end yacht club).

This bridge, Puente de la Mujer, is by my favorite contemporary architect, Santiago Calatrava, and it can rotate to allow vessels to pass from the club out into the bay. The suspension and arc of the bridge are said to be inspired by the form of a tango-dancing couple in a lean.

Beyond the spashy architecture and loft spaces (and the most expensive restaurants in town) lies a second component of Madero - the ecological reserve.

Created practically by accident - the zone was used as a landfill during the dictatorship to dispose of massive amounts of earth removed from other parts of the city during public works projects - the idea was to create more land for development. But when the economy tanked during the Falklands war, the plan stalled, and nature took over, with these high grasses and trees taking hold and attracting abundant wildlife and birdlife. Since virtually everyone here lives in apartments, with no yards or outdoor space, this central location within walking distance of downtown is hugely popular on weekends, and especially on days like May Day, the Day of the Worker, with those who aren't interested in attending the huge leftist political rallies in the Plaza de Mayo. It seemed more prudent for me to spend my Saturday among the famillies picnicing along the promenades than getting caught up in anti-foreigner rhetoric downtown.

Darkness uncloaked

2010-04-30T19:58:00.003-06:00

You get an entirely different sense of a city walking around its neighbourhoods after dark. In Spanish or Latin cities especially, what is hidden during daylight hours reveals itself: windows go unshuttered now that the heat of the day has passed, bringing lush interior courtyards into view; music, in this case tango and salsa, waft from open doors inviting one to linger and listen; and families stroll before dinner, usually with a dog or two in tow. Here, teens literally hang out on street corners, sitting on sidewalk curbs talking until all hours. Obedient dogs linger in doorways patiently waiting for their people, without being tethered or physically restrained in any way. The dog owners of Buenos Aires could give lessons on keeping dogs calm and loyal.

But there is another side to Buenos Aires at night as well. Darkness brings out armies of scavengers who patiently sort through the day’s garbage looking for anything they can recycle, reuse, or sell second-hand. This is the side of the city the brochures and travel books don’t tell you about. About the people, and there are many of them, of all ages and both genders, who are desperate to make ends meet and resort to any legal method to facilitate that. (There are also, of course, armies of people who resort to illegal means of earning a living, but thankfully, I had no contact with any of them).

You see the scavengers everywhere - the cardboard recycler guys with their enormous wheeled bins, tearing open the trash bags outside local businesses and homes, pawing through every last scrap and examining it closely to determine its value. By mid-evening, they have literally filled their bins and are wheeling them off to parts unknown down the middle of the road. BA has no official recycling program - homes and businesses throw everything into the same trash bags - but evidently there is some sort of unofficial recycling program, as there’s no shortage of people meticulously salvaging cans, bottles, tins, and cardboard from every bag on every corner. They must be taking it all somewhere and earning a few pesos for their trouble. It is a significant industry.

Then there are those who are just trying to stave off the hunger. Last Thursday night, I saw a man literally peeling the layers of an onion outside the San Telmo Market, trying to figure out if any part of it remained edible after an outside layer had started to moulder. A middle-aged woman was a few feet away, examining some carrots that had been set aside by merchants. At this market at least, merchants offer the small kindness of not placing the spoiling food in plastic bags, leaving it instead on open pallets at the curbside for anyone to take.

You would think with all this ripping open of garbage bags, and scattering of remnants, that the city would be an unholy mess, but it isn’t. I don’t know what army of cleaners comes along in the dead of night, but by morning, all the trash has been removed and the cycle begins anew. You might also think such a hot, humid city would be battling an onslaught of vermin like rats and cockroaches, and that the exposed trash would attract them into the open, but I can honestly say I never saw one rat or one cockroach in my entire stay in San Telmo.

What you also don’t see in Buenos Aires are beggars or street people. At least not in the downtown areas where you might expect to find them, those areas being travelled all day by shoppers, tourists, and business people, folks with cash in pocket. There are no panhandlers here to speak of. The buskers on Florida Street are, in my view, different, as they are performing music or magic or a puppet show in exchange for a donation.

And yet, taking a train out to Tigre, or a taxi to the airport, one passes what can only be described as shantytowns, places where the bricks are literally crumbling from the facades, the roof lines are heaving and uneven, and there’s an accumulation of industrial plastic bins, like the kind you mix cement in, lining the roof, filled with who knows what - rainwater? There are also any number of abandoned construction projects, victims of the peso’s crash a few years back and the general economic upheaval since late 2008. Many of these sites, most without facades or windows, just open concrete structures, are clearly being lived in, with many a line of laundry hung out to dry by squatters. There is obvious poverty here, but you don’t see it unless you look for it, and then it slaps you in the face.

In the meantime, the sun comes up and the army has retreated behind closed doors until darkness falls again, while the working poor, those who earn perhaps a thousand pesos a month, hosing off sidewalks and sweeping stoops, are out plying their respective trades for 10 hours at a time.

Reminders are everywhere

2010-04-25T19:42:00.009-06:00

Argentina's ignoble history of repression and murder of dissidents is never completely out of mind, or for that matter, out of sight:

These four sidewalk stones are on a popular street, Defensa, in my neighbourhood. On Sundays, the street is closed to traffic and thousands of people pour onto it as it transforms into a 15-block long pedestrian shopping mall. Virtually everyone passes by these stones on every outing.

The stones say: Here lived (name), activist, disappeared on (date - 3 in 1977, 1 in 1975) for acts of terrorism against the state.

The plaques are installed and sponsored by "neighbourhoods for remembrance and justice". Given how many thousands of people were disappeared during the oppressive miltary regime from 1977-1983, I expect to see many more of these stones as I wander around town during the next couple of weeks.

Hey! Not so tight!

2010-04-25T19:40:00.006-06:00

Argentines are famous for their love of dogs. You see them everywhere, and they are usually big Labs, or pit bulls, or mastiffs - big dogs you wouldn't expect to live in small apartments. Purse dogs are rare, at least in the neighbourhood I'm staying in (I'm heading out to the chi-chi neighbourhoods next week and will report back if there is, indeed, a surfeit of purse dogs farther afield).

However, I passed this lady today a few blocks from my flat - she was evidently waiting for someone to come out of a nearby shop - and I had to double back to grab this photo (thank God for long telephoto lenses!)

Look at the poor thing's face, with its pink tongue hanging out. It definitely does NOT seem impressed to be squeezed under this woman's arm like some annoying purse. To its eternal credit however, it did not squirm to try and get away, and seemed resigned to its ignominous fate.

Sunday in the San Telmo Market

2010-04-25T19:35:00.009-06:00

Sundays are a big social day in Buenos Aires. Most folks here work six days a week (average wage - 90 pesos a day - about $22 American dollars) and Sunday is their day to get out there and mingle with their friends, browse a market, sip coffee, and get some sun. There are about a dozen markets/fairs held in the city's various neighbourhoods on Sundays, but the biggest is on Plaza Dorrego in San Telmo. There, about 270 people are licensed to set up booths and offer all manner of antiques, glasswork, silver, etc for sale. A number of them are also original artists, displaying their paintings, ceramics, fabric work and photography for sale. It is a carnival, but packed with people.

When I came here, I knew I wanted to come home with some filete, but so much of what is offered in the touristy areas is mass produced. I wanted something handmade, and I finally got it. This fellow, Daniel Flore, is a certified fileteador, and he paints while minding his booth (he also has a shop around the corner during the week).

The diversity of what's on offer is stunning - from antique Victrolas -

to every colour of fedora and hat possible (a must for the stylish Tango dancer!)

This is just part of one of the dozens of alleys lined with stalls:

After a couple of hours of browsing about however, enough is enough with the crowds. Once again, as with the art deco debacle earlier in the week, almost everything I liked - the exquisite glasswork, the original seltzer bottles, the deco silver work -was too big or too heavy to transport back to Canada. A person could however, fashion a lovely apartment from what's on sale locally! And considering flats are available beginning at $35,000 US....

In the end, it all comes down to weather

2010-04-25T19:14:00.006-06:00

As Canadians, we seem to be obsessed with the weather. Go anywhere, and we can always start a decent conversation with a total stranger by commenting on the weather.

When I arrived here a week ago, it was unseasonably warm and humid, and I was dying. Then, thankfully, the weather broke and fall was restored (it is the equivalent of late October here, after all). Not that it got cold, mind you, but the temperature dropped to the high teens. Perfect for the T-shirts I had packed. Yesterday, I flipped on the TV and this is what I saw:

Yes, indeed, this reporter, live on the scene of something important in BA, is wearing mittens. Look at the screen more closely - it's a quarter past noon, and it's a little over 16 degrees Celsius. And she's wearing mittens, a hat, a big, bulky turtleneck and a coat. I took this photo specifically because I knew if I tried to explain it without a visual aid, I would be accused of exaggerating the situation.

Which raises one important question: how hot does it get here in the summer that 16 degrees is considered really bloody cold?

I hasten to add that this reporter is not an isolated incident. Ever since the weather got cooler on Wednesday, I have been seeing these women - and it is always women - wearing big wool coats, or buttoned/zippered leather jackets, sometimes together. They still look cold. And they all look at me, walking down the street quite happily in a T-shirt, like I'm a crazy woman.

I wonder if they too, are talking about the weather?

Mothers never forget

2010-04-22T20:44:00.011-06:00

Every Thursday afternoon at 3:30 pm, the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo (the Mothers of the May Plaza) hold a demonstration around the central obelisk in the park across from the Presidential Palace. They have done so every week since April 1977, and their goal remains the same: to force the government to accept formal responsibility for, and give them a full accounting of, the whereabouts of their adult children, who were kidnapped by paramiltary gangs and the armed forces for their left-wing, anti-military, or trade unionist activities from 1977 to 1983. As many as 30,000 people went missing during that period, during the Dirty War and Operation Condor.

What began as a small, silent protest of a few has now turned into a larger event, with the active support of trade unions:

Many of the founding Mothers were themselves "disappeared" to concentration camps, and three never returned - their remains were finally found and identified in 2005, and one founder, Azucena Villaflor, has even been buried at the foot of the Obelisk.

Many of those lost, however, were never found, owing no doubt to a preferred military technique of throwing militants out of planes over the Atlantic. Without a body, the military could then claim they weren't actually dead, only that they had "disappeared".

The Mothers have split, over the years, into two factions, with the Founding Line (below) continuing their original quest; the splinter group has become more radical and supports all sorts of anti-government activities, but both continue to march together on Thursdays.

The white headscarves the Mothers each wear are embroidered with the name of their specific disappeared child; some also march while holding photos of their children. The Mothers are getting older now, of course, but they have vowed to continue as long as they can.

They are also extremely well-organized; they have a storefront near the Senate, they sponsor an independent University and all manner of programs designed to support democracy, free speech, and unionism, and they run fundraising booths on the Plaza selling pins, T-shirts, and keychains to fund their initiatives.

While the UN and an independent commission have each confirmed the Dirty War's legacy, the government still has not taken responsibility for these thousands of tortures and murders. And the Mothers wait.

San Telmo - the heart of BA

2010-04-20T19:08:00.005-06:00

Today has been threatening rain throughout, so I did not take as many pictures as I would normally, the light being rather poor. However, as promised, I spent most of the day strolling around my new adopted neighbourhood of San Telmo, one of the oldest parts of the city, and rumoured to be where Pedro de Mendoza founded the city many moons ago (BA is currently celebrating its bicentennial, but I'm not sure how long it was between founding, in the colonial sense, and becoming an incorporated city, in the formal sense). It is a charming place, full of cobblestoned streets and leafy green parks where folks sip beers and watch tango dancers perform "spontaneously".

I spent most of the day popping in and out of the numerous antiques stores around Plaza Dorrego, some of which specialize entirely in art deco and art nouveau. Sadly, I did not in the end purchase anything, mostly because the things I really, really wanted - sideboards, entire silver tea sets, dining room chairs - would be difficult to transport. It pains me beyond belief to leave things in the store in the $50-100 range (the most expensive item was the sideboard, a fabulously rounded and shaped item big enough to fill a proper dining room, on for $563 - pesos, not dollars. There are about 4 pesos to a dollar currently). Yes, the sideboard would cost less than an IKEA chair back in Canada. Hence, the pain in leaving it behind.

Unfortunately for me, my interest in art deco has never really been manifested by the smaller items, the jewelry and tiny personal items that would fit easily in a suitcase. However, I am poised to buy something, and I will know it when I see it. It is actually hard to spend money here - for example, I am just back from a big dinner, with beer, that ran 40 pesos in total. When I gave the waiter a 50 peso note and indicated I did not want change, he nearly fell over. That still brought the cost of dinner to less than $15.

One of the things I have remarked upon so far in this neighbourhood is the ornate ironwork present on virtually every balcony of any building of a certain age:

Ironwork meets the Italianate style at Mercado San Telmo, a spectacular 1897 building that houses a number of individual stalls, on one side specializing in antiques and books, and on the other, on fruit and veggie sellers, butchers, bakers, etc. You can wander through there and shop item by item, stall by stall, and build an entire menu. Everyone entering the building is greeted by a rather romanticized vision of the place, handsomely crafted in filete:

A large part of the fun of this sort of vacation, wandering as I am on no fixed schedule, is finding the little gems along the way. BA is renowned for its graffiti -in fact, before going out to dinner, I watched a pair of young men cover over old graffiti on the building across the way from me, and paint something entirely new in its place. Even the graffiti is more elaborate and stylish than one might expect:

Where I'm at...

2010-04-19T18:25:00.005-06:00

I've rented an apartment in Buenos Aires, rather than stay in a hotel for three weeks. I've tried this out previously in Reykajavik, and in Mexico, to great success, so I thought I'd go to the well again, and I'm very pleased with how this has turned out.

After much poking around online, I found a loft type flat in the San Telmo neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. This is the main floor:

A reverse view from the tiny kitchen:

And upstairs, the bedroom, with a lovely full bath attached:

The neighbourhood is central, lovely, and reminds me a bit of Merida in the Yucatan for the way buildings shove up against each other, yet are still fabulously decorated and ornate. San Telmo is the historic part of BA, full of cobblestones and important sites. Tomorrow, I plan to stroll about and report back on my findings.

Strolling about Microcentro

2010-04-19T18:18:00.004-06:00

Well, the heat and humidity continue here. It is in the high 20s with extraordinary damp, like a sauna outside, but no reason not to start looking around. Where to go, however, was dictated by a need for airconditioning, so I hopped on the Subte (subway) only two blocks from my flat, and headed up to the Microcentro, downtown, a few stops away. I got off at the Plaza San Martin, with broad walkways overlooking a gentle slope down to the waterfront of the River Plata:

You can't actually see the buildings beyond the promenade, however, because a combination of smog and fog has rolled in from the port, obscuring the view. A short walk down the pedestrian shopping street of Florida took me to the Galleria Pacificos, the upscale shopping mall located in the business district. It is a bit disconcerting to know that malls are the same everywhere - had I been so inclined, I could have spent the day shopping Lacoste, Hugo Boss, Ralph Lauren, etc. But I sought out the Galleria for more esoteric interests, namely the architecture (and the air conditioning). The building itself dates from the early 1890s, used to be the railway headquarters, and occupies a full city block. It was only converted into a mall however, in 1992. Inside, the building is split into four quarters, with the laneways between these quarters turned into three-storey atriums. In the centre, where they all meet, is an ornate cupola that was filled with neo-classical murals during a 1945 remodel. They are ostensibly part of the New Realism movement, but would seem to be more influenced by classical European muralists than the Mexican muralists credited. Here is one view of a panel of one mural (the angle is a bit off because I am tipping the camera over a Clinique boutique sign):

Further down Florida, I happened upon my first example of the BA artform known as filete - an ornate handpainted signage rooted in the Sicilian immigration of the early 20th century. This sign marked the street address of a grocery store:

I expect to see a great deal more of this fantastic art form as I meander around San Telmo tomorrow.

The long and winding road....

2010-04-18T13:31:00.004-06:00

10:35 pm Saturday - Pearson International Airport - waiting for the overnight flight to Buenos Aires.

It is extraordinary to watch NHL playoff hockey in an airport, particularly Toronto’s airport, when everyone in the bar is dying as the Montreal Canadiens blow a 4-2 lead in the third period, eventually losing in overtime to Washington 6-5. GAH! Being away for three weeks means I will come back mid-way into the second round. Half the teams now playing will be gone, and we should have a much better idea who could take the Cup than we do currently, when it seems no one really wants it.

Checking in at Edmonton was surreal - normally, on a Saturday afternoon, it would be packed with people travelling east to make evening overseas connections. The security line can run 30 or 40 minutes, minimum. But today, thanks to an Icelandic volcano, I walked right up to the wicket, no lineup at Air Canada. While the attendant could not upgrade me to the sold-out business class (with the awesome-looking lie flat pods), she did manage to put me in a row near the back with three empty seats across. So I hope to be able to at least sleep a bit on the plane. We leave Toronto at 10 to midnight, and do not arrive in BA until nearly 3 in the afternoon. It is a very long flight.

Of course, there is always someone who apparently never listens to, or reads, the news. As I was checking my seating options, a breathless woman in her 30s rushed up to the adjacent wicket, and actually let out a howl when the attendant told her her flight to Rome had been cancelled. “Check again,” she implored - just in case the volcano had made an exception, just for her. Seriously - flights to Europe have been cancelled for days, and she doesn’t know that? Embarrassing.

Perhaps owing to the slow day at security, the new people were receiving extra training. I, the epitome of racial profiling in action, was selected for random further screening by a very pleasant young woman who looked like she belonged in high school. She dutifully explained each step in the process, and gave me a thorough “pat down” only slightly less intensive than my annual mammogram. She apologized before moving to each stage of the process, ending with an ankle massage and a look at the soles of my feet. I am pleased to say both of us passed our test, and her instructor seemed particularly happy with how we had both conducted ourselves.

The flight from Edmonton, on an Embraer 190, was smooth and fast - less than 4 hours gate to gate. I managed to catch up on recent movies - it only seemed appropriate to watch “Up in the Air” while flying myself. Despite all the awards, and the heightened expectations I therefore had, the movie was great and thoroughly enjoyable. I particularly recommend a scene partway through the film where George Clooney is sitting in a hotel lounge with his impossibly young co-worker, Anna Kendrick, and his paramour, Vera Farmiga, discussing their changing expectations in partners as they age. Hysterical.

The flight to Buenos Aires is close to full, with perhaps 15 empty seats on the whole plane. My first sign that this flight would not be like other international flights? Being served a full hot supper at 12:30 am. Only on a flight to South America would one presume folks are going to eat now, and perhaps nap around 4. I did get my three seats across, which totalled about 4.5 linear feet. Which is about a foot shorter than I am, which made for an intriguing several hours of trying to contort myself into a pretzel that could still balance on less than deep cushions. I got some rest, but I doubt Day 1 in BA is going to be terribly eventful!

After 10.5 hours in flight, we stopover in Santiago. Security is quite something. In Toronto, there were two extra checkpoints I needed to be scanned through, after I cleared general security, and in Santiago, where we changed planes and crews, there was another security point, where our carry-on luggage was inspected anew, and we were wanded. Keep in mind none of us ever left the secured transfer zone. Why all the extra security suddenly is a mystery, but I now feel very, very protected.

The approach to Santiago is a bit unnerving - the plane comes down a channel between two ranges in the Andes. Looking out the windows on each side of the plane and seeing only mountains, and not from above, but at eye-level, is a bit unnerving. Perhaps they should have timed the flight so this part would happen under cover of darkness, and not late morning.

Disappointingly, the first thing one sees in the Santiago airport proper, once you’ve cleared the security point, is a Starbucks. Across the hall from a Dunkin Donuts. En espanol, but still.

Anyway, it is a hot, humid day threatening rain, so the mountain views are a bit hazy, but here’s the first shot from this vacation:

Update: Sunday, 4:34 pm I have now arrived in BA and have checked into my apartment hotel. It is lovely. I will post pictures tomorrow, once I recover from the flight, the heat and humidity.

Only in Canada

2010-04-16T21:37:00.003-06:00

When I travel, I like to look for the quirky things that other people might not notice, or comment upon.

I am overnighting in Edmonton on my way to Buenos Aires tommorrow (well, actually, I only arrive Sunday afternoon, but I don't know how to describe a flight that crosses into a second day - is there a word for that?)

I got here around supper time. I checked into my hotel, Varscona on Whyte. For those of you unfamiliar with Edmonton, Whyte Avenue is the hip place to be, where all the fashionable young things in five inch silver lame heels totter down the sidewalks between $14 martinis. The neighbourhood is full of trendy nightspots, overpriced restaurants, and fantastically odd shops. But there are still holdouts from before the gentrification, and those juxtapositions make walking around a lot of fun. Antique shops, funky bookstores, tattered banks cheek-by-jowl with yoga stores and cigar shops. And a bar named Filthy McNasty's. Classy and the not so much, side-by-side.

I was skirting around, looking for a place to eat that would not sneer at my jeans and hiking boots when I suddenly realized I was approaching a crowd of bikers. Not the Tour de France kind, the chopper kind. A large crowd, probably 55 or 60 of them, both sexes, clad head to foot in black leather. A couple of the older guys were chatting quite aimiably with a pair of City beat cops off near a parking meter. As I got closer, I could see probably 40 tricked out bikes parked neatly side by side in an off road parking lot. Obviously, they were making plans for an excellent Friday night to enjoy the nice spring weather (21 degrees, sunny). Nobody looked particularly threatening, so I kept walking towards them - they were between me and the hotel, after all.

And then I realized almost every single one of them had a cup in their hand. A brown paper cup. They were milling about in a Tim Horton's parking lot.

You can't make stuff like this up.

Oops

2010-04-11T14:38:00.002-06:00

Looks like I'm getting ready to go on another vacation without really having posted much about the previous two last year. I'm going to try and remedy that over the summer, but first, I am seriously thinking about shifting the focus of this blog to more travel-oriented pursuits (not that the blog has previously had much focus, but you know what I mean).

Thoughts?

In the meantime, I am taking a netbook with me on my next trip, to Argentina and Uruguay, and my intention, at least, is to blog from the road. We'll see if I'm any better with that than writing about the trip upon my return!

C'mon already. Eh?

2010-03-02T00:30:00.007-07:00

Sometimes, we can make fun of ourselves and everybody else all at the same time. Best closing ever.

Promise? Fulfilled

2010-02-28T17:13:00.004-07:00

I was nine the first time I watched Canada play on an international stage -it was September 1972, and Canada was playing a best of eight game series with the Soviets, what would come to be called the Summit Series. Everyone, whether they were actually alive to witness it or not, remembers Paul Henderson's goal in the dying seconds of game 8, which clinched the series for Canada. What far fewer people remember however, is the wildly uneven road Canada took to game 8, and the tangible possibility we would lose, at our own game, when everyone on the planet was watching us.

During the intermission before the overtime period in today's Olympic gold medal game, I couldn't help but think of the Summit Series, which was the first time I remember being aware of how hard it was for Canada to win, even though we thought it should be a lot easier.

We are raised, skating on ponds and rinks in every nook and corner of this country, our ears filled with the notion hockey is "Canada's game", and we are stuffed full of the mythology that we dominate our sport in the global arena. That alleged dominance took a pounding in 1972, and it hasn't ever really recovered, even though we tell ourselves every chance we get that this time, gold is obviously ours. We are, after all, the favorites - at least in our own minds.

The Summit Series was split, 4 games played in Canada, 4 in the USSR. Russia took the first game 7-3 at the Montreal Forum (while ghosts wept), lost 4-1 in Toronto, and the teams played to a 4 all tie in Winnipeg. By the time Team Canada dropped game 4 5-3 in Vancouver, it was booed off the ice and we seemed on the verge of perpetual international embarrassment and a national group meltdown. The Soviets took game 5 in Moscow before Canada rallied to take three consecutive one goal games and the series, 4 wins to 3.

The Series was such a significant moment in the country's young history that I remember my elementary school, like hundreds across the country, ushering us out of classrooms and into the auditorium to huddle around the TV, so we could watch the games from Moscow live. It was my first communal experience of the power of sport to unite and unify a country.

All these professional observers who have been going on and on in the media from Vancouver about the "new" Canadian pride evidently weren't around in 1972. It seemed for a month that our entire purpose on earth was to play, and win, these hockey games, to show those Soviets that while they might play our game, they couldn't win our game. Certainly not against our best NHL players. We were then, as we are now, wrapped in our flag and proud of our country, our history, and our place in the world. Those who seem surprised at the outpouring of national pride during these Olympics don't remember how empty our streets were on game night in 1972. For nearly a month, the country held its breath, not at all sure anymore that our best would be good enough. In an era before satellites, DVRs, cable and internet, you had to be at home in front of the TV (or, if unfortunately elsewhere, with a transistor radio in hand) to share the experience, to follow the game as it unfolded. And we did on more than one occasion, hold our breath.

Today, giving up a tying goal to the U.S. team with 24 seconds to go, after several minutes of panicked scrambling around in our own end, seemed like 1972 all over again. And like 1972, Team Canada found some way to rally and close out a nailbiter with a key goal at a key moment.

During the opening ceremonies, Yellowknife poet Shane Koyczan performed his poem, "We Are More", which in hindsight was quite prescient about the view Canadians have of themselves, and how that is seldom the understanding the outside world has of us. Much of the national pride that we have seen play out across the country in millions of individuals these past couple of weeks is contained in the lines of the poem, which includes my favorite phrase, "We are an idea in the process of being realized". Today, with a men's hockey gold medal in hand, Canada's 14th overall of these Games, we have fulfilled the promise contained in that one line. No other country - not the U.S.A., not the U.S.S.R. - has ever done as well in a single Winter Olympiad. That we have now done something so momentous, in our own country, proves if nothing else that, as a country, we have left our awkward adolescence behind and are now fully exploring our confident young-adulthood. Long may we reign.

Well, that's it then

2010-02-27T23:13:00.004-07:00

Civilization is officially OVER. From today's New York Times:

"Ruth Eldredge, 49, said she had decided on her dream ticket for 2012: Mitt Romney for President and Scott Brown for vice-president, with a promise that they'd make Sarah Palin secretary of state. "They'd be so good-looking that people would just love us," she said, meaning Republicans. "They're beautiful!"

Because beauty is the ultimate criterion for anything in the U.S.

Every 50 years or so...

2010-02-24T22:13:00.003-07:00

We manage to beat the Russians at the Olympics.

Oh sure, we face and beat them semi-regularly at the World Juniors, the World Championships, and various invitation/staged events like the Canada Cup, or the 1972 Canada-USSR best of eight series. But the last time we faced and beat them at the Olympics, it was 1960 in Squaw Valley, California, again in a quarter-final matchup, and we had our ass handed to us 8-5. Tonight, everything that needed to come together finally did, building on the glimmers of teamwork pushing to the surface in the elimination round against Germany. Perhaps we can do this after all. They'll play a semi-final against the winner of Sweden-Slovakia (on right now), and with the Americans beating the Swiss 2-0 to also advance to a semi against Finland, there's a potential Canada - U.S.A. final on the weekend. That will give Canada the chance to redeem itself and crack Ryan Miller, who was really the only reason we didn't beat the U.S. in the round-robin play, considering how well Team Canada played for most of the game (why, oh why, couldn't Switzerland be the spoiler today?)

Onwards!

Now comes the fun part

2010-02-22T22:43:00.003-07:00

The last time - nay, the only time - Canada won an Olympic medal in ice dancing, Scott Moir was five months old. His partner, Tessa Virtue, wouldn't come along for another 15 months. That medal too was an indelible performance on Canadian ice, when Rob McCall and Tracy Wilson took bronze in Calgary.

Usually in figure skating, skaters spend years slowly climbing out of obscurity, inching up the standings in tiny increments, season in, season out. Longevity and perseverance are rewarded almost as much as talent and athleticism. What makes Virtue and Moir's championship performance tonight so stellar is that they have come, if not exactly out of nowhere, then certainly a lot farther than we had any right to expect at this point in their young careers, considering they first placed a toe on the world stage in 2007.

By the time folks win at the Olympics, they've usually picked up some World championship placings, some national titles, and while they are presumably happy to win at the Olympics, they have long since learned to be disciplined, at least in public.

No such worries here. The sheer exuberance and delight on display from both Virtue and Moir the moment they realized they had won the gold was exceptional, both for the rarity of such overt emotion in the figure skating world and the uncluttered joy of attaining that pinnacle at home. Eleven thousand fans sang O Canada to them as the flag was raised and the official anthem played after the medal presentation - what must that feel like ?

And to win, not only with an exceptional program, but also by accepting the challenge laid down by training partners and friends Charlie White and Meryl Davis of the U.S.team, who had skated a flawless program a bit earlier in the evening. If you really want it, show us, they said - beat this. And so they did, by a score so high, it wasn't even close, leaving the Americans to polish their silver medals one rung below on the podium.

But here's the really fun, exciting part - Virtue & Moir, White & Davis, are only in their early 20s. They should have been trying for top 10 finishes at this point in their careers, not taking the top two spots. They train together and push each other, and the results of that daily competition are obvious on the ice. Not since Torvill and Dean took on a passel of Russian teams in the early to mid 1980s has the sport of ice dance stood to gain so much from professional rivalry. Barring catastrophic injury, we as an audience can expect to see these four jockeying for position on podiums around the planet for probably the next decade - including a couple more Olympics. It promises to be a developmentally rich experience as well, as each team will have to keep raising the bar in creative and dynamic ways to stay ahead of the other. As lovers of the sport, we can all be thankful for that. My only hope is that the Canadians continue to enjoy their success as much as they have tonight, and that we are never faced with a ceremony where they stand atop the podium looking as if it's just been another day at the office.

4:57:00

2009-12-21T22:53:00.000-07:00

Sunrise: 10:08 a.m.
Sunset: 15:05 p.m.

It's all uphill from here.

Farewell, my friend

2009-11-22T12:30:00.002-07:00

This has been a hard week. It opened with news that one of our dear friends had passed away, and closed with the emotional conviction and sentencing of a cop killer. I don't want to dwell on the latter, but I do want to say something about the passing of my friend, Greg Nearing. This is my column from the November issue of the Law Society newsletter:

I first met Greg in court when I was a reporter in the early 1990s. Greg was an exceptional criminal defence lawyer, and while he often had the higher profile cases on the docket, he was just as ready to go full bore for someone accused of a simple assault or shoplifting. He was a passionate believer in legal aid, and for a time served on the F/P/T working group on legal aid while he was with the Legal Services Board of the NWT.

Born in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Greg was a proud X-man who earned a BA from St. F/X in 1982, and graduated Dalhousie School of Law in May, 1986. He moved to Yellowknife shortly thereafter to article at what was then Richard, Vertes, Peterson & Schuler under his principal, Ted Richard, and swore his Oath to become a member of the Law Society on September 11, 1987 before Justice de Weerdt.

His career would eventually take him to both Departments of Justice here, although the bulk of his time was spent with Legal Aid, where he eventually became Executive Director. In 2002, he returned to private practice, moving to Nunavut when his wife Diane was offered a position with the Nunavut government.

Service to the profession was a big part of who Greg was. He was President of the CBA NWT branch in 1996-97, Treasurer of the Law Society in 1998, and President in 1999. He was also a loyal member of the discipline committee in 2001-2002, and even ended up chairing the social committee in 2001, when he was the only volunteer (until Linda donated the services of that year’s articling crop to help out). After moving east, Greg continued to serve the profession as Treasurer of the Law Society of Nunavut in 2004-2005. As our Law Society President, Greg holds the record for chairing the shortest AGM, at 45 minutes, in 1999. It is likely a feat that will never be repeated.

Greg was a complicated guy who faced a lot of challenges in his life, but when he was on, no one was quicker on his feet or more fun to be around. I never had an opportunity to run a file or do a circuit with Greg, but I got to know him in social contexts, him with his omnipresent diet cola in hand, always foraging around for snacks. While it was impossible for him to sit through an entire movie without taking at least one break to go play videogames in the lobby, he somehow amassed an encyclopaedic knowledge of film. In the ‘90s, Diane and I took sailing lessons together one summer, and got in the habit thereafter of renting a sailboat on weekends to putter around the bay. Greg was a constant presence, frequently called upon to assemble lunch below decks or haul on some rope to hoist a sail. He was unfailingly good humoured about his role on these excursions, and together as we drifted past Dettah, we would often comment on the hounds baying at the morning sun.

For my birthday in 1996, Greg arrived at the party with cards he had created listing out a couple dozen suitable topics for dinner conversation. Alongside the serious - the link between individualism and the disintegration of American society (such as it is) – were more fanciful subjects, like the role of underwear in safety consciousness, memories of grade 4, and the colour yellow. I have kept a copy of that card framed in my home office ever since, and every time I read it, it makes me laugh. It was an awesome gift and so totally Greg.

A couple of years later, during my first year of law school, Greg and Karan Shaner were in Montreal for meetings and called upon me to show them around the city. What followed was a wild afternoon and evening involving haunted houses, bakeries, cobblestoned streets, a strip bar, and a bank security guard alarmed at our use of Greg’s newfangled digital camera (pre-9/11, you could alarm a security guard without being thrown in jail). For obvious reasons, I’m adopting a “what happens on the road stays on the road” approach to the details, but suffice to say it is one of my fondest memories of spending time with Greg.

Gregory Charles Nearing was 48 when he died unexpectedly.

He will be missed.

Hmmm...

2009-10-03T16:31:00.003-06:00

Well now. This is embarrassing.

In late May when I came back from my European vacation, I promised a bunch of posts - and promptly executed precisely one. And now I find myself getting ready to go on another vacation next week without having caught up yet. I'd like to say I have a good excuse, but other than the usual - work was busy, summer was entertaining, etc - I've got nothing to offer. Except a promise that I will do better in the coming months. I may even backtrack and get those Europe posts up and running before 2010. Because this is what it has come down to. It's not like I didn't enjoy my trip - in fact, I enjoyed it so much I had a hard time figuring out how to separate it into finite posts. And then I didn't execute. Hmmm....maybe next time. My bad.

A Final Roar

2009-08-31T17:54:00.004-06:00

I was going to post today about the passing of Teddy Kennedy, but I came upon this post by John McCain's daughter Meghan that sums up exactly how I feel about contemporary politics, and how this contact sport has completely lost touch with the crucial component of political life, public service. Enjoy.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-08-31/why-the-lion-of-the-left-was-right/?_r=1&em

And that's the way it is

2009-07-21T22:46:00.004-06:00

There will never be another Walter Cronkite, and that says as much about our era as it does about his.

There will be no commemorative issue of People Magazine, no cover story in Rolling Stone, no week of endless speculation by pundits on news channels about his cause of death. And that is how he would have wanted it.

Mr. Cronkite died Friday at the age of 92, after an unparalleled career in journalism.

It is hard to remember in this age of Twitter and internet and 1000 channels of round-the-clock news yammering for our attention, that once, not so long ago, if you wanted to know what happened in the world today, you had to sit down at 7 p.m. EST for a half hour of news, presented by Walter Cronkite. No taping it and watching it later; no surfing the satellite receiver to take in a different regional feed; no CNN, no Headline News, no Newsworld. 7-7:30, or read the paper the next morning. Those were your options.

In our house, Walter Cronkite was God. Most nights my parents and I would eat our dinner off TV trays in front of the behemoth black and white television console with the fairly tiny screen. There was absolutely no talking during the news; if you had a story to tell about your day and it didn't squeeze into a commercial break, it would have to wait another 8 minutes to be finished in the next break. Walter came first.

Sitting in front of the TV, I learned about Vietnam and the space program. He was the person who told us when Martin Luther King was shot, and when President Kennedy died. It is an oft-repeated story in my family that pretty much the first thing I ever saw on TV was Walter Cronkite breaking into the live soap opera As the World Turns to announce President Kennedy had been shot. My mother adored President Kennedy - it was a simpler time, far easier to believe in the image, sheltered from the reality - and she learned her dream died while ironing the laundry, from the most trusted man in America. It was a short, sharp shock to everyone's system, and I was two months old, propped up on the couch pillows, facing the TV.

Walter Cronkite was an incredible reporter. Unlike contemporary anchors, he had no formal presentation training, having started in newspapers before TV had been invented, and while he became a polished presence on camera, he never lost his sincerity or his slightly rough edges. There was no doubting this was a man who had ink under his nails, and who had covered big stories from the ground up. He didn't start out that way, of course - he was a cub reporter in Houston while still in high school, and had a paper route delivering the Houston Post, sometimes with his articles inside. He moved on to announcing football games on local radio, before catching on as a regional reporter with UPI as a stringer. And then came World War II. Unlike the sanitized "embedded" reporting we are now subject to from the front, if we are allowed to see a snippet of what's happening at all, Cronkite rode along with Allied Troops in big events - the invasion of North Africa, the Battle of the Bulge - and every day events, like bombing runs over Germany. It wasn't safe, and he wasn't protected, but he was lucky, and every plane he was on came back to base. He rejected a job offer from Edward R. Murrow to stay with UPI and cover the Nuremberg war crimes trials, but finally accepted Murrow's offer 7 years later and made the move to CBS, and television in 1950.

During the 1960s through the mid-1970s, Cronkite anchored not just the evening news, but every blastoff of an Apollo mission. My father, who was born the summer Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic, and was named Charles in his honour, was fascinated by the idea of men going into space, so every time a mission was set to launch, he would get me out of bed - those launches tended to happen around 5 in the morning - and we would watch the live broadcast from Cape Kennedy, Cronkite explaining what we were looking at. And then I would go back to bed for a couple of hours before I had to get up for school.

Those mornings with my dad and Walter also gave me a context and an appreciation of science, and the world beyond my suburban existence. They also indirectly got me interested in reading as a child, as my parents subscribed to National Geographic, which featured the space program heavily in every issue back then. There was a symbiotic correlation between the magazine and Mr. Cronkite in my tiny world back then, and I reveled in it.

I had the enormous good fortune to meet Walter Cronkite once, when I was about seven or eight. My father had been working in New York, as Canadian banks were starting to expand internationally in the 1960s, and my father was part of the Bank of Montreal's team setting up the U.S. head office. He would be gone weeks at a time, and sometimes, instead of flying him home to Montreal, the Bank would fly us to New York instead. On one of those trips, I can't remember where we were exactly, but I know we were getting into an elevator in Manhattan, and as the doors opened, there was Walter Cronkite, going our way. All three of us, my parents and I, were mesmerized to see this icon out of the tiny box in our living room and in the flesh. Evidently used to this sort of reaction, he very politely said hello and started the small talk. It came out that "I" was a big fan, and then he reached into his inside jacket pocket, pulled out a business card, signed it, and handed it to me.

In the four decades since then, I have moved several dozen times, back and forth across a vast country. Yet as I write this, I have that business card tucked into a corner of my computer screen. It says, simply, "Walter Cronkite - Correspondent" with the CBS News address and phone number. It isn't flashy or pretentious. It is the epitome of Walter Cronkite on a 1.5 x 3 inch piece of paper - clear, concise, solid, informative.

He believed a half hour newscast once a day wasn't enough time to truly inform viewers about all the complicated things going on in the world, and after he retired in 1981, he reportedly hated how newscasts were now stuffed full of soft features that told us nothing much about anything other than the reporter's vanity in front of the camera. We now live in world of a seemingly endless information and delivery options, but what are we really learning? Too much of what passes for news now is celebrity gossip, repeated ad nauseum between commentators who pass as reporters, or opinion based on nothing more than ignorance, fear or polling results. Television news, at least, has become a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Hardly a meaningful tribute to the remarkable legacy of a pioneering newsman.

Finally, you say!

2009-07-02T22:23:00.010-06:00

Part of the joy of traveling is the way it takes you out of your every day routine and forces you to do something a bit different for the duration of the trip. Unfortunately, when you return, the routine does as well, until one day you look up from the pile of files on your desk and realize you've been back in Canada for five weeks and have not yet blogged a peep about your fabulous spring vacation in Europe.

So - here we go, part one of a multi-part saga.

This trip was mostly about visiting friends. The last time I was in Europe was three years ago, for Lindsey and Serge's wedding. Now I was off to visit them and their adorable toddler, Jules.

A few things had changed since the last time, other than acquiring progeny, most obviously the simple location - they were no longer living in Geneva, but were now in the countryside outside London, England. In "Harrt-fird-shuur" as the passport control officer kindly corrected me upon my arrival. I was soon to recognize that although the words look like English the way they're spelled out, it's a totally different language in the way they are pronounced.

Hertfordshire is what I like to think of as typically English, full of 500 year old houses, narrow rambling lanes with highway speed limits and blind corners, a cow (or sheep) in every field, and a pub on most every corner. The next village over has a train station with a relatively short commute into downtown London, making this a pretty sweet locale for a week's vacation, so long as I didn't have to drive.

We quickly settled into a domestic routine that usually began with Jules offering me a toy, sometimes at speed, as I lay sleeping on the world's most comfortable pullout couch in the living room. This was quickly followed by coffee and breakfast and chat, more coffee, more toys, a shower, and more chat.

It was an arduous week.

I can hear some of you questioning my ability to enjoy an entire week in the presence of a child. I offer you proof Jules is not like other children - he liked me back:

I have to say that if one could clone children, and be assured of their temperament, I would seriously consider raising a totlet like Jules, because he is almost never unhappy with anything, even while he is teething. He is the sweetest-natured child I have ever met. He is the mellow 60s surfer dude of children. Without the weed, of course.

He is also an intent little observer of the world - he can sit watching everyone for long stretches of time, and you can see the wheels turning. I am fairly sure he will grow up to be quite the handful, but not my handful. I just get to drop in at random intervals for a short visit and flit off again, which is probably best for everyone.

On our first day, we drove into a nearby village to play on the village green, which is also outfitted with a kickass gym set that Jules never tires of trying out:

This lovely space also included a large pond, with many birds just sitting at the edge of a well-traveled footpath. Here we've got a pair of Canada geese with 8 goslings, 3 mute swans, a pair of dozing mallards, and some exotic Euro-duck I haven't been able to identify yet (there will be an entire post later on about birds, mark your calendars).

Spring being the season of young creatures learning new skills, Jules also took this opportunity to try to get the hang of some stairs - he isn't looking too sure of himself:

A stroll around the village later, I was beginning to understand that a slower pace can be a good thing.

Next up: Linds and I do the culture thing in the Big Smoke, and we all drive up to Bath for the day.

UPDATE: The Euro-duck is actually a Eurasian Coot. Thanks Vicki!

Patience is a virtue

2009-06-03T18:49:00.002-06:00

Remember that.

I have been back from a wonderful trip to Iceland and England for about 10 days now, and people want to hear all about it and see some photos. I appreciate that, and I'm working on it. There were a couple of thousand pictures to download (now done). I still have to go through them and make a small selection, and then I have to figure out how to describe my trip. I have also been trying to catch up at work, and I seem to have imported a bug from overseas, which hasn't helped. Anyway, the point is, in the coming days, I will be posting a series of entries about my trip, each with a few photos to whet your appetite for travel. Bear with me, I'm doing what I can! Thanks for being interested!!

Two down...

2009-04-22T22:51:00.004-06:00

The first round of the NHL playoffs are well underway and we've already seen two teams eliminated in four games straight, Montreal and St. Louis. I guess a long summer of golf lies ahead for these guys as they ponder their respective futures, but I will say that their teams seem to be going in completely opposite directions.

The St. Louis - Vancouver series was classic, exciting hockey. OK, the Blues didn't win a game, but after a nervous debut in game 1, they really ought to have picked up at least one, if not two, of the remaining three games. It's not their fault they ran into Roberto Luongo, who is looking unbeatable. Which is good for the Canucks, since the Blues seriously outplayed them in games 3 & 4, they just couldn't score. St. Louis, with its core group of young talent, is going to be in the playoff hunt for years to come. They play an exciting, offensive style of hockey that makes the final score almost unimportant.

My hometown Habs, however, WTF? It's no big surprise after the disastrous season they had, but really? This is what the 100 year legacy comes down to? A bunch of paycheck cashers and a non-existent defense that left their goalie hung out to dry, actually being booed by the hometown crowd? Appalling. I have some sympathy for Carey Price. Sure, he hasn't played as well this year as he did last year, but he was actually pretty good for most of the series with Boston. It is impossible for any goalie, even the revered Luongo, to stop every possible shot when nobody is playing defense, taking their man, or clearing the slot. At one point in tonight's game, a Bruin walked right in on three (!!) Habs standing still in front of Price, making no effort to do anything to stop the shot. No surprise Price was beaten from 20 feet out. And yet somehow, the crowd blames him alone. This will not be a fun summer inside the organization, and I expect next year's team will look significantly different from the team that lost tonight.

You'll notice that I said "hometown Habs" above, and not "my Habs". People often assume I am a Canadiens fan because I am originally from Montreal, but from the earliest time I can remember, it's been nothing but the black and gold of the Bruins for me. Now, when I was a kid in the late 60s and early 70s, the Bruins were the team of Orr, Esposito, Cashman, Buyck, Hodge, Cheevers and my all time favorite, Derek Sanderson. But for a long stretch between those glory years and now, it has been a cold, hard slog to support a team eking out barely 30 wins a season.

It's a dirty little hockey secret that there are many of us born into hockey towns who actually root for teams other than the hometown one. My dad, for example, was a lifelong Red Wings fan. In Montreal, Boston is a close second in popularity. It's an Original Six thing, I think, but going to games at the old Forum the jerseys in the stands were nearly 50-50. THAT makes for an atmospheric game! BTW - you will NEVER see a Maple Leafs fan who was born in Montreal. Just doesn't happen. Montrealers have standards when it comes to sports teams, unlike Torontonians.

This has been one of the best overall hockey seasons in the past 15 years. With the salary cap and some judicious drafting and player development, the parity between most teams is palpable. There are a half-dozen young teams who will be making noise for many seasons to come. Joining St. Louis on that list? Chicago, playing firewagon hockey with heart against Calgary; Columbus, currently being trounced by Detroit, but with the most exciting goalie to come along in a long time; Boston, who may well take the Cup this year; and two teams that didn't quite make it this season, but for whom I have high hopes - Edmonton and Phoenix.

After the dry, boring defensive trap system that made the 90s a jail sentence for fans, this plethora of young talent clustering in a few hot cities is making the game exciting to watch again. And that works out for everyone, especially the fans like me.

Only perfection need apply

2009-02-03T22:48:00.003-07:00

Russ Germain died Monday night. He was 62.

For those of us who grew up listening to CBC Radio One, Russ was the voice of the World At Six. Cool, unflappable, with a deep, smooth voice and the professionalism of the consummate newsman, he would be appalled by the structure of this sentence. For Russ, precision in language and clarity of structure were paramount. In radio, after all, listeners only got one chance to understand what you were saying to them, so it was incredibly important to be clear and precise. A pretty good approach for any news person, really, but one that is rarely instilled through constant emphasis and monitoring by one's editors.

When I worked for the Mother Corp. in the mid-90s, I either started my shift by reading the news on the morning show, or ended it with the 5:30pm newscast. This is how I came to know Russ.

Although he was based in Toronto, one of his responsibilities was to monitor all the regional newscasts for consistency, proper use of language, and accuracy. He was a language enforcer, as it were, insisting on perfection. Any slip of the tongue during a seven minute cast and you knew there would be an email or voicemail the next day kindly pointing out the error (in case you hadn't noticed) and offering an improvement.

Those of you who have never been in the news business probably don't realize that every major outlet has their own style guide, and each has their own quirks. Staff are expected to conform to their organization's guide, regardless of what the everyday usage of a word might be. The Mother Corp. was a particular stickler for specificity of pronunciation. Many words in the English language have more than one acceptable pronunciation - tomato, to-mah-to, kill-o-mee-ter, kil-oh-meh-ter, etc. Only one of these is correct for a CBC broadcaster.

One of our biggest ongoing battles was with the term harass. Russ, and therefore CBC, insisted upon hah-russ, which always struck me as vaguely British and kind of poncy. I have never heard anyone who wasn't trained at CBC pronounce it as anything other than HA-rass. It became a bit of a running joke in a newsroom constantly covering court stories, many of which involved harassment of one sort or another.

Proper usage of language was the other component to Russ' training. As radio people, we are encouraged to write like we speak, so it will sound natural to the ear for those who are listening. However, most of us speak with contractions, use words in the wrong context, or use expressions that, while commonplace, are inaccurate. For example, how often have you said "added bonus"? A bonus is by nature an addition, so it doesn't need the adjective. Or "completely destroyed"? Something either is destroyed or it is damaged. Destruction connotes completeness. My favorite is "enormity". People often use that to mean really, really big. It doesn't mean that at all. Enormous means huge - enormity means massively devastating, like "the enormity of the concentration camps cannot be overstated". That doesn't mean the camps were physically huge, but that they had a massively devastating effect.

In preparing to read a newscast then, a broadcaster needed to be aware of how the story was written, fix any misuse of language or awkward structure, be aware of timing and sound clips, and mind one's pronunciation, all with no retakes. It was a challenge most days, but in hindsight, knowing Russ was listening, and knowing there was a universal standard to conform to within the Mother Corp, I know I worked harder to master my on-air skills and pushed myself to constantly do better. Working with him, albeit at a distance, I truly learned how to be an on-air reporter. I suspect there are thousands of folks like me across the country, and abroad, who can say they came into their own under Russ' watchful ear during his 29 years with CBC.

Excuse me?

2009-01-27T22:47:00.005-07:00

Sometimes entries just write themselves.

I was reading the New York Times this morning online, as I so often do, trying to wake up and be useful, when I happened upon a story about odd road signs in England, and this photo:

I was now fully awake.

The story http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/world/europe/23crapstone.html?_r=1&em went on to examine, as it were, a number of quirky and suggestive place names in the British Isles, including Titty Ho, North Piddle, Crapstone, and Penistone. My inner eight-year-old started to giggle.

It seems most of these names date back to when words had different meanings than they do currently. I could have written a serious post on the evolution of language, but the eight-year-old wouldn't let me.

Butt Hole, it turns out, probably referred to a well. Not nearly as much fun now, is it? Damn reason. Gets in the way of all the best stories.

So I got to thinking about Canada's equivalent, and of course, Dildo, Newfoundland popped into my head. It is not terribly far from the trio of Heart's Delight, Heart's Desire, and Heart's Content, which run down the Bay Roberts coast within about 20 kilometres of each other. (I drove through them last year and they are lovely, if wee.) But of course these three aren't nearly as salacious and provocative.

I'm asking all nine of you who read this blog - can you think of any other risque Canadian place names? We have lots of quirky ones, like Moose Jaw, but are there any other Butt Holes, Dildos, or Penistones out there in Canada? Post your comment below.

Farewell...

2009-01-27T22:35:00.004-07:00

Last Friday, a truly remarkable woman passed away in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.

Helen Maksagak was the first female Commissioner of the Northwest Territories, from 1995 to March 1999, when she was appointed Commissioner for the newly-created territory of Nunavut. To the best of my knowledge, she is the only person to ever serve as the Queen's representative in two different jurisdictions (for those of you reading from non-Northern locations, the Commissioner is to a territory what the Lieutenant-Governor is to a province. Yes, we do have a different word for everything).

Mrs. Maksagak was a quiet, friendly Inuk woman, born in a traditional camp at Bernard Harbour in 1931, and raised in the Mackenzie Delta communities of Aklavik and Tuktoyaktuk. In her early 30s, she moved to Cambridge Bay with her family, and raised six children there with her husband John.

Mrs. Maksagak was, perhaps, four foot nine. She was tiny, dainty, and impressive. She reminded me of one of those apple granny dolls popular in Quebec, where the head of the doll is made from a shriveled apple. She opened meetings with prayer, befitting a Christian woman, and was fluently bilingual in Inuktittut and English. During her entire life, she worked tirelessly for the benefit of her community, particularly youth. She cared passionately about the environment long before being green was cool, and was a leader in the endless fight on drug and alcohol addiction in the North.

She also had a wonderful sense of humour and loved to laugh. One of her proudest days was when Nunavut was created in 1999, and the Inuit had an official homeland.

In 2002, all of her selfless efforts resulted in her being named to the Order of Canada. She was an exceptional woman, and she will be deeply missed.

And the nominees are....

2009-01-22T22:36:00.004-07:00

I am a film geek.

In a prior life I was actually paid to care about these things, but now, as with all the best things in life, I care for free. It makes me happy.

Usually, the Academy Awards make me unhappy. It's an industry, after all. The studios behind a lot of big stars with a lot of crap films throw bundles of money at advertising campaigns, and are rewarded with a laundry list of award nominations that mean nothing other than the box office is suddenly going to blossom, because people generally are sheep who will want, overnight, to see a movie they didn't care about two days ago simply because it was nominated for an Oscar.

Not this year.

This year's nominations are full of previously under-appreciated talent (usually from TV) acting in small pictures who are being noticed for their skills, and not how much money their films brought in. Because for the most part, their films didn't earn very much at all. I'm willing to bet most of you haven't seen these films, and you probably haven't heard of most of them either. For the most part, big studio pictures got shut out of the categories anyone cares about. Sure, The Dark Knight and Kung Fu Panda and Wall-E picked up a bunch of technical nominations, but will anyone really toss and turn at night trying to pick the Best Editing winner for their office pool? I don't think so.

In fact, of the 30 nominees in the main 6 categories (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress) exactly one comes from a blockbuster, and that would be Heath Ledger, who turned in a riveting portrait of anarchy in The Dark Knight before he died unexpectedly (exactly a year ago today, not that we're keeping track or anything).

Each of the acting categories has at least one nominee who is a working actor (as opposed to a STAR), someone whose face you always recognize but can't quite place, someone who is working all the time but never gets bothered at the grocery store. A few people's lives are going to change quite drastically on February 22, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. Part of what makes each of these actors so good is that, away from the set, they're able to live normal lives and observe society around them. Those days may be over for some of them now.

In the Best Actor category, Richard Jenkins is nominated for The Visitor. You've most likely seen him as the mortician father in Six Feet Under, but he's made nearly 85 movies in 35 years, including this small scale portrait of a regular guy who comes home one day to his New York flat and finds a family of illegal immigrants has moved in. And he lets them stay.

He's up against Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. Anyone who remembers him from Body Heat and Rumblefish would be hard pressed to recognize him now, so broken is his face. But it works for the character of a washed-up wrestler trying to make a comeback. Every now and then, an actor's personal story blends seamlessly with the character, and the result is serendipity.

In the Best Actress category, Melissa Leo of Frozen River is up against stalwarts like Kate Winslet, Meryl Streep and Angelina Jolie. TV watchers might remember her as Detective Sargeant Kay Howard on Homicide. Approximately 3 dozen people saw Frozen River, despite sterling reviews. Perhaps a few dozen more will make a point of renting it on DVD now.

In the Best Supporting Actress category, we find two actresses - Viola Davis and Taraji P. Henson - who you may remember from Century City or Law & Order: SVU, and Boston Legal, respectively - up against a previous winner and two constant nominees.

And over in the Best Supporting Actor category, Michael Shannon earns the only acting nomination for Revolutionary Road, despite all the hype about the reunion of DiCaprio and Winslet. Shannon is usually the bad guy on any number of shows, so its good to see him branching out a little.

The best part of all of this, is that, apart from Rourke, none of these nominations was predicted by the cognescenti. There were no nominations this morning for the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, or Clint Eastwood. Instead these skilled, under-known actors earned their spots, mostly starring in small films that came out in the hectic fall season and got lost in the bigger ad campaigns for the films that drew the most eyeballs and dollars.

But the biggest story of this year's Oscar race may well be Slumdog Millionaire, set entirely in India and filmed partly in Hindi. It's a romance about a smart kid from the wrong side of Delhi who wins the grand prize on a Who Wants to be a Millionaire type show, and the resistance he faces from people who think he must have cheated (because poor kids can't possibly be smart). Despite a miniscule budget and a cast of mostly amateur actors, it is nominated for 10 Academy Awards (second only to Benjamin Button), including Best Picture. It is a fairytale story worthy of a film all its own.

In the Best Picture category, it will compete against The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a romantic fable based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald story that is really a meditation on the nature of love when the physical is stripped away; Frost/Nixon, an adaptation of a Tony-winning play pitting disgraced President Richard Nixon against talk show host David Frost; The Reader, a Holocaust drama about the nature of evil; and Milk, about the first openly gay elected official and his subsequent assassination by a co-worker.

All of these, in their way, ask us to examine our perceptions of the world, our views on race, culture, class, and gender identity, and what it truly means to be human. I honestly don't know which film I want to win - I'm just happy someone is still making films like these, when it would be so much easier to make Transformers 42 or Saw 11 and rake in the cash.

OK. Maybe I'm rooting for Slumdog Millionaire. Because I am a film geek, and I love an underdog.

148 years on, a Dream has been realized

2009-01-20T23:14:00.006-07:00

It is rare to experience an event and know while it is happening that you are witnessing history in the making. Usually, the historic import of something only becomes clear in the context hindsight brings, but yesterday’s inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States was an exception to that rule. If we didn’t know already about the historic significance of installing an African-American in the White House, there were only too many media pundits willing to hammer the point home again, and again, and again during dawn-to-dusk coverage. So many words were spoken and written, in fact, that it is hard to have an original thought at this point.

One thing though, is clear: after eight years of President George W. Bush, with his ignorance of history and geography, and his inability to speak the English language coherently, a sea change has taken place. America has managed to elect a man who embraces his obvious intelligence and who is a keen student of both history and politics, whose career and public persona has been shaped as much by his own bipartisan ideology as the courage, ideas, dreams and actions of those who went before.

Washington D.C. is a city designed and engineered to maximize grandeur, full of memorials paying homage to the defining moments and figures in American history. None of the 42 previous Presidents has ever understood or been able to harness the visceral power of symbolism and the resonance of history quite like Barack Obama. He and Washington will be a good fit.

Two years ago and virtually unknown, Obama stood on the same patch of Illinois ground where Abraham Lincoln had declared his candidacy for President in 1859, and made his own declaration. 20 months later on election night, he celebrated his victory in Chicago’s Grant Park, previously known only as being the scene of violent riots during the 1968 Democratic Convention.

The pre-inaugural whistle-stop tour train from Illinois to Washington last weekend evoked a bygone era, when the nation did have faith in its leaders and hope for its future, even in the face of crisis, be it a war or a failing economy.

His erudite campaign speeches have brought echoes of Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and John and Robert Kennedy to a generation of new ears, building upon their themes of public service, self sacrifice, and small “p” patriotism while infusing them with hope and an optimism not seen in American politics since the devastation of 1968.

On Tuesday, Obama placed his hand upon the same bible Lincoln used in 1861 to take the oath of office on the west steps of the Capitol, witnessed by at least a million people lining the Mall, stretching past the Washington Monument all the way to the Lincoln Memorial, some three kilometers away. It was an extraordinary and emotional sight. As he sat upon the dais facing the crowd, I wondered if he was thinking about Lincoln yet again, or if he was reflecting upon the line in the marble of the Washington Monument about halfway up where the color shifts slightly, because construction was interrupted by the Civil War.

The 20th Amendment to the Constitution fixes the date that the President shall be sworn in on as January 20th. The Martin Luther King Day holiday marks his January 19th birthday each year. The resonance of the juxtaposition of these seminal events this year was palpable. Had Dr. King not been assassinated in 1968, he may well have attended the Obama inauguration. He would only have been 80. This year is the 45th anniversary of the March upon Washington, which culminated in Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial:

“I have a dream,” he said, “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Barack Obama was three that winter. Metaphorically at least, Dr. King’s dream has been realized through him, but there remains so much more work to do if we are ever to achieve a society where a black man taking an oath of office does not have to do so behind bulletproof glass and wearing a bullet resistant suit.

At the inauguration ceremony, Aretha Franklin sang “America”, closing the circle on Dr. King, who referred to it in his Dream speech: “This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning: My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.”

And sing they did, up and down the Mall, black and white, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics and non-believers, for one shining moment.

Here comes the meme again...

2009-01-20T00:23:00.004-07:00

And I am told I am supposed to tell you six random things about me. And provide the sixth photo of the sixth photo folder in my iPhotos. Meming. Hmmm. All these sixes must mean memes are Satanic.

OK. Photo first. This is part of a series of photos I took one June day in 2005 while I was at a friend's cabin not far from Name of Town Withheld. We were crossing the lake by barge when I noticed an Arctic Tern hopping around on a small island in the middle of the lake, calling to its mate. I had just clicked off a couple of frames when the mate appeared with a tiny fish. In the frames that follow this one, the fisher hands the fish off to the other, and takes off again, while this one hops off, presumably to the nest to feed its young (which I couldn't see). It was total serendipity, but I was lucky I had the camera set to six frames per second, or I would have missed the whole thing.

Now, six random things about me:

1. My eyes seem to change color if I am standing near water or on a very green lawn.

2. I am on my third career and not entirely convinced this is the last one for me.

3. I hate clearing rain gutters.

4. I have one leg 3/4 of an inch longer than the other, but I can never remember which leg is longer and which is shorter when I take pants in to be hemmed.

5. I once served 15 straight points to win a volleyball game.

6. I have been snubbed by the Queen.

Random enough for you, Megan?

Something bigger than 5 championships

2009-01-05T21:24:00.005-07:00

Well, we can all take a deep breath and sit back in our chairs now that Team Canada has pulled a fifth consecutive Junior World Championship out of the hat. It's amazing how exciting hockey can be despite the broken plays, undisciplined penalties, puck chasing and dicey goaltending. Usually teams making so many mistakes never advance to the medal round, but somehow, Team Canada dodged the big bullet against both the U.S. and Russia, and steamrollered the Swedes tonight to take the gold. Despite all the mistakes and sloppy play, those three games were incredibly exciting affairs. I caught myself on more that one occasion actually speaking to the TV, most particularly when there were 14 seconds to go in the Russia game with Canada down a goal, and the Russian defenceman got fancy clearing the zone, aiming for the empty Canadian net and ending up icing the puck. All he had to do was carry the puck into the neutral zone, and it would have been the Russians facing Sweden for the gold, but no, he had to try to be a hero, which backfired big time, resulting in a Russian zone faceoff and a Canadian goal with 5.4 seconds left in the game to force overtime, and eventually, a shootout win for Canada. That mistake will follow the kid around for a very, very long time.

I was heartened however to see big #5, P.K. Subban, voted top three Canadian players by the coaching staff, and making all-tournament first team. For my money, he was consistently the best Canadian every single game, an offensive rushing defenceman who makes big plays and knows how to move the puck.

Subban, who currently plays junior for Belleville of the OHL, and was a Canadiens second round draft pick in 2007, happens to also be black. I mention this only because it is still unusual to see black players in the NHL. Currently, there are about two dozen, most prominent being Jarome Iginla, Donald Brashear, Georges Laracque and Dustin Byfuglien. But up until the 1990s, black players were pretty much non-existent in the entire NHL. Hockey has not diversified nearly as rapidly or as completely as the other three big professional leagues in North America (interestingly, two players on this year's Swedish junior team are also black, demonstrating once again that no country's culture remains homogenous forever) .

When I was in high school, our class jock was a fellow named Hilton Ruggles. He was an amazing physical hockey player, who played left wing in the Quebec Major Junior league for four seasons in the early 80s. We all expected him to end up in the NHL, but despite racking up major points in QMJHL, including 113 points in 59 games in 1983-84, he wasn't even drafted. And that was probably because he too was black. The verbal abuse he would take at games was breathtaking, and it was all based on the colour of his skin. Opposing players and coaches would call him all sorts of horrible things, and there was an incident that made the papers where fans brought bananas and threw them on the ice after he scored a goal. He often also took crap from his home crowds, which is unprecedented in trash-talking annals.

By 1985, he'd had enough, and set off for Europe, playing for pro teams in Italy, France, Germany and Austria before settling into Britain in 1988, where he played for a half-dozen teams through 2002, racking up 2102 points (1122 goals & 980 assists) in 1052 games. Now retired, he is the general manager of the Cardiff Devils, where he had some of his best seasons in the early 1990s (including 1993-94, when he played 62 games and scored 243 points). But he never did get a chance to play in the NHL.

Last week, the Governor-General of Canada made Willie O'Ree a member of the Order of Canada. Mr. O'Ree was the "Jackie Robinson of hockey", the first black man to play in the NHL, in 1958, for my faves, the Boston Bruins. His pro career was short-lived and ended for good in 1961, but he played in the minor leagues until the age of 43. There was no other black player in the NHL until 1974, when Mike Marson signed with Washington. So perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise when Hilton was passed over just a few short years later. A generation later, P.K. Subban is poised to enter a very different NHL, one where more teams than not have at least one black player, and where all players and staff are subjected to a diversity education program developed by the league, and run by Mr. O'Ree. I hope we are moving towards a hockey future where players will be judged on performance, and performance only. The world is becoming ever more diverse, and our sports leagues need to understand that and show some leadership, since so many kids look up to the pros and emulate their behavior. Subban, with his play and his outgoing ebullient personality, looks like he'll be an important part of that ongoing evolution.

And now, -43

2009-01-02T12:56:00.003-07:00

I should note yesterday's photo was taken at -42 C. Today, it is a notch colder. The interesting thing about ice fog is its cumulative effect. In this picture, taken moments ago, you can barely make out the school itself, never mind downtown. If this cold snap lasts through the weekend, I probably won't be able to see across the street, quite literally, and all those trees in the school yard will disappear.

And yes, it is dangerous to drive in these conditions, especially after dark (3 more hours!) so again, staying indoors with some coffee and hockey games (World Junior quarter-finals people) seems like a good plan.

A wee bit nippy, indeed

2009-01-01T22:41:00.005-07:00

Canadians are obsessed with the weather. It's right up there with hockey as our national sport, a surefire opening gambit at any cocktail party if you're trying to chat up a stranger or make nice with someone you have nothing in common with. Everyone has an opinion on the weather. Northerners are a particular subset of Canadian obsessive in this area. During the Christmas season especially, when winter is usually at its coldest and the sun barely skims the horizon for a paltry four hours and fifty-seven minutes a day (not that we're counting or anything), we all go a little squirrelly over the weather.

Long-time Northerners can pretty much tell what kind of morning it's going to be by looking out the window when they get up. Cloudy, grey and sombre means warm, -20 at the most. Sunny and clear means cold, probably below -25. And around -40, a phenomenon known as ice fog descends over the community and blankets the trees in hoarfrost as the molecular particles of moisture in the air literally freeze, and hang around making it hard to see across the street.

No matter how long I've lived here, I've never gotten used to -40, and neither has my elderly vehicle. This morning, this is what I saw out my living room windows:

Usually, I can see across the school yard to downtown, but today, it was like downtown got erased overnight. At this point, it seemed logical to abandon my plans to go out at all, brew a nice pot of coffee, and curl up on my couch to watch the Winter Classic hockey game on TV. Now, if it warms up this weekend, I'm all set for a round of small talk.

Goodbye 2008, and good riddance to you

2009-01-01T00:15:00.002-07:00

Happy New Year everyone.

2008 was a long, painful, and difficult year. There were times it seemed it would never end. Now, finally, it has, and good riddance to it, I say. Welcome 2009. You bring fresh opportunity and truly a new leaf. I hope you turn out to be everything 2008 was not, and nothing that it was.

Perhaps I will organize my complicated and conflicted thoughts about 2008 and blog about them once I break through the writer's block they seem to have inflicted these past several months, but in the meantime, I look forward to a clean start in the morning, as 2009 truly takes root.

Constitutional crisis or political fiasco?

2008-12-03T21:47:00.004-07:00

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why 10 million Canadian voters didn't bother to vote October 14th.

Not because they're lazy or don't care to exercise their democratic franchise, but because absolutely no one is paying any attention to what really matters to them. While the typical Canadian is worrying about losing their job, their home, and their long-term future, and suddenly contemplating a desperately scaled-back retirement filled with plates of cat food instead of steak, our erstwhile representatives in Ottawa are engaging in an appalling display of partisan bickering instead of focusing on the real work that needs to be done, pronto.

With a planet in economic turmoil and 19 of the G20 countries working on stimulus packages to keep us from falling out of a recession and into a depression, our Parliamentarians are jockeying for position on the deck of the Titanic. PAY ATTENTION, PEOPLE! No matter what deck chair you're in, the boat still sinks in the end.

Always a cynic where conservatives are involved, I have now moved beyond that to outright contempt. Mr. Harper, your petard. Prepare to be hoisted upon it.

Because really, at the end of the day, he has no one to blame but himself. Sure, some folks are trying to make this the Finance Minister's fault, for failing to announce any stimulus package until February's budget (now pushed to late January). But we all know nothing happens in the Conservative universe that hasn't been run by the autocratic control freak leader. So, in a sense, Mr. Harper is the author of his own misfortune, turning an opportunity to demonstrate leadership in a time of crisis into a crisis of another sort. When industries are collapsing and other governments are throwing hundreds of billions of dollars around to try and keep company doors open and people in jobs, this is not the time to try to unilaterally squeeze folks out of their democratic right to strike, or to pay equity, or to attempt to cripple your political opponents by eliminating their funding. I don't remember any of that being in the platform or up for pre-election discussion.

And besides, the country is going to hell in a handbasket. Try to notice the bigger picture, will you?

I have to say this much for the opposition parties - they have finally found an issue they can all agree on. I never expected to see that happen in my lifetime, but here it is, put down on paper and signed off, and everything.

Mr. Harper maintains this coalition agreement is somehow illegal and undemocratic, that no one voted for this. I have news for you. Most Canadians didn't vote for you. Of the nearly 14 million voters who did cast ballots in October, barely five million voted Conservative. In a country of 30 million people, with 23.4 eligible voters. So you're not working from a position of strength here, Sir.

The long-standing problem with our system is that votes don't necessarily translate into seats. The Conservatives take 36.2% of the popular vote, but 46.4% of the seats. The Bloc takes 10% of the vote, but 16% of the seats. The Greens took 6.8% of the vote, but not one seat. You can see where I'm going with this.

The fact of the matter is, in a time of crisis, you want to see MPs putting aside their partisan issues and working together for the good of the country. That's why we elect them in the first place, not to fear-monger and decry legalities (which, interestingly, he wasn't so worried about when the shoe was on the other foot and his party stood to benefit), but to come up with a plan to help us out of the deep water. It's not a real surprise that the last coalition happened in a time of war.

So, Mr. Harper goes on TV tonight trying to save his political future. Does he humble himself and apologize for his misjudgment, and ask everyone to pull together? No. Does he announce plans to stimulate the economy, and deal with the real crisis of the day? No. Does he announce that he will resign as Prime Minister, thereby keeping the Conservatives in power and averting a vote of non-confidence? No. He goes on the attack, using politically hateful language to whip up fear and further divide the country. Way to show leadership. Nice way to demonstrate your grasp of priority. And glad to see you're using all your time and energy to fight a political battle instead of an economic crisis.

Surely, you might say, Mr. Harper has blown off all his toes by now, having shot himself in the foot so spectacularly. But no, there's more. By repeatedly referring to the coalition as a threat to national unity, he has pretty much destroyed the Conservatives' chances of ever winning seats from the Bloc in Quebec. So he's managing to damage his party's future prospects as well as their immediate ones. Nice. And the small issue of the Conservatives trying to strike a similar deal with the Bloc in 2004? Inconvenient detail, best overlooked.

I would like the Conservatives to explain how four parties working together in a five party system (the Greens have also endorsed the coalition) somehow destroys national unity. The only one talking about regional divisions, it seems, is him. Everyone else is talking about pulling together for the good of the country in the face of a crisis. In the space of a weekend, they even managed to come up with a four page plan to stimulate the economy. That's more than the Government's put together is six weeks of "crisis management". Who's unifying what, exactly?

Now, there's talk he will ask the Governor General tomorrow to prorogue Parliament until January, avoiding the non-confidence vote the Conservatives would surely lose on Monday. Not a lot of moral authority in that stance, either.

The great joy of a democracy, I've always thought, is the way a person can effect change simply by voting for it.

Time to face your destiny, My. Harper.

Your petard is waiting.

Democracy inaction

2008-09-08T23:36:00.006-06:00

Please remind me again about how our country is viewed as a beacon of democracy in the world, because I'm not feeling it today.

The largest TV networks in Canada - CBC/Radio Canada, TVA, CTV, and Global - decided today that they would not "allow" Green Party leader Elizabeth May to participate in the televised leaders' debates scheduled for October 1 and 2, largely because three of the four "main" parties threatened not to participate if she took the stage. Leaving aside for the moment how the Bloc Quebecois is considered a "main" party when it only fields candidates in one province, while the Greens have candidates lined up in all 306 ridings across the country and are still considered a fringe element alongside the Communists and Libertarians, it seems to me that in a truly democratic society, there ought to be a free and open exchange of honestly held opinions, and that should especially extend to the leadership debates during an election campaign between all those who want to run our country.

Last time out, the media consortium told May's predecessor that he couldn't participate because the Greens had no seat in Parliament. May fixed that by recruiting a sitting independent last week to sport the Green colours. Now the consortium has changed the criteria - not that they've actually articulated what those criteria are, mind you - and seem to be refusing to allow her entry simply because some of the other players threatened to take their ball and go home.

Let them. Unlike our American neighbours, election campaigns here don't run on for two years, they're only six weeks long. If any leader is truly stupid enough to pass up two evenings of free TV coverage, then let them sit it out. Our media consortium, instead of being truly independent and telling folks, fine, don't participate, rolled over to the collective powers that be and chose to freeze May out instead.

It is posturing like this that has frustrated a significant proportion of the electorate, including me, into giving up on organized politics altogether. There's no leadership being exhibited by anyone when the democratic process, and by extension, the voters themselves, get screwed over by leaders protecting their own self-interests. This is exactly what's wrong with organized politics today - it's not at all concerned about what the electorate wants, it's all positional and protectionist. Pardon me for thinking that an electorate can never have too much information on the issues, and the parties' positions, before casting their ballots. By keeping Elizabeth May and the Green Party out of the leaders debates, the media consortium is depriving voters of a real opportunity to compare the Green platform to the platforms of the other main parties and let them draw their own conclusions.

I understand why the politicians are opposed, as an extra person at the debate takes away from their air time, and some voters looking for something different may be intrigued by the novelty of some of the Green's ideas, but the role of the media is to first, represent the public interest, and two (trotting out an old chestnut) to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Looks like they let us down on both fronts.

***UPDATE*** After a day of uproar, everyone grew a collective brain this afternoon and decided Ms. May could participate after all. Democracy. What a concept.

Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton. She's not even a pale Geraldine Ferraro

2008-09-03T23:34:00.005-06:00

I promised myself I wouldn't get sucked into this.

For the entire Labour Day weekend, I tried to summon enough energy to blog about the Republican National Convention, to no avail. I really just didn't care enough about Sarah Palin to take the time out of my hectic schedule to blog about her.

But then the media frenzy about the pregnant daughter and - gasp! - Palin being a WOMAN took hold and - catnip time. My bad. On one side, we find the folks who say having a second female v-p candidate is a great step forward for women. Obviously, these folks think Palin can steal the pro-Hillary vote from disgruntled female Democrats, largely because anyone with breasts will apparently follow others similarly endowed around without worrying about what's they're actually thinking or doing. Being a woman, it seems, is all the qualification a candidate needs for these votes (by this criteria, I would have blindly supported both Kim Campbell and Maggie Thatcher in the 1980s. Hey, they're chicks and I am too - solidarity forever! (fist pump - "whoooo!" Maybe I should wave a lighter?)). These are probably also the people busy critiquing Ms. Palin's "style" - hair, clothes, and shoes - on TV tonight. Let's not worry about what she might say in her big speech, as long as she looks pretty doing it - just like a good little woman should, beside her (figurative) man. This is progress?

These are also the pundits who are shocked - shocked! - that the media would criticize Ms. Palin for anything. Having breasts apparently also makes you bulletproof (breasts - the versatile accessory!). Imagine. I mean, why would the media possibly be interested in a conservative, pro-life, anti-choice, "kids should practice abstinence and there should be no sex ed and birth control" Republican who has a pregnant, unwed teenage daughter at home hooked up with a self-professed redneck boyfriend? Can't see anything interesting there. Move it along folks, nothing to see here - except a big old train wreck of hypocrisy. If she can't control her own house, should she really be next in line to control the country? If her kids won't listen to her, why should anyone else?

Spin doctoring the media is a big business. Consultants on presidential campaigns earn hundreds of thousands of dollars to see these things coming. It's not like it was a stealth attack out of nowhere. The woman is campaigning on a moral superiority, "family values" ticket. That just begs to be examined with a fine tooth comb. But that examination should apply equally to men and women, Democrats and Republicans, not just the only woman on either ticket.

Which brings me to the other side of things. Related to the "What will she wear? How will she look?" breathless line of media ridiculousness and sexism (why doesn't anyone care about Obama's suits? They're really nice suits, probably handmade) is the overtly sexist questioning of whether or not a mother of five can be vice-president and hockey mom at the same time. No one asks Obama if he can balance work and home life and he's got a pair of kids, 10 and 7. I'm not saying the question shouldn't be asked - but it should be asked of all candidates (OK, Biden and McCain's kids are all grown up, but still). And to be fair, I would expect the men to have their contradictory family lives explored if they made family a campaign issue (did I miss the articles on "family values" partner McCain's infidelity, the screwing around that led to the demise of his first marriage?). Because these issues raise interesting questions about priorities, judgment, and personal ambition, which I think ARE important considerations when choosing a President.

What kind of parent - mother or father - accepts a job offer, fully knowing their kids are going to get dragged into the media spotlight and knowing that because of the parent's espoused politics and the child's contrary conduct, that kid is going to be a lightning rod for public debate?

As we all know, I have no children. But I would like to think that if I did, I would sacrifice my personal ambitions and put protection of my child first, last, and centre. Ms. Palin's daughter is five months along, 17, unwed. Mom's a pro-life, born-again Christian who believes in abstinence. Is mom really so naive/daft/arrogant as to really not understand that the media were going to have a feeding frenzy off this contradiction? Whether they SHOULD have such a feeding frenzy is a totally different issue, but politics is not a nice, clean Sunday afternoon sport. It's right up there with gladiators and bloodletting. And it didn't just start 10 days ago. Mom knew what she was getting into, and she leapt in anyway.

When Ms. Palin was considering the offer, she ought to have also considered what effect this incredible cauldron was going to have on her family. Her daughter hasn't chosen to be involved in any of this - it's been thrust upon her, and she keeps looking like a wounded deer waiting for NRA-mom to finish her off and put her out of her misery. What kind of parent does that to their kid? Where is her judgement? Her sense of priority? To me, that naked ambition is the biggest judgement issue to come out of the past week.

I would feel the same way regardless of Palin's gender. I think it's an incredibly selfish thing for a parent to put their personal ambition above the well-being of their family. I was taken aback when John Edwards continued his run for the Presidency after his wife's cancer recurred (I'm not even going to get into the whole affair thing), and I would have a problem with any candidate who went full steam ahead regardless of the impact on their spouse and kids. I thought the whole point of being a parent was to put your kids first. Apparently that concept of family hasn't caught on with the "family values" crowd.

I'll believe we're making progress when women are chosen because of their capabilities, not their breasts (and there are dozens of American women in the Senate, the House of Representatives, Gubernatorial mansions, and private industry who have wonderful credentials to be vice-president or President, of all political stripes), and when we spend more time evaluating their ideas and their records, and not whether or not they have the right shoes. Wake me up if that ever happens.

Olympic flame extinguished; fire burns still

2008-08-26T21:39:00.004-06:00

Well, the Olympics are over, the flame has been extinguished, the athletes are home with their medals and memories, and the world turns its attention to Vancouver in 2010 and London in 2012.

Over the past 17 days, we heard a lot about the exploits of Michael Phelps, Dara Torres, and Usain Bolt and their ilk, each of their accomplishments touted in the press as "historic achievements". What we didn't hear too much about was the real history in the making, 24-year-old South African swimmer Natalie Du Toit, who placed 16th in the 10km open water swim.

Normally, placing 16th in a field of 24 wouldn't get too much attention. But what makes Ms. Du Toit interesting is that she is the first amputee to compete in the Olympics. Last spring, her countryman Oscar Pistorius, a double amputee who uses a pair of high tech blades for legs, got a lot of press when he lobbied the IOC for permission to use those high tech prosthetics to run in track events. Although his argument eventually prevailed over those who thought his bionic legs gave him an unfair advantage, he rather anti-climatically failed to meet South Africa's criteria for inclusion on its Olympic team and stayed home. While he got all the headlines, Ms. Du Toit was quietly plodding along, coming fourth at the World Open Water Championships in Seville last May, earning her berth on the swim team with minimum fanfare.

It wasn't always like this. Eight years ago, when she was 16, Ms. Du Toit was a promising junior swimmer who had competed in the Commonwealth Games in Malaysia and had been identified as a potential star in South Africa, a country not known for its swimming prowess. She just missed qualifying for the Sydney Olympics in 3 events, and was determined to make the team for Athens in 2004. But leaving practice one day in 2001, she was riding her scooter down a Cape Town street on her way to school when a motorist taking a shortcut through a parking lot plowed into her, damaging her left leg beyond all repair. Although doctors tried for the better part of a week to save it, Du Toit has said in interviews she knew her leg was lost at the accident scene, before the ambulance even arrived, such was the damage.

A lot of people would have given up their Olympic dreams after that, or focused their attention on the Paralympics instead. She did not. Within 18 months of the amputation at the knee, she was back on South Africa's swim team, having qualified for the 800m event at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. She became the first "disabled" person to compete at an elite able-bodied meet.

It soon became apparent to her though, that the loss of her leg would be a problem for short, pool-based distances at such an elite level, since the margin of victory is measured in 100ths of a second, and a strong launch into the pool, turns, and kicks throughout a race are vital to success. She needed an event that depended more on endurance and upper body strength, and less on pushing through with her legs. When the open water event was added to Beijing's lineup, she found her place.

She went to Beijing hoping for a top 10 finish, but, as is so often the case, things didn't go exactly as planned. She had equipment problems and got hung up for a bit on a marker buoy that cost her valuable time. As it was, she finished in 2 hours, 49.9 seconds - a minute 22 seconds behind the gold medalist. Still, she outpaced 9 able-bodied swimmers, and was given no slack by any of her competitors, who lauded her tenacity and ability in the lake. They don't see her as "disabled". To them, Du Toit is simply a fierce competitor, who, on any given day, has the potential to leave them all behind and win.

Du Toit is staying on in Beijing for the moment, preparing for September's Paralympics, where she will defend the five gold she won in 2004. She has become the first athlete to compete in both the Olympics and the Paralympics, a truly historic milestone in an industry that often manufactures history for marketing purposes. She will also have to deal with the politics of some, who feel she should not have competed in the Olympics, because the Paralympics are just as important (but for the differently-abled). While she may well take home more gold in the coming weeks, she is already looking towards London in 2012, determined to show that a "disabled" athlete has just as much potential to be on an Olympic podium as any other elite athlete. I'm looking forward to seeing her realize that dream in four years time, and achieve yet another historic milestone.

I've been memed!

2008-08-07T22:48:00.003-06:00

Well, that's one way to get me blogging more often. It seems I can't resist a challenge - or a dare. Anyone who's met me knows that! So I've been tagged by Megan (see sidebar) to meme. Don't ask me, I don't quite understand the "meme" concept, but the challenge is clearly stated on her blog. It seems all I have to do is answer a few questions - where's the challenge in that?

A) Four places I go over and over: Montreal, Barcelona, Point Reyes and London.

(B) Four people who e-mail me regularly: Judy, Lindsey, Megan and Anne.

(C) Four of my favorite places to eat? I haven't tried the tapas place yet, but it's on my list of things to do come fall. Other than that, I've pretty much given up on local dining. When I'm on the road, I like to go to Bagel Etc. in Montreal, The Real Jerk in Toronto, Cafe Shafali in Ottawa, and I hate to admit it, but I can't walk past a Keg without going in. Oh, and those frites stands in Amsterdam. It's like they have a whole different kind of potato over there.

(D) Four places you’d rather be? Although I'm pretty happy here in Name of Town Withheld, if I could wake up tomorrow totally trilingual, I'd move to Barcelona in a heartbeat. I'm also a big fan of San Francisco, Isla Mujeres, and I'm looking forward to Iceland.

(E) Four TV shows I could watch over and over: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lost, Firefly, and Alias. Yes, I am a Joss Whedon geek AND I like infuriating puzzles.

This tag is supposed to be passed to four people I know in person, and they're supposed to copy the questions, write their own answers, and tag four more people, but Megan already tagged the folks I most expect would respond. Still, I'll add Judy and Lindsey to the list and see if they pick up the meme challenge (tame though it may be).

A steep price for boredom

2008-07-27T21:54:00.006-06:00

So. We've had a fire.

It could have been much, much worse than it was, but it still wasn't great.

There is nothing quite like being awakened from a sound sleep at 4:40 a.m. on Saturday morning to the sound of a high-pitched fire alarm screaming at 140DB from just outside your apartment door, and the immediate sensation of a pair of previously equally sound asleep cats madly scrambling to hide under the bed or in niches of my condo I never knew existed.

My first thought was that some annoying kid or drunk person had pulled the red handle in the hallway and that this was all a false alarm. Then I looked out my window and saw the fire trucks pull up, fire fighters quickly jump out and start running around hooking up hoses, and my neighbours gathering on the opposite curb looking worriedly at something at the opposite end of the building from where I am.

I felt my kitchen door - cool. I peered out my peephole and observed no smoke. So far, so good. I tried to round up the cats to put them in the carrier I keep in the hall closet for just such an emergency, but no luck finding them. They were well and truly hidden. After a few minutes of scrambling around, it became clear to me that my part of the building was in no immediate danger, so I threw on some clothes and joined my neighbours on the street, sans cats.

And that's when I noticed that the entire front portion of the carport wasn't there anymore.

Within a couple of minutes, the fire fighters had brought the fire under control, and within 15 minutes of that, the fire was out. The three stalls closest to the street were totaled, with the roof caved in. Another few spaces up from the street were damaged. Only one vehicle was lost, but it was a total writeoff, to the point where its gas tank exploded. That pickup that looks white? It was navy blue the night before.

The condos I live in are a pair of converted three-storey apartment buildings from the 1960s that were renovated about 10 years ago and turned into condos. The two buildings, known as "A" and "B", are joined by a common wall in the middle that happens to form the outside wall of my bedroom. The carport is at the far end of "B" closest to downtown. The space from the wall of the carport to the wall of "B" is maybe five feet. My neighbours whose bedroom windows open on that wall were the ones who woke up to the sound of firecrackers and realized they could smell smoke and their bedroom windows were glowing orange. They pulled the alarm and ran around banging on some doors, waking up their immediate neighbours.

If it hadn't been for their quick-thinking, or had this happened in winter, when their windows would have been closed to sound and smells, things could have been a lot worse. As it is, most of that wall was scorched right up to the roof. The fire Lieutenant estimated that we came within 2-5 minutes of the fire getting through the side wall and into the roof. At that point, it would have spread virtually uncontrollably, given how old the building is, and that is it mostly made of old, dry timbers.

We were very, very lucky. Although it is hard to feel lucky when the Fire Marshal and RCMP tell you it is probably arson, and likely the work of marauding teenagers, and that the likelihood of their being caught is somewhere between zero and forget about it. Unless one of them feels guilty and confesses, which does happen - sometimes. My question then is, why are teenagers out on the street between 4 and 5 am? Where are their parents? How is it that they are able to wander about wreaking havoc, totally unsupervised?

This moment of teenaged boredom is going to cost our condo insurers about $100K to fix the damage. Not to mention the inconvenience, the fright, and the very real possibility that they could have taken out 25 units and approximately 70 people. And for what, exactly? A cheap thrill? A momentary break from boredom?

I have learned a few things about myself this weekend. Mostly that I, who greatly enjoys my stuff and likes hanging around the house enjoying my stuff, didn't give any thought to my things, except for the cats. I have realized that I need to pull together a folder of important papers to keep in my office or safety deposit box, since I have no master list, and had my condo burned down, I would not know who my home insurer was, what my policy number is, or how to get in touch with them. So next weekend, I am going through my filing cabinets, typing out a list of all that information, and scanning my policies and key documents to PDF files, which will then go on a jump drive, in my safety deposit box.

Apart from this list of important information, the only other thing I would be devastated to lose would be my computer, with over 10,000 digital photos that have never been printed out. So, Saturday afternoon, I headed over to our big box store and bought a 160GB portable hard drive, barely bigger than a pack of smokes. I will copy my computer hard drive over to this, and the portable drive will also go into the safety deposit box. I will have to force myself to periodically schedule updates, but that can be done.

And then once all these things are in my bank vault, should anything like this ever happen again, I will only need to grab some clothes and track down the cats, and run. As much as I love my stuff, everything is replaceable.

Duh da duh da da...NOT

2008-07-18T21:50:00.004-06:00

Oh my sweet God.

Not only did the Mother Corp orchestrate the biggest management blunder of the decade earlier this year when, in a fit of pique over paying an old lady more than $500 a night, it let the revered Hockey Night in Canada theme slip through its fingers - and right into the hands of their biggest hockey broadcast rival, CTV-owned TSN - but it has been spending the summer holding a contest to find a replacement theme song.

So far, this is the frontrunner: http://anthemchallenge.cbc.ca/mediadetail/257425

As the Globe and Mail incredulously described it this morning, "The Internet has spoken: The next Hockey Night in Canada theme should sound a lot like a baby riding an unco-operative sheep through an industrial grinder."

You may have a hard time imagining what that sounds like - I did - but once you click on the link and listen to the entire thing, you'll find it's actually a pretty accurate encapsulation of the frontrunner. Some of us may only hear a collection of random sounds. Apparently, many others who probably also like early Phillip Glass and the sounds of Iceland think this is stellar, avant-garde work.

Either that, or the Facebook crowd is perpetrating the biggest internet hoax since "Bob" was the runaway winner in a contest to rename the Northwest Territories in 1999 after the creation of Nunavut.

Will some patriotic Canadian who understands both music and hockey please, please, please whip up some 30 second theme song we won't cry over every Saturday night?

***UPDATE****

Many of the Globe's loyal readers seem to feel the inclusion of the bleating sheep is a tip of the metaphoric hat to the Toronto-centric nature of the HNIC broadcast. Of course, many of the other posters had quite rude suggestions about the sheep, Don Cherry and CBC top brass. There may also have been a goat, and possibly Woody Allen.

Anyone and Everyone

2008-06-14T00:20:00.005-06:00

Flipping around the TV tonight after coming home late, I happened upon a riveting documentary on PBS called "Anyone and Everyone". It was made by a Colorado mom with no filmmaking experience after her son came out to her. As a film, it is no work of art, but the interviews it features, with parents and young adults from communities that have a particularly difficult time dealing with the issue of homosexuality - Chinese immigrants, Mormons, Catholics, Puerto Ricans, Cherokee, Baptist, and more - are so incredibly moving, it is impossible not to watch.

What unites these diverse stories is both the hopefulness of the parents who have embraced their children, and their incredible sadness when their extended families are unable to join them there, for cultural or religious reasons. It was absolutely gut-wrenching to watch a middle-aged Republican Mormon mom talk about how her eventual acceptance of her son's homosexuality created a deep rift with her own parents, who just could not bridge the gap and understand that their grandson, upon whom they had doted until he came out, was now a gay pariah in his own church. The division was so strong, that when their daughter was married, the grandparents could not be invited because the bride did not want to deal with their prejudice about her brother on her wedding day. The mom also described going to a funeral with her daughter for one of the girl's high school friends, a young man who had struggled privately with his orientation but who just couldn't come to terms and come out, and who finally killed himself from despair. She says that as she sat in that church watching the friends and relatives of this young man truly grieve his loss, she wondered if they understood how their powerful attitudes about homosexuality had constructed the societal box that eventually suffocated him.

It shocks me that such a film still needed to be made in 2007, but as one Seattle lesbian put it, not everyone gets to live in a big city on an American coast. This film is for those folks and their families. For the 25% of gay youth who are thrown out of the family home when they dare to reveal their true selves to the very people who should most protect them. For the 40% of homeless youth who are on the street because they have been abandoned by those who should love them. For the Matthew Shepards who are beaten to death by their peers simply because they are different. For the kids who get stuffed in lockers and called "fag" and "queer" in high school. And for the kids who despite all of this, are still able to be honest and true to themselves. And for the families who sometimes have to choose, and who choose their child over all others.

The trailer for this extraordinary film can be seen here: http://www.anyoneandeveryone.com

Make It Stop!

2008-06-12T19:27:00.001-06:00

AARRGGHHHHHH!!!!

This is what I'm talking about. Quick, how many aggravating features can you find in the photo?

Taking a bite out of history

2008-06-01T17:42:00.004-06:00

This morning I joined friends for brunch at the Wildcat Cafe here in Name of Town Withheld. I love the Wildcat - so much so, that I have made it a point to eat there as much as possible, every summer for the past 19 summers. Today, however, I made the trip down to Old Town against my better judgment, because I intend to boycott the Cafe this summer, in protest of management's arrogance in tampering with a valued historic site.

The Wildcat Cafe is a landmark. It was the first restaurant anglo-Canadian settlers to these parts built, back in 1937. In the early days, bush pilots, prospectors, trappers and miners gathered at the Wildcat for a good meal after days or weeks out in the field. The hotel next door was where these guys usually stayed, and the Wildcat was the centre of the small Northern universe then expanding between the Wars.

As the city prospered, the Cafe fell into disuse, eventually closing up in the 1950s. It was about to be demolished in the 1970s when the Old Stope Association was founded by a group of volunteers to refurbish the Cafe and recognize its historic significance in what had been the commercial heart of the City back in the 30s and 40s. Since 1979, the Cafe has been open from Victoria Day to Labour Day, serving Northern fare to locals and tourists alike. Such is its place in Canadian history that a full scale replica can be visited at the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa.

In 1992, the Wildcat was designated a City Heritage Building, and there is a bronze plaque affixed to its outer wall recounting its history to all passersby. The City owns the Cafe, and the non-profit Old Stope Association handles the operations side. The City also receives input from the Wildcat Cafe Advisory Committee, whose mandate is to promote the successful, cost effective
operation of the Wildcat Café as a living heritage dining establishment.

Every couple of years, the City puts out an RFP asking local business persons to bid to operate the Cafe. Last year, a fellow who markets himself as "Chef Pierre" and who owns several other Gallic-themed establishments in Name of Town Withheld, won a two-year contract. What has irritated me (and not just me, I'm discovering), is his insistence on Gallicizing the Wildcat to become "le Wildcat Cafe" in all his promotional materials, including menus and T-shirts, and his advertisements in the local paper.

I understand that he is doing this in accordance with his bigger "branding" approach, so all his businesses conform to the same French theme. And if this were a new establishment, I would have no problem with it, because I do like his other operations. No, what irritates the bejeepers out of me about this move is the complete lack of respect for the history of the place. French people have never played a significant role in the Wildcat's history. It's original founders were anglo-Canadians. At its most popular, in the 1940s, it was owned and operated by a Chinese fellow who did not change the name from its original. In fact, through all of its various incarnations, ownerships, and menus, it has remained steadfastly the Wildcat Cafe. Until now.

Had Chef Pierre bought the Cafe, perhaps I wouldn't take such offence to his arrogance, but he doesn't own the Cafe, the City does. It is already a brand - a tourist-friendly log cabin seen in hundreds of photos all over the world. There is no room for him to squeeze out a tried and true brand to insert his own. His failure to understand why people have their knickers in a knot is the most annoying of all. Perhaps in addition to boycotting the Cafe this summer, we should take to referring to all his other businesses by anglicized names - it wouldn't completely have the same effect, but I expect it would irritate Chef Pierre that we were messing with his marketing brand. Perhaps then he would come to understand some of what the fuss is about.

So where is the City in all of this brouhaha in the local media? Is it asserting itself as owner and insisting Chef Pierre conform? Nope. As per usual practice, the City has been incredibly quiet through the spring, making no public comment, and sitting on its hands while the citizenry objects. Surely a living heritage establishment deserves better than this abdication of responsibility by its public owners?

A parting word to Chef Pierre - for a man so interested in Gallicizing the North, surely you know that, if you're really serious about making the Wildcat French, it really ought to be "le chat sauvage" ? Do it right, or don't do it at all.

A little island time is good for the soul....

2008-05-04T15:34:00.009-06:00

I have returned from a wonderful, restful Carribbean idyll, and I thought I'd share a few photos. First, the view from the apartment I rented:

The extremely shallow bay, coupled with incredibly white sand, renders the water the most delightful colour:

To get to the island, you have to take a ferry from Cancun:

Twenty years ago, the local fisherman's cooperative created a turtle research facility to help rebuild the populations of three types of endangered species who lay their eggs each spring on the island's beaches. The research facility is open to the public, and you can visit with the baby turtles:

We took a day trip to Tulum:

April in Mexico is scorchingly hot - even this blackbird on a hot tin roof was having a hard time with the heat:

I never tire of looking at this incredible water (that's Cancun in the distance).

I now return you to your regularly scheduled weather.

At long last, an apology

2008-02-14T21:28:00.006-07:00

On the other side of the planet yesterday, something most Australians thought would never happen, happened.

Their national government apologized to the Indigenous peoples of the country for the century-long, state-wrought destruction of entire families and communities whose children were forcibly removed in a vast eugenics experiment inflicted upon those who didn't seem "black enough" to be fully accepted in their Indigenous culture.

These "Stolen Generations" of Aboriginal children were essentially kidnapped under paternalistic British laws and made wards of the State, not because they had bad parents, but because the State arbitrarily decided their lighter skin put them at risk of harm from their own communities. Lighter-skinned children, the thinking went, would be more likely to be fostered or adopted by non-Aboriginal parents, and they stood a better chance of being assimilated into White Australia. In reality, most of these children weren't adopted or fostered out. Instead, they grew up in orphanages and internment camps, stripped of their language, their culture, and their spiritual practices. Many also endured years of physical and sexual abuse, compounding the emotional torment and devastation of being torn from their families and all that was familiar. One woman from Alice Springs told the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday that she could still remember the names of her three playmates who were scooped up by Lutherans one summer afternoon sixty years ago. The four children were playing in the Outback dust while their parents were at work when suddenly, a white car pulled up, men got out, grabbed the other three kids, and then were gone. For years she lived in fear that one day, the men would be back for her, too.

In 1997, the 700-page "Bringing Them Home" report was published after two years of public inquiry, setting out personal stories that vividly capture the horrors experienced by tens of thousands of children, and the lingering effects this treatment had upon them throughout their lives.

Despite this report, which called for both an apology and reparations, the Conservative PM of the day, John Howard, steadfastly refused to apologize for the actions of preceding governments, going only so far as to issue a Statement of Regret.

Howard's government was finally defeated by the Labour Party late last fall. Yesterday's apology was the first act of the new PM, Kevid Rudd, when Parliament opened (it opened, by the way, with an Indigenous "welcome to country" ceremony, the first time local Aborigines have ever been included in the opening ceremonies). Howard's successor as Conservative leader endorsed the apology, meaning the motion passed unanimously.

In the decade since the Bringing Them Home report, individual Australian states had made apologies, and some offered settlements, but the symbolic acceptance of the collective historical shame by the national government had been elusive. Although there is no plan to offer any financial compensation at this point, the willingness of Rudd to make a clear, no holds barred apology recognizes what Howard would not: that a country cannot heal itself of a painful and shameful legacy until it acknowledges the truth in all its ugliness and expresses its sincere regret.

This is the full text of Prime Minister Rudd's extraordinary speech to the Australian Parliament:

"Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.

We reflect on their past mistreatment.

We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations - this blemished chapter in our nation's history.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.

For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.

We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.

A future where this parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.

A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, indigenous and non-indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.

A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.

A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.

A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.

There comes a time in the history of nations when their peoples must become fully reconciled to their past if they are to go forward with confidence to embrace their future.

Our nation, Australia, has reached such a time.

That is why the Parliament is today here assembled: to deal with this unfinished business of the nation, to remove a great stain from the nation's soul and, in a true spirit of reconciliation, to open a new chapter in the history of this great land, Australia.

Last year I made a commitment to the Australian people that if we formed the next government of the Commonwealth we would in Parliament say sorry to the stolen generations.

Today I honour that commitment.

I said we would do so early in the life of the new Parliament.

Again, today I honour that commitment by doing so at the commencement of this the 42nd Parliament of the Commonwealth.

Because the time has come, well and truly come, for all peoples of our great country, for all citizens of our great Commonwealth, for all Australians - those who are Indigenous and those who are not - to come together to reconcile and together build a new future for our nation.

Some have asked, Why apologise?

Let me begin to answer by telling the Parliament just a little of one person's story - an elegant, eloquent and wonderful woman in her 80s, full of life, full of funny stories, despite what has happened in her life's journey, a woman who has travelled a long way to be with us today, a member of the stolen generation who shared some of her story with me when I called around to see her just a few days ago.

Nanna Nungala Fejo, as she prefers to be called, was born in the late 1920s.

She remembers her earliest childhood days living with her family and her community in a bush camp just outside Tennant Creek.

She remembers the love and the warmth and the kinship of those days long ago, including traditional dancing around the camp fire at night.

She loved the dancing. She remembers once getting into strife when, as a four-year-old girl, she insisted on dancing with the male tribal elders rather than just sitting and watching the men, as the girls were supposed to do.

But then, sometime around 1932, when she was about four, she remembers the coming of the welfare men.

Her family had feared that day and had dug holes in the creek bank where the children could run and hide.

What they had not expected was that the white welfare men did not come alone. They brought a truck, two white men and an Aboriginal stockman on horseback cracking his stockwhip.

The kids were found; they ran for their mothers, screaming, but they could not get away. They were herded and piled onto the back of the truck. Tears flowing, her mum tried clinging to the sides of the truck as her children were taken away to the Bungalow in Alice (Springs), all in the name of protection.

A few years later, government policy changed. Now the children would be handed over to the missions to be cared for by the churches. But which church would care for them?

The kids were simply told to line up in three lines. Nanna Fejo and her sister stood in the middle line, her older brother and cousin on her left. Those on the left were told that they had become Catholics, those in the middle Methodists and those on the right Church of England.

That is how the complex questions of post-reformation theology were resolved in the Australian outback in the 1930s. It was as crude as that.

She and her sister were sent to a Methodist mission on Goulburn Island and then Croker Island. Her Catholic brother was sent to work at a cattle station and her cousin to a Catholic mission.

Nanna Fejo's family had been broken up for a second time. She stayed at the mission until after the war, when she was allowed to leave for a prearranged job as a domestic in Darwin. She was 16. Nanna Fejo never saw her mum again.

After she left the mission, her brother let her know that her mum had died years before, a broken woman fretting for the children that had literally been ripped away from her.

I asked Nanna Fejo what she would have me say today about her story. She thought for a few moments then said that what I should say today was that all mothers are important. And she added: Families - keeping them together is very important. It's a good thing that you are surrounded by love and that love is passed down the generations. That's what gives you happiness.

As I left, later on, Nanna Fejo took one of my staff aside, wanting to make sure that I was not too hard on the Aboriginal stockman who had hunted those kids down all those years ago.

The stockman had found her again decades later, this time himself to say, Sorry. And remarkably, extraordinarily, she had forgiven him.

Nanna Fejo's is just one story.

There are thousands, tens of thousands of them: stories of forced separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their mums and dads over the better part of a century.

Some of these stories are graphically told in Bringing Them Home, the report commissioned in 1995 by Prime Minister Keating and received in 1997 by Prime Minister Howard.

There is something terribly primal about these firsthand accounts. The pain is searing; it screams from the pages. The hurt, the humiliation, the degradation and the sheer brutality of the act of physically separating a mother from her children is a deep assault on our senses and on our most elemental humanity.

These stories cry out to be heard; they cry out for an apology.

Instead, from the nation's Parliament there has been a stony, stubborn and deafening silence for more than a decade; a view that somehow we, the Parliament, should suspend our most basic instincts of what is right and what is wrong; a view that, instead, we should look for any pretext to push this great wrong to one side, to leave it languishing with the historians, the academics and the cultural warriors, as if the stolen generations are little more than an interesting sociological phenomenon.

But the stolen generations are not intellectual curiosities. They are human beings, human beings who have been damaged deeply by the decisions of parliaments and governments. But, as of today, the time for denial, the time for delay, has at last come to an end.

The nation is demanding of its political leadership to take us forward.

Decency, human decency, universal human decency, demands that the nation now step forward to right an historical wrong. That is what we are doing in this place today.

But should there still be doubts as to why we must now act, let the Parliament reflect for a moment on the following facts: that, between 1910 and 1970, between 10 and 30 per cent of indigenous children were forcibly taken from their mothers and fathers; that, as a result, up to 50,000 children were forcibly taken from their families; that this was the product of the deliberate, calculated policies of the state as reflected in the explicit powers given to them under statute; that this policy was taken to such extremes by some in administrative authority that the forced extractions of children of so-called mixed lineage were seen as part of a broader policy of dealing with the problem of the Aboriginal population.

One of the most notorious examples of this approach was from the Northern Territory Protector of Natives, who stated:

"Generally by the fifth and invariably by the sixth generation, all native characteristics of the Australian Aborigine are eradicated. The problem of our half-castes" - to quote the protector - "will quickly be eliminated by the complete disappearance of the black race, and the swift submergence of their progeny in the white."

The Western Australian Protector of Natives expressed not dissimilar views, expounding them at length in Canberra in 1937 at the first national conference on indigenous affairs that brought together the Commonwealth and state protectors of natives.

These are uncomfortable things to be brought out into the light. They are not pleasant. They are profoundly disturbing.

But we must acknowledge these facts if we are to deal once and for all with the argument that the policy of generic forced separation was somehow well motivated, justified by its historical context and, as a result, unworthy of any apology today.

Then we come to the argument of intergenerational responsibility, also used by some to argue against giving an apology today.

But let us remember the fact that the forced removal of Aboriginal children was happening as late as the early 1970s.

The 1970s is not exactly a point in remote antiquity. There are still serving members of this parliament who were first elected to this place in the early 1970s.

It is well within the adult memory span of many of us.

The uncomfortable truth for us all is that the parliaments of the nation, individually and collectively, enacted statutes and delegated authority under those statutes that made the forced removal of children on racial grounds fully lawful.

There is a further reason for an apology as well: it is that reconciliation is in fact an expression of a core value of our nation - and that value is a fair go for all.

There is a deep and abiding belief in the Australian community that, for the stolen generations, there was no fair go at all.

There is a pretty basic Aussie belief that says that it is time to put right this most outrageous of wrongs.

It is for these reasons, quite apart from concerns of fundamental human decency, that the governments and parliaments of this nation must make this apology - because, put simply, the laws that our parliaments enacted made the stolen generations possible.

We, the parliaments of the nation, are ultimately responsible, not those who gave effect to our laws. And the problem lay with the laws themselves.

As has been said of settler societies elsewhere, we are the bearers of many blessings from our ancestors; therefore we must also be the bearer of their burdens as well.

Therefore, for our nation, the course of action is clear: that is, to deal now with what has become one of the darkest chapters in Australia's history.

In doing so, we are doing more than contending with the facts, the evidence and the often rancorous public debate.

In doing so, we are also wrestling with our own soul.

This is not, as some would argue, a black-armband view of history; it is just the truth: the cold, confronting, uncomfortable truth - facing it, dealing with it, moving on from it.

Until we fully confront that truth, there will always be a shadow hanging over us and our future as a fully united and fully reconciled people.

It is time to reconcile. It is time to recognise the injustices of the past. It is time to say sorry. It is time to move forward together.

To the stolen generations, I say the following: as Prime Minister of Australia, I am sorry.

On behalf of the government of Australia, I am sorry.

On behalf of the Parliament of Australia, I am sorry.

I offer you this apology without qualification.

We apologise for the hurt, the pain and suffering that we, the Parliament, have caused you by the laws that previous Parliaments have enacted.

We apologise for the indignity, the degradation and the humiliation these laws embodied.

We offer this apology to the mothers, the fathers, the brothers, the sisters, the families and the communities whose lives were ripped apart by the actions of successive governments under successive parliaments.

In making this apology, I would also like to speak personally to the members of the stolen generations and their families: to those here today, so many of you; to those listening across the nation - from Yuendumu, in the central west of the Northern Territory, to Yabara, in North Queensland, and to Pitjantjatjara in South Australia.

I know that, in offering this apology on behalf of the government and the Parliament, there is nothing I can say today that can take away the pain you have suffered personally.

Whatever words I speak today, I cannot undo that.

Words alone are not that powerful; grief is a very personal thing.

I ask those non-indigenous Australians listening today who may not fully understand why what we are doing is so important to imagine for a moment that this had happened to you.

I say to honourable members here present: imagine if this had happened to us. Imagine the crippling effect. Imagine how hard it would be to forgive.

My proposal is this: if the apology we extend today is accepted in the spirit of reconciliation, in which it is offered, we can today resolve together that there be a new beginning for Australia.

And it is to such a new beginning that I believe the nation is now calling us.

Australians are a passionate lot. We are also a very practical lot.

For us, symbolism is important but, unless the great symbolism of reconciliation is accompanied by an even greater substance, it is little more than a clanging gong.

It is not sentiment that makes history; it is our actions that make history.

Today's apology, however inadequate, is aimed at righting past wrongs.

It is also aimed at building a bridge between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians - a bridge based on a real respect rather than a thinly veiled contempt.

Our challenge for the future is to cross that bridge and, in so doing, to embrace a new partnership between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians - to embrace, as part of that partnership, expanded Link-up and other critical services to help the stolen generations to trace their families if at all possible and to provide dignity to their lives.

But the core of this partnership for the future is to close the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians on life expectancy, educational achievement and employment opportunities.

This new partnership on closing the gap will set concrete targets for the future: within a decade to halve the widening gap in literacy, numeracy and employment outcomes and opportunities for indigenous Australians, within a decade to halve the appalling gap in infant mortality rates between indigenous and non-indigenous children and, within a generation, to close the equally appalling 17-year life gap between indigenous and non-indigenous in overall life expectancy.

The truth is: a business as usual approach towards indigenous Australians is not working.

Most old approaches are not working.

We need a new beginning, a new beginning which contains real measures of policy success or policy failure; a new beginning, a new partnership, on closing the gap with sufficient flexibility not to insist on a one-size-fits-all approach for each of the hundreds of remote and regional indigenous communities across the country but instead allowing flexible, tailored, local approaches to achieve commonly-agreed national objectives that lie at the core of our proposed new partnership; a new beginning that draws intelligently on the experiences of new policy settings across the nation.

However, unless we as a Parliament set a destination for the nation, we have no clear point to guide our policy, our programs or our purpose; we have no centralised organising principle.

Let us resolve today to begin with the little children, a fitting place to start on this day of apology for the stolen generations.

Let us resolve over the next five years to have every indigenous four-year-old in a remote Aboriginal community enrolled in and attending a proper early childhood education centre or opportunity and engaged in proper preliteracy and prenumeracy programs.

Let us resolve to build new educational opportunities for these little ones, year by year, step by step, following the completion of their crucial preschool year.

Let us resolve to use this systematic approach to build future educational opportunities for indigenous children to provide proper primary and preventive health care for the same children, to begin the task of rolling back the obscenity that we find today in infant mortality rates in remote indigenous communities up to four times higher than in other communities.

None of this will be easy. Most of it will be hard, very hard. But none of it is impossible, and all of it is achievable with clear goals, clear thinking, and by placing an absolute premium on respect, cooperation and mutual responsibility as the guiding principles of this new partnership on closing the gap.

The mood of the nation is for reconciliation now, between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. The mood of the nation on Indigenous policy and politics is now very simple.

The nation is calling on us, the politicians, to move beyond our infantile bickering, our point-scoring and our mindlessly partisan politics and to elevate this one core area of national responsibility to a rare position beyond the partisan divide.

Surely this is the unfulfilled spirit of the 1967 referendum. Surely, at least from this day forward, we should give it a go.

Let me take this one step further and take what some may see as a piece of political posturing and make a practical proposal to the opposition on this day, the first full sitting day of the new Parliament.

I said before the election that the nation needed a kind of war cabinet on parts of Indigenous policy, because the challenges are too great and the consequences are too great to allow it all to become a political football, as it has been so often in the past.

I therefore propose a joint policy commission, to be led by the Leader of the Opposition and me, with a mandate to develop and implement, to begin with, an effective housing strategy for remote communities over the next five years.

It will be consistent with the government's policy framework, a new partnership for closing the gap. If this commission operates well, I then propose that it work on the further task of constitutional recognition of the first Australians, consistent with the longstanding platform commitments of my party and the pre-election position of the opposition.

This would probably be desirable in any event because, unless such a proposition were absolutely bipartisan, it would fail at a referendum. As I have said before, the time has come for new approaches to enduring problems.

Working constructively together on such defined projects would, I believe, meet with the support of the nation. It is time for fresh ideas to fashion the nation's future.

Mr Speaker, today the Parliament has come together to right a great wrong. We have come together to deal with the past so that we might fully embrace the future. We have had sufficient audacity of faith to advance a pathway to that future, with arms extended rather than with fists still clenched.

So let us seize the day. Let it not become a moment of mere sentimental reflection.

Let us take it with both hands and allow this day, this day of national reconciliation, to become one of those rare moments in which we might just be able to transform the way in which the nation thinks about itself, whereby the injustice administered to the stolen generations in the name of these, our parliaments, causes all of us to reappraise, at the deepest level of our beliefs, the real possibility of reconciliation writ large: reconciliation across all indigenous Australia; reconciliation across the entire history of the often bloody encounter between those who emerged from the Dreamtime a thousand generations ago and those who, like me, came across the seas only yesterday; reconciliation which opens up whole new possibilities for the future.

It is for the nation to bring the first two centuries of our settled history to a close, as we begin a new chapter. We embrace with pride, admiration and awe these great and ancient cultures we are truly blessed to have among us cultures that provide a unique, uninterrupted human thread linking our Australian continent to the most ancient prehistory of our planet.

Growing from this new respect, we see our indigenous brothers and sisters with fresh eyes, with new eyes, and we have our minds wide open as to how we might tackle, together, the great practical challenges that Indigenous Australia faces in the future.

Let us turn this page together: indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, government and opposition, Commonwealth and state, and write this new chapter in our nation's story together.

First Australians, First Fleeters, and those who first took the oath of allegiance just a few weeks ago. Let's grasp this opportunity to craft a new future for this great land: Australia. I commend the motion to the House."

There is an excellent multimedia presentation of PM Rudd's speech with powerful images of the day on the Herald's website: http://www.smh.com.au

The full 700 pages of the Bringing Them Home report can be downloaded for free at: http://www.humanrights.gov.au/social_justice/bth_report/index.html

Uno Rules!

2008-02-12T21:02:00.008-07:00

Or, the Top 10 Things I Learned Watching the 2008 Westminster Dog Show

1. Beagles are the cutest. dogs. ever.
2. Topiary should be restricted to shrubs. Dogs are not shrubs.
3. It is OK to groom your dog while the judge is examining it
4. Tails make convenient handles for lifting smaller dogs on and off podiums
5. Handlers sometimes "handle" their dogs in inappropriate places
6. 20,000 people will pay a lot of money to watch dogs be judged by people who never explain what they're doing or what they're looking for
7. No matter how smart the suit, if you're a handler, sensible shoes are a must
8. Handlers keep extra dog treats in their own mouths
9. Sleeker dogs are more attractive than overly furry ones (except for Westies and Akitas)
10. There are a lot of breeds of dog most people have never heard of

The final seven dogs (deemed best in each of their respective categories) faced off for Best in Show tonight. Personally, I don't know how you would choose between such disparate dogs as an Australian Shepherd, an Akita, a Beagle, both a Standard and a Toy Poodle, a Weimaraner, and a Sealyham Terrier. Following on point #9, above, however, had I been judging, I would have quickly ruled out the two poodles, who really ought to have been on pedestals outside a manor house rather than actually breathing and running around in circles. There is something overtly ridiculous about shivering & naked animals with random poofs of white fur clumped in weird places on their bodies.

And I don't even want to talk about how they groom their heads! It's like Roman warrior poodles! Embarrassing, for both the animal and all people involved. It looks like the poor things were trying to keep warm and accidentally spilled giant sized cotton balls on themselves.

Overall, I wasn't impressed by the terriers either, many of whom can't see where they are going, and who often have rough and unwieldy coats. As the commentator put it last night, when the Terriers competed amongst themselves, "Terriers feel superior and can be difficult to handle because they're bossy." Um. Yeah. And they aren't attractive either.

So that left the Shepherd, the Akita, the Beagle, and the Weimaraner. Each of them was appropriately handsome and well-behaved. The Akita had spectacular fur, but the Beagle (a 15" Beagle - I guess there are different kinds) had personality. Lots, and lots, of personality. He was certainly the crowd favorite, running laps around the hockey arena to the cheers of the crowd. Considering this is basically a beauty pageant for dogs, there is A LOT of running, for both dog and handler. Ergo the sensible shoes. You wouldn't want to trip and draw attention away from your animal. That would be a career-ender. (And yes - people do apparently have careers as professional dog handlers. Funny, I don't remember that being on the high school aptitude test.)

I only started watching the Westminster show last year. I like dogs, but I still don't understand why you groom and fluff them up only to run them around a hockey arena in the hopes of scoring a four foot long fancy ribbon (seriously, the prize was three times the size of Uno, the Best in Show Beagle). It's not like they're being evaluated for their effectiveness as working/herding dogs, or their suitability as family pets. In fact, to the casual observer (like myself), it's not entirely clear what the criteria are. There's some vague talk by the colour commentators about the standards of the breed, but no one ever tells you what those are or even puts a chart up on the TV screen so you can armchair evaluate each animal for yourself. The judges don't seem to talk, or if they do, they aren't miked, so we don't know what they're saying. They spend about 20 seconds with each dog, looking in its mouth, running their hands over its chest and along its back, and then having the handlers run the dog back and forth and then pose the animal, one presumes to assess their lines. It's pretty much as mysterious a process as watching someone else assess a used car. This is particularly daunting during the class competition, when there are dozens of say, terriers, and a viewer has absolutely no idea what makes one a winner, and one, well, a dog. And no one ever explains how the dogs get ranked after all these 20-second evaluations either.

All in all, it's an odd process. Not quite as odd as the National Cat Show held every October, also at Madison Square Garden, where virtually ever entrant is fluffed and groomed until the "greeting cards for five-year-old girls and elderly grandmas" quotient is off the chart, but it comes close. I prefer my pets au naturel, thank you very much, looking more like they'd enjoy a romp through the park on a Sunday afternoon, and less like princesses afraid of a wee spot of dirt. More like Uno, or as he's formally known, K-Run's Park Me in First:

UPDATE: I learned today from reading the press coverage of Uno's victory that he is the first Beagle in the 132 year history of the Westminster Dog Show to win Best in Show. Excellent! Here he is enjoying his prize:

Do copywriters have grammar-check?

2008-02-10T17:28:00.000-07:00

It must be February, because I am even crankier than usual. We're entering our third week of -40ish temperatures, and I realize that's enough to make anyone cranky, but it seems to be having a particularly strong effect on me this year. A week of flu probably hasn't helped matters, but I find that when this seasonal bitchiness sets in, it's helpful to buy some trashy magazines, take my phone off the hook, pour a cup of tea, and slip into my fuzzy slippers. There's probably a blanket involved as well.

So imagine how irritated I was to be yanked out of my trashy blissfulness while thumbing through this week's Entertainment Weekly by the ad on page 58. It's a public service announcement about chronic kidney disease, which is noble enough, but the main part of the text says:

"Most of us would know if they were missing half our money or missing half our friends."

This is a full page ad in a major national magazine. It is sponsored by the National Kidney Foundation, a major American charity. The ad is expensive. And grammatically incorrect. At the risk of taking a page out of LMKIA's book (or magazine), it irritates the bejeepers out of me when people, even copywriters, mix their third and second person plurals, and don't understand the basics of lists. Glen, I'm borrowing the withering look of disapproval (TM). Grrr....

THIS is what passes for reporting these days?

2008-01-23T23:26:00.000-07:00

Or, How I'm glad I got out of the news biz when I did.

Unless you've been living in a cave the past couple of days, you know actor Heath Ledger died on Tuesday afternoon at his home in Manhattan. Apart from that, really, we don't know much of anything yet, as an initial autopsy was inconclusive and toxicology and histology reports will take 10-14 days to complete.

BUT - if you've been watching American news, you will have heard:

1. The apartment he was renting was owned by Mary-Kate Olsen (later disproved)
2. Ledger committed suicide (undetermined, but no note or other "suicide markers" according to police)
3. Drug paraphenalia, including a rolled up $20 bill with drug residue, was found at the scene (not true, say police. While a rolled $20 bill was found, tests show no drug residue of any kind; police statement says no illegal drugs or liquor found in the apartment.)
4. Sleeping pills were "strewn about" the room (not so, say police. Prescription medications were found, but not strewn about)
5. Time.com's article on his passing is titled "Heath Ledger: Star in Distress". Really? Distress? Based on what, exactly? The article doesn't explain.
6. Ledger's physical discomfort with being interviewed may have been the result of a drug problem (as opposed to being shy and not interested in the celebrity game, which was the line on him until Tuesday morning)

Now, it may well be that when those reports come in, the levels of toxins in his body may well support one or more of the prevailing theories being tossed around. But that doesn't make the theories true RIGHT NOW. Right now, everything is speculation, backed with every tabloid's best friend, the unnamed source.

It used to be a rule in the journalism business that you didn't publish anything without two named sources confirming the information. How quaint and old-school a concept. It's one thing for tabloids to sensationalize something like this to sell magazines or boost viewership, but when the odious Nancy Grace dedicates an hour on CNN (which is supposed to be an all-news station, but is moving more and more to being the electronic equivalent of the News of The World [can alien photos really be far behind?]) to interviewing people like the editor of In Touch magazine about Ledger's "well-known substance abuse problem", the end of days is truly nigh.

Everywhere, it seems, unnamed sources "close to the family" are running their disrespectful mouths off about all manner of far-flung scenarios without any actual information to back any of it up. We used to call this "gossip". Now apparently, it's "news".

I feel like I need to take an extra-long shower.

For those of you who might prefer to remember Ledger's work, instead of the lurid speculation of this week, here's an article from Slate:

We interrupt this program....

2008-01-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

Please bear with me. For Christmas, my home computer decided its gift to me would be to die unexpectedly, so it has been shipped out to Edmonton for repair or burial (a diagnosis is pending). So there won't be any posts for a while, but I will be back eventually....patience is one of those New Year's resolutions we can all work on in the interim...

18 ans plus tard, je me souviens

2007-12-06T22:01:00.000-07:00

Geneviève Bergeron, 21
Hélène Colgan, 23
Nathalie Croteau, 23
Barbara Daigneault, 22
Anne-Marie Edward, 21
Maud Haviernick, 29
Barbara Maria Klucznik, 31
Maryse Leclair, 23
Annie St-Arneault, 23
Michèle Richard, 21
Maryse Laganière, 25
Anne-Marie Lemay, 22
Sonia Pelletier, 28
Annie Turcotte, 21

Rebuild New Orleans for Christmas

2007-12-03T14:50:00.000-07:00

I am infuriated.

I can't understand why there hasn't been rioting in the streets of America over the government's continuing disregard for the rebuilding of New Orleans, 27 months after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. There are two articles in today's New York Times that, taken together, paint a frustrating picture of the U.S. government's criminal ineptitude in responding to the needs of the mainly poor, mostly black, displaced residents of a spectacular cultural gem whose rebuilding ought to be a main priority of an adminstration that is instead obsessed with what is happening half a planet away, at the expense of its own citizens. (read them here and here . )

Last week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, began evicting displaced residents from the trailers FEMA provided to them last year as makeshift homes. Leaving aside for the moment the fact that FEMA took nearly a year after the hurricane to get these folks into those trailers in the first place, or that most of the displaced are residents of the 9th Ward, which was devastated not by the hurricane itself, but by the flooding that occured after the federally-built levees broke under pressure from the storm surge (the threat of which was ignored by FEMA until it was too late), and you have to wonder how often these people are going to be revictimized by their own government. FEMA's stated intention is to evict all residents of the five trailer camps by the end of May. Unfortunately for the residents of those trailers, estimated at 900 families, no one is building low-cost rental units, so there will be nowhere to go. FEMA's spokesperson has helpfully contributed this quote to the NY Times article: "It is the individual's responsibility to go out and find what's suitable for them".

Prior to the hurricane, more than half of New Orleans' residents rented their homes. Now, a shortage of rental units has resulted in rents virtually doubling, and while many can't afford these new rents, the vacancy rate still hovers near zero. As well, public housing units are being torn down due to the damage they suffered via the hurricane. Just last week, the New Orleans Housing Authority approved the demolition of 4,000 public housing units. The plan is to build mixed-income housing in their place. Most of the evicted will not be able to afford to return. Since Katrina, it is estimated that there are now twice as many homeless people in New Orleans as previously, approximately 12,000 people living under bridges, or in parks, or in abandoned buildings. Some have taken up residence in a park directly across from City Hall, a daily reminder, to local politicians at least, of the continuing struggle to survive amidst administrative callousness.

This Christmas will be the third since Katrina. For many of the displaced, they are no closer to getting their old lives back than they were in the days immediately following the tragedy. I have a hard time believing that if the Upper East Side of Manhattan, or a chunk of Miami Beach, or the waterfront of Seattle had been devastated by a natural disaster, that those folks would still be waiting for debris to be cleared and homes to be rebuilt three Christmases later. Of course, what separates those three communities from the 9th Ward is money. The middle-class and the wealthy are visible victims - the poor are not. A second, unspoken divider, is colour. You cannot convince me that a white middle-class suburb would remain in ruins to the same degree that a poor, black inner-city wardship has, for this long.

While the government of the wealthiest nation on the planet has failed its most vulnerable, individuals are stepping in to do what they can. The actor Brad Pitt has put five million of his own money into a pilot project, to design environmentally-friendly, low-cost housing. 13 architectural firms have accepted the challenge of designing these homes, and they expect 150 houses to be pretty much move-in ready by next summer.

A cynic might ask why a movie star has been able to achieve more than a government, but I expect the answer comes down to interest - he is interested in his project, and the government is not. Let's not forget that during the hurricane and the days that followed, FEMA was in total disarray and unable to even organize buses to move people to higher ground, while TV personality Oprah Winfrey had 50 commercial trailers loaded up with food, water, and basic necessities and on the road to New Orleans within 48 hours. If it wasn't for individuals, I'd have no hope at all.

And that's where you come in. Last week on a friend's blog, we were talking about ways to help the less fortunate during the holiday season. Pitt's project is currently accepting donations large and small towards those 150 houses. You can sponsor anything, from a water heater to the house itself. Check them out and see if giving to them is right for you: Make it Right .

Of course, homelessness and poverty aren't just restricted to New Orleans, or the Christmas season, and there are any number of people right here at home who could use a hand all year round. Think about making the time to go through closets and purge warm clothing that can be dropped off at the Salvation Army or the Women's shelter; sign up to deliver Christmas hampers; shop for or write a check to the Food Bank. And don't stop just because a new page comes up on the calendar - the need runs year-round.

Life is like a...Tim Horton's coffee?

2007-11-19T21:35:00.000-07:00

It's the end of the world as we know it.

The Globe and Mail says it's true, and as we all know, the Globe's writers never lie. So here it is. My life boiled down to a simple coffee order:

According to the inestimable Sarah Hampson, I am a single-single, and there's a lot I better get a move on doing, because apparently, single-single people share a lot of traits I don't seem to possess. I am letting down the single-single side.

All those decades I spent trying to develop some complexity, all the hobbies and quirky interests that just came naturally, all the work, the travel, the writing - all for naught. Apparently, if I could just be a single-single in Toronto, centre of the universe, cultural capital of the world, if I could just get my bloody act together, dammit, I too could be a single-single - properly conforming to the Globe's endless expectations of me.

Or more accurately, lack of expectations, since being single-single is, apparently, a fate worse than death. Thanks for rubbing that in. I'll be sure to get over my general satisfaction with life and be a total downer any day now.

A single-single, according to Ms. Hampson's article, is a person who lives alone and is not romantically involved with anyone. We may be divorced, widowed, or never married. We also: avoid cooking from scratch; buy frozen, not fresh, vegetables; live in dark, empty places; and lack interest in our own hygiene, paddling as we do about our homes all day in our PJs without brushing our teeth, because "no one cares". Apparently, in my newly-defined single-single universe, I no longer count for anything myself, and the simple fact that I like my teeth clean is abberant and noteworthy. Great. I'm sensing a chicken and egg dichotomy in the whole single-single analysis here, but perhaps that's a topic for another post, another time.

Oh. And another thing? We're "desperate to marry", which is certainly news to me.

BUT, and there's always a BUT, if I can embrace my inner single-single, I may paradoxically open myself up to becoming a double-double, since it isn't until I make the most of being single that I can attract the man of my dreams.

Which kind of goes against embracing the single-singlehood, but I digress.

Of course, the simple fact that people are slightly more complicated on the whole than a coffee order seems to be totally irrelevant to the Globe's central thesis, which is, wait for it, you're a sad, lonely, pathetic nothing without a mate.

I swear I heard my mother's voice in that last paragraph.

The fact that some of us genuinely like coming home to our own homes, and cooking for ourselves, and generally being the author of our own fortunes, whatever they may be, doesn't seem to count for much of anything in the Globe's Torontowalla universe. Which says more about it, I think, than it does about me.

And the teensy fact that, for most of my adult life, I have lived alone quite happily (not unlike the only childhood before it) would only confuse the issue. And we couldn't possibly confuse the issue, because then the little boxes wouldn't fit, and it would be all horribly inconvenient for the writer trying to build a neat little coffee-based theory of human relationships, instead of, you know, living their lives and letting the rest of us live ours. And what would the Globe run on the lifestyles page then?

Hey, let's send the kids to China!

2007-11-10T21:30:00.001-07:00

The grocery store I frequent is a not-for-profit cooperative that does a lot for the community, unlike the big box stores that would be my alternative. In fact, barely a week goes by when I am attempting to stuff all of the week's purchases into my backpack that I am not approached by some earnest young teenager wearing an oversized jersey of some sort, asking if I'd like help bagging my groceries. The implicit request is really, and will you cough up a fiver for the sports team/social agency/other useful endeavour we are fundraising for this Saturday?

This is a stealth attack. The Co-op also lets groups wash cars in the parking lot as soon as the ice is off the road, but at least I have a choice of whether or not I line up to have my car washed. I don't have the same luxury when it comes to paying for my groceries. If I fail to line up, I expect I would be arrested for trying to steal my food. That would pose a bit of a problem, given my line of work.

And so I have to explain to the earnest young teenager that no, I don't need any help thanks, because everything I buy will fit in this one convenient bag I have brought along with me, and I don't need any more plastic in my life. I am then subjected to either the pouty, "but we need the money" look, or the "yeah, whatever" turn away. When this first started happening, I succumbed to the guilt and would usually slip at least a twoonie into the contributions jar even though the teens had done absolutely nothing to earn it. To this day, I will still, on occasion, slip a five or even a ten into the jar, particularly if the kids are fundraising for something I feel is relevant, like SADD. But I've gotten over the guilt of stiffing the kids for things they don't particularly need. Best they learn to deal with disappointment sometime, and there really is no time like the present.

This afternoon was a particularly sharp example of things I will not fund with my hard-earned dollars. The teenagers were raising money for a school trip to China. I am willing to entertain the idea that I am just jealous. It's quite possible, and I won't be ashamed to admit it. I've been a relatively hard-working and productive member of the work force for about 25 years, but I have never been to China. My luggage has been to China (thank you, Air Canada!) but I have not.

Growing up in Montreal in the 1970s, a school field trip was a VERY BIG DEAL. We would sell boxes of oranges, and chocolates, door to door, and after weeks of slogging around in the slush and cold (because field trip fundraising never happened in good weather), we would then resort to what kids usually do when they want something badly enough and haven't moved enough perishables to foot the bill - we hit our parents up for the money. And after all of this, where did we go?

We got our collective asses on a bus for a two-hour ride to Ottawa. For the day. And then we rode back in the dark.

Now, while we were in Ottawa we'd do interesting things, like visit Parliament Hill, or the National Gallery, or the Museum of Civilization. The content of our trip was usually directly tethered to something we were learning about in history class, and we could count on having to pay attention, because something from the trip would eventually wind up on a test.

Last year, the local high schoolers were everywhere for months, washing cars, bagging groceries, and my favorite, cleaning trash from the sides of the highway, to raise money for a trip to Vimy Ridge. In my curmudgeonly judgment, I was willing to help them along on this trip, because they had timed the trip to coincide with the 90th anniversary of what might be the most significant battle in the history of this nation. The fact I have been to France never entered into my calculus of the situation.

However, no one today was able to explain to me why 14-year-olds have to go to China, and as a result, my money stayed firmly in my pocket. I appreciate that China will be the dominant power of this century, and perhaps the next, and I recognize that I learned practically nothing about any part of Asia in school, and as a result, I remain woefully ignorant of a sizeable section of the globe. But, considering the cost of going to Edmonton from here, is it really realistic to think an entire class of kids will be able to raise enough money to go literally to the other side of the planet? And why are they going? Shouldn't you have to have an incredibly good, and totally articulable, reason to spend a semester fundraising (when you could be studying, or reading) only to then take a couple of weeks off of school to go on this radical field trip?

I don't think it is totally unreasonable of me to expect someone who wants my money to at least be able to tell me why they are going on this trip. It would be extra nice if they could also tell me what they hope to get out of it, but they should at least know why they are doing something. If only to part me from my money.

Is violence entertainment?

2007-10-21T15:38:00.000-06:00

This past week, my colleagues and I have been engaged in a running debate over the nature of North American filmmaking and whether or not violence is truly "entertainment".

OK - that sounds incredibly pretentious, when in reality, we're really just an office full of film geeks trying to figure out why the American film rating system is so screwed up that torture porn films like Hostel and Saw barely merit an "R", while the latest offering from Academy Award winner Ang Lee apparently merits an "NC-17" because of some graphic sex scenes.

As a film school grad, I am conflicted about all of this, but as a regular viewer of all sorts of movies, let me just say I would far rather watch a thoughtful, serious, and yes, adult film about governments in peril and subversive spies trying to overthrow them that happens to have a few scenes of seduction, than a gratuitously violent film with virtually no plot or other redeeming qualities where an abundance of characters (almost always female, or a visible minority, or both) are graphically tortured, flayed, or dismembered for our entertainment. Is this truly entertaining? Really? To whom? And why?

Each summer, the magazine Entertainment Weekly does a week-to-week running count of the number of people killed in popular summer movies. Between mid-May and Labour Day this year, a shade under 20,000 characters were killed in U.S. theatrically released movies. 20 thousand characters. In probably 150 or so movies. What in the hell is going on here?

"Torture porn" earned its nickname because of the structural similarities between those movies and regular porn films - there's little to no plot or story to be told, and what there is exists only to connect the "action" sequences, which are in turn frequent, excessive, and often filmed in extreme closeups to maximize their graphic content. Unlike sex porn films, there is usually an element of raw hatred in torture porn - of the character being tortured, of society as a whole, and of the particular audience who have plonked down $12 to be entertained by this twisted crap.

Don't get me wrong - I don't object to violence that is situational. I take no issue with war movies like Glory or Saving Private Ryan, despite their often explicit violence. I usually don't even take issue with movies by folks like Martin Scorsese ( although The Departed really tested my patience on this front - once you kill a guy, do you really have to throw him off a roof, and then have him run over by a car? Really? Isn't killing him once horrifying enough? But - I digress). Violence in context can make a powerful statement that is central to the theme of any particular movie. My problem is with the gratuitous, sadistic violence inherent to torture porn films.

What does it say about us as a society that those people who rate films for a living are more willing to accept graphic depictions of sadistic, explicit torture in movies than they are graphic depictions of sexuality, making the former more accessible to children than the latter by virtue of the more lenient ratings they assign to each project? This is how the Motion Picture Association of America, creator of the ratings system, defines each of these two ratings:

"An R-rated motion picture, in the view of the Rating Board, contains some adult material. An R-rated motion picture may include adult themes, adult activity, hard language, intense or persistent violence, sexually-oriented nudity, drug abuse or other elements, so that parents are counseled to take this rating very seriously. Children under 17 are not allowed to attend R-rated motion pictures unaccompanied by a parent or adult guardian. Parents are strongly urged to find out more about R-rated motion pictures in determining their suitability for their children. Generally, it is not appropriate for parents to bring their young children with them to R-rated motion pictures.

An NC-17 rated motion picture is one that, in the view of the Rating Board, most parents would consider patently too adult for their children 17 and under. No children will be admitted. NC-17 does not mean “obscene” or “pornographic” in the common or legal meaning of those words, and should not be construed as a negative judgment in any sense. The rating simply signals that the content is appropriate only for an adult audience. An NC-17 rating can be based on violence, sex, aberrational behavior, drug abuse or any other element that most parents would consider too strong and therefore off-limits for viewing by their children."

In practice, getting an NC-17 rating is a commercial kiss of death for a movie. Studios would rather re-edit a film to try and get a softer rating, than release an NC-17 film. Wikipedia has a list of about 100 films, including such diverse fare as Eyes Wide Shut, Clerks, Boys Don't Cry, and Brokeback Mountain, as films originally rated NC-17 that were then re-edited and re-rated R. While the MPAA says an NC-17 rating is not a negative judgment, in the marketplace it certainly is. Large media conglomerates refuse to accept advertising for NC-17 movies; you will not see ads for them in magazines or newspapers on either side of the border. You won't see TV advertisements either. Some theatre chains won't book an NC-17 film. And websites like Apple and iTunes won't carry the film's trailers. So it's a little hard to build a blockbuster when no one knows your film exists, and anyone who does know it is out there can't expect to just amble down to the local megaplex to see it Friday night.

As an adult of a certain age, I'd like to think sex and all its complications is a lot more in keeping with the human experience than violence is, especially sadistic violence. Maybe I'm wrong and I lead a sheltered life. But I'd certainly rather see a film that has an honest depiction of sex in it than one where the primary goal is to kill, maim and humiliate others. If the goal of entertainment is to reflect us to ourselves, then which image should we prefer to see in our cultural mirror?

A Weekend in the Country

2007-09-19T21:30:00.000-06:00

This past weekend, I was invited to spend the weekend at a friend's cabin on a small lake about an hour out of town. I am not really an outdoorsy person, especially if the weather promises to be hideous. Sunny, hot weather, or sunny, snowy weather, I'm all for being outdoors. Cold, wet fall weather, not so much. Despite all of this, I allowed myself to be lured into nature for the better part of two whole days, and of course had a lovely time, despite the odd snowflake blowing around on the drive out.

Unlike some cabins, where you basically drive up to the door, this requires a bit more work. First, one drives down a two-lane packed dirt highway for about an hour. Then, you unload all your gear in the parking lot at the top of the hill, with the able assistance of two keen, but elderly and arthritic, large dogs. Said gear must then be packed down a trail and rather steep staircase to a long dock, at which point your host putters over in an aluminum fishing boat to pick up guest, gear, and dogs. There ensues a complex calculation about who should sit where and what gear goes where to ensure the boat is stable for the ride over to the cabin, which is at the far end of the lake.

Here, Jake waits for her ride. Note the brilliant weather. It is about one in the afternoon, approximately two degrees above zero, and threatening to rain or snow. Neither the dog nor I am impressed. That is our host in the distance.

Given the weather, it perhaps comes as no surprise that most of Saturday is spent puttering around doing winterizing type things - stacking cordwood, covering up equipment, taking down screens and putting up windows, etc. There is a moment when I see a fairly round hole dead center in the pan of a winter shovel, and jokingly ask if it got shot during hunting season, but that moment passes when I am informed that the hole comes not from a bullet, but a bear claw. We are not in the Laurentians or Muskoka anymore.

At the end of the day, though, safely ensconced inside the cabin, you stoke a nice warm fire in the woodstove, pour some wine, and a great evening of chat ensues.

OK, there was the wee incident around 4 a.m., when Jake and I got really very interested in the sound of little footfalls on the back stoop, but no bears crashed through the door, so all was well, and we soon went back to sleep. Perhaps it was a wolf, or a lynx - definitely smaller than a bear, but bigger than a wolverine or badger. All I can say is, it is very friggin' dark when you are on a lake an hour out of town and there are only 4 other neighbours, and it is the middle of a cloudy, rainy night. Very, very dark.

Hallelujah! By the following morning, the sun has come out! OK, the wind has picked up, so it remains rather closer to zero than I might like for September, but at least the fall colors are popping. This is the view off the dock:

THIS is a reason to trek out into the country. Unfortunately, shortly after breakfast, my host has to go visit a neighbour in order to obtain some assistance with an uncooperative piece of equipment we can't get started. I get to stay back with the dogs. Normally, this would be great, except for the part about Sam not liking to be left by his person. Make no mistake, I am but a pale imitation of his person. Despite a short trek up the hill behind the cabin so we can both see where she and the boat are going, Sam gets upset. So upset in fact, that he proceeds to howl like a wolf. For an hour. He howls until he practically loses his voice, and all that comes out are rough little bleatings where a vigorous growl used to be. He even poses like a wolf to do his howling.

Jake on the other hand, wants nothing to do with her embarassing brother at this point. She has found herself a comfy spot by the lake, and is happy to keep as much distance between us as possible.

Far too soon, it is time to repack the boat and head back to the parking lot, and the realities & responsibilities of the city. We never do see any bears, or the family of eagles that nest on the lake. Maybe next trip.

Captain Canada? I think not

2007-09-06T21:31:00.000-06:00

So the guy who brought us the GST and Free Trade with the U.S. is still miffed, 20 years later, with the actions of the guy who brought us the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the War Measures Act. The former, we'll call him "Mulroney", is promoting his "memoirs", which are apparently the big lump of dark something or other under the massive pile of steel filings from all the axe-grinding he's been doing in our lapdog national media this week.

"Mulroney" has had the audacity to pontificate on the suitability of "Trudeau" to claim the mantel of "moral leadership" for the nation, which is amusing, since "Trudeau" hasn't been claiming much of anything for the past 7 years, as he's been dead all that time. In asserting his apparent own suitability for the job, "Mulroney" has pointed to "Trudeau"'s well-documented disdain for conscription during World War II, only he's helpfully re-cast it as a failure to support the war on the Nazis.

Whoa, sugar. There's a big difference between supporting those evil Nazis, and asking a few good questions about Canada's version of the draft.

"Trudeau" was barely 20 at the outset of WWII, and he had spent his entire life up to that point nestled in the bosom of Jesuit intellectuals, who were widely regarded at the time as being rather fascististic and anti-semetic. (Sadly, this was hardly a unique perspective in the era, as Canada's own government closed our borders to boatloads of itinerant Jews fleeing Nazi Europe in the late 1930s, desperate for a safe haven. This, just before we rounded up Canadians of Japanese and Ukrainian heritage and placed them in internment camps across the country for the duration of the war, but that's an outrage for another blog).

"Trudeau" - far from perfect. Ironically, "Mulroney", also far from perfect.

"Trudeau" - actually conscripted during WWII. "Mulroney", not so much.

"Trudeau" - served in the Army, "Mulroney", not.

"Trudeau" - blacklisted during the 1950s "Red Scare" in the U.S., because he was an avowed socialist, had attended a conference in Moscow (and thrown a snowball at a statue of Stalin), and subscribed to lefty publications; "Mulroney" - a young Conservative who cultivated political alliances with Diefenbacker, among others, and later forming the international embarassment/spectacle of those Irish singing dudes with Ronald Reagan.

Mr. Mulroney, if the best weapon you can draw again a political enemy dead seven years is what he did in his early 20s, I guess there really isn't as much dirt there as you'd like, is there? This guy "Trudeau" was a prominent politician and Prime Minister for two decades, and THIS is what you come up with?

Pathetic.

I won't even deign to discuss how this muckraking pretty much guarantees no one is ever going to press the title of "moral leader" upon you, Mr. Mulroney. Class Act? Elder Statesman? Captain Canada? I think not.

Attacking long dead enemies in public? Tacky, tacky, tacky.

A Foggy Day, Not Quite London-Town

2007-09-02T17:33:00.000-06:00

We don't often have fog up here. Not like the West Coast, or London, or even November in Montreal. Something about the weather conditions just don't line up properly most of the time.

So, you can imagine my surprise this morning to wake up and look out on a lot of...nothing, really. Just a lot of bright grey fog where my neighbourhood should be.

Normally on a Sunday, my inability to see my hand in front of my face outside wouldn't pose much of a problem, as Sunday tends to be a "stay inside and do chores around the house" kind of day. But, given that I was supposed to be heading out for a going-away brunch on this particular morning, the fog was a bit more of an issue. Thankfully, by the time I was actually ready to go, it seemed to have lifted enough to at least drive safely. That was all good and fine uptown, but once I started heading down the hill to Old Town...not so much.

Originally, I thought it might be a good photo opportunity, fog over the lake with some houseboats or something. Unfortunately, the fog was so thick one could barely see the lake, and certainly not the houseboats. In fact, you couldn't see past the first row of boats in the local marina. The houseboats are a couple of hundred metres further out...there.

Still, driving around for a bit did allow me to find some good photo ops of things other than houseboats. Regular boats, for example.

Fog can be a photographer's best friend, or their worst nightmare. It all depends on the look you're going for. For example, normally three boats tied to a dock wouldn't be my first choice of subject. It's kind of blah, the boats are shiny aluminum, there's not much going on. On a foggy day though, when the sun is to one side, most of the colour gets drained out of the picture and it becomes a far more interesting subject. Here, the stillness of the water adds to the effect. Overall, I have to say I really like this one.

Now, in most places, the fog rolls in, it sticks around for a while, and then it clears out for the rest of the day. In...Out. Today though, it kept coming in, moving out, blowing around - generally being unpredictable every five or ten minutes. This constant shifting allowed for some interesting visual opportunities. For example, this morning the shot below wouldn't have been possible, because the sun would have been behind me, so all the camera would have seen was fog, and nothing else. By early afternoon however, the sun had swung around so it was between me and the island. Combine that with the fog being caught midway between blowing in, and rolling out, and we have a sharply focused foreground (love that dock!) with pockets of fog obscuring the island in the middle ground, and a clear sky in the distance. Sweet.

So, there is someone out there after all!

2007-08-22T21:10:00.000-06:00

OK. So, I've been absent for the past couple of weeks. I really didn't think anyone would notice, since approximately four people even know this page exists. But at least one of you (yes, Little Miss Know It All, I mean you) has noticed my lack of blogging activity the past few weeks, and commented upon it.

I have no worthy excuse. Yes, I have been on the road for work. Yes, work itself is crazy busy right now. Yes, I do still go home once in a while and I could do this from here. See, no legitimate excuse.

It's not that I haven't had ample inspiration. Why, Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni both died the same day back on July 30 (sue me, I'm a film geek). Barry Bonds FINALLY broke Hank Aaron's home run record (after the longest deathwatch on record). I was once again mistaken as a lesbian at a social event, to amusing and philosophical result.

So you see, there have been ideas. But late summer life has interrupted. I expect come winter I will be blogging quite a bit, if for no other reason than to keep myself awake (and apparently amuse LMKIA). I will have inspiration again.

Until then, let me leave you with a classic: the desert island disc list. I realize in this day of iPods that the idea of parsing one's total music collection to 10 albums, as we used to say in my youth, is a bit of an anachronism. Well, so am I. I like to think the parsing helps focus on the music as it was created, that is, which albums are so perfectly constructed that you could listen to them over and over again, front to back, without going berserk? This is the ultimate goal of a desert island disc list, since, after all, you are on a deserted island, and probably alone in the process.

I am fully mindful that if I were to ever actually be on a desert island, something bad probably would have occured to deposit me there, and it is unlikely that said island would have either electricity or a functional CD player, and I probably would not have these 10 discs with me, but really, people! This is a game of what if, not a documentary, so bear with me.

Here, in no particular order, are the 10 discs I would most wish to have on a fully-serviced deserted island:

The Pretenders - Pretenders II
The Clash - London Calling
Crowded House - Recurring Dream
Abdullah Ibrahim Trio - Cape Town Revisited
Ella Fitzgerald - Basin Street Blues
Luar na Lubre - 15 Aniversario
Pink Martini – Hang on, Little Tomato
Roxy Music - Avalon
Monkeywalk - More
k.d. lang - Invincible Summer

The beauty of this list is, each disc is a gem in its own right, and together, there's a significant musical banquet on display. Angry at being deserted? Meet The Clash. Happy with the tropical good weather (it must always be a tropical island)? A little k.d. lang sets the mood. Feeling international? Have you met Luar Na Lubre and Abdullah Ibrahim? Just looking to mellow out and enjoy the view? Choose any of the others. No matter what mood may strike, there's a disc on this list that fits the bill. It also doesn't hurt that there are some amazing songs on each of these records, or that each entire disc hangs together perfectly.

There's my list. What's yours? At some point, I'll post another list, of the perfect desert island DVDs. Because a perfect island not only has electricity, it has TV and a DVD player too!

Flying High

2007-07-24T22:47:00.000-06:00

Last weekend, a few dozen bush pilots and recreational flyers were in town for the biannual Bush Plane Fly-In, a series of events that salutes the City's heritage and reminds those of us who weren't around in the heyday of the 1930s just what we were missing out on during those frontier times.

While having breakfast at a waterfront restaurant in the "Old Town", i.e. the original town site from the 1930s, I noticed that a green biplane on floats seemed to be practicing takeoffs and landings on the bay outside our window. With a bit more observation, it seemed he was actually offering people short rides over the city, picking them up and dropping them off at a wharf just 50 or so yards from where I was sitting.

Being a fan of small planes generally, and never having flown in an open cockpit biplane in particular, this was too good to pass up, so as soon as breakfast was over, off we went to see how much this would cost. I figured I was prepared to spend up to $100 for this unique experience. Turns out "Bucky" from Seattle WA was offering rides to all comers - FOR FREE. This hardly seemed fair to him, but who was I to say no?

So, after putting my name on a list and waiting my turn for approximately an hour, I eagerly clambered into the front cockpit, with only six inches of windscreen between my face and the great outdoors. After some minimal safety instructions - keep the seatbelt on at all times, hold on to your glasses, especially if you look around the windscreen - Bucky started up his 1927 Curtis-Wright Travel Air, and the single prop up front began to thrum with an impressive power. A quick taxi on the bay, and we were airborne, going up probably 2000 feet and threading a back and forth pattern over Old Town, Downtown, and the houseboats on the other bay across the peninsula.

Those 15 minutes were like being strapped into the biggest, most kick ass rollercoaster on the planet. The wind rushing over the windscreen, pinning your glasses to your face; the gripping of the cockpit's leather rim whenever the plane banked, certain you would spill out; the direct contact with the elements, not least of which was the sun; and the unbelievable views of the city, from not too terribly high up.

After we'd landed and taxied back to the wharf, I tried to offer Bucky at least a token towards his gas money, but he wasn't having any of it. He had spent the past 3.5 hours ferrying a variety of people around for the sheer love of flying, and for the love of his particular aircraft. So Bucky, back in Seattle, thanks for a thrilling ride and an unforgettable experience.

The Radius of a Rainbow

2007-07-24T22:02:00.000-06:00

The city that I now call home is located in a sub-Arctic desert, which mostly means we need to run humidifiers in the winter to keep the cat fur from sticking to the walls with all the static, and in the summer, we are largely spared the spectacular, but kind of frightening, thunder and lightning storms I grew up with in hot, humid Montreal.

Global warming however, means shifting weather patterns, and over the past couple of summers, we have slowly but surely been having more thunderstorms. Tonight's however, was even more spectacular than normal, if crazy weather can be seen to be "normal" at all.

It started around 4 p.m., when I could see a sheet of charcoal grey stretching from the horizon up into the equally somber clouds in the North sky. Over the next couple of hours, those clouds rolled in, until the entire sky was charcoal grey. And then those clouds opened, and for roughly an hour the rain pelted down, bouncing off the pavement like nickels, piercing the screen door until the entire patio door track was filled with water, and obscuring my view across the street.

When the rains finally slowed however, I saw something I don't remember ever seeing before - a double rainbow tracing a full 180 degrees in the sky, the inner rainbow almost incandescent, the colours were so vivid. I will always regret not having a camera to capture this astounding sight, but I stood there on the deck of the sailing club for several minutes, watching it fade and shift, even remarking at one point that it was being reflected in the lake, it was so intense. A handful of other people attending the same workshop also stepped outside to take it in while it lasted, and we were commenting about how you usually only see one end of a rainbow, and the arc tends to disappear into a cloud or fade away, and that this was something else entirely.

I was thinking the arc of this particular rainbow was perfectly circular, not stretched out the way they sometimes are, and then I thought, for no particular reason, what is the radius of a rainbow?

I'm pretty sure someone like Descartes has done the math, and figured out the complicated principles of refraction and distance, and the size of the water droplets probably matters too, but somehow all the science diminishes the sheer perfection of nature's beauty, this big, bright, multicoloured arc stretching from the North sky to the South over the massive dark lake, even for a moment shining back up at itself.

And then, like so many other things in nature, it was gone, obscured once more by another wave of rain.

Greetings!

2007-07-18T21:57:00.000-06:00

I have finally made the jump into the blogosphere, after months of reading other people's blogs and wondering, how hard can this be, exactly? I guess we're going to find out, together.

I'm happy to say that while I'm not exactly sure what form this blog will take over the coming weeks and months, I can make a couple of promises : there will be no discussion of my job, or of my co-workers, and no whinging about either. I really like my job (and my co-workers), but I spend enough time doing it and thinking about it, and I'd like to think I'm more than my job, so this blog is going to be about everything, and anything, else.