I have a feeling the next four years will be a good time to be rich. Four years of a Harper majority. Four years of a stranglehold on truth and transparency. Four years of bigger prisons, more fighter jets and spiraling costs to fund them. Four years in which the poor will get even poorer and the rich even richer. I just read this morning that the gap between rich and poor has never been greater. What will it look like in Canada by 2015?
On the positive side, Jack Layton's voice will be heard more clearly now that he is the leader of the opposition.
I hope that the Liberal party will re-invent itself ... perhaps as a coalition with the NDP ... the only reason Harper and his Tories get anywhere is because of vote splitting. I am not in favour of a two party system ... but a multi-party system only works when there is proportional representation ... and that is not likely to come about under a Harper majority government.
I will be just about 75 years old when I next vote in a federal election. I sure hope that Canada and I survive till then ... and that all the people who did not support Harper this election have figured out how best to defeat the man.
I wish I believed in miracles ... and that I could hope that Harper would acquire some humility and the ability to govern graciously rather than with an iron hand. I wish he would become a better prime minister, one I could respect. But miracles are not too common these days, so my only realistic hope is that the other parties will figure out how to stop him from gaining another majority in four years ... or that they teach Canadians how important it is to choose proportional representation and demand it; that it become one of the major planks in an opposition platform; that whoever wins the next election will be forced to put real democracy to a referendum.
My riding (Pontiac) ousted its Tory minister, Laurence Cannon, by the way, and we have a New Democrat in his place. It happened because of a grassroots swell of concern that translated into intelligent voting. I was a little worried because people were being advised to vote strategically but it was a toss-up whether to vote NDP, Liberal or Bloc. The Bloc had stood second last time. Liberal, Cindy Duncan MacMillan, is a respected farmer in the area and concerned about community issues. Mathieu Ravignat was new to electoral politics but the NDP was gaining strength in Quebec.. What to do? What to do? Eventually I voted with my heart and voted for the NDP ... and was lucky that so many others made the same choice for either heartfelt or strategic reasons..
In non-electoral news, life continues to be good. Kenya and Remi are having a ball together, romping and wrestling for hours every day. I am getting used to my new car but am horrified by its gas mileage. And I still fear backing up. And there are all still all those buttons I am afraid to push. My buddy and I are splitting our lives between two places and learning to adjust to the vagaries implicit in a new relationship. Laughter helps smooth out rough edges. The dogs are delighted he is part of my life because they have an extra pair of hands to pat them. I started teaching Andre this week and the first session went well. Today I will be working with Azra and Pauline ... just three lessons left. I will miss them, but I will also be glad to be back to one session per week.
So ... I think I will simply bury my head in dogs, paint pots, teaching, and clouds for the next four years, and forget politics until 2015.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
Friday, 18 March 2011
Looking at another microcosm ...
You may remember my mentioning the blasting taking place across the lake ... the widening of the existing road, despite the basic commonsense realization that if you cut the trees whose root systems are holding the nearly vertical mountain in place, and then blast and gouge away whole areas of supporting rock structure, that the mountain will crumble and fall piece by piece.
We told them this before they chose the cheapest solution just described. Some of us are more knowledgeable about engineering, physics and soil than I am ... almost anyone is ... but even I know that erosion happens when you disturb the natural plant life that holds earth in place.
They had to have known.
However; they went ahead. They based their decision on relative cost. They always do.
I know ... the ubiquitous "they". Well "they" in this case is the municipality ... the same municipality that has expropriated land to allow an existing plastic factory to have a cheaper place from which to operate ... no jobs for the region ... nothing positive at all except an ugly little industrial park producing ecologically unfriendly materials. This is also the municipality that wants to put a septic waste facility for several regions on the Gatineau River above Wakefield; a facility that is not state-of-the-art as far as environmental controls are concerned. And a highway structure that may destroy the aquifer of the Wakefield spring on which many people depend for pure water.
I have not become actively involved in the ecological debates raging around the arbitrary municipal decisions being made recently --- there are too many for an old hermit to handle and many younger and more energetic activists are doing their damnedest to save out spring, to save our river, to save the environment, to save the character of Wakefield. Thank heavens for their youthful energy and commitment.
But I think they will likely be just as ineffectual in the long run as we were with the blasting on the lake.
By the way ...chunks of the mountain have been falling ever since the blasting took place ... and the whole process seems to be accelerating.
On the weekend, a rock the size of a wood shed came down and blocked the road. There was no emergency number to call, and the resident whose path was blocked, along with other neighbours, called the police who arranged to have a path cleared that would allow one vehicle at a time to use the road.
Since then the site has been visited by several trucks with different logos on them. Groups of official looking men spill out and contemplate the mess the mountain and the road have become.
This morning it was a white municipality truck and a much larger red vehicle. A group of five La Peche fire fighters tumbled out of the latter. They clustered around looking up at the overhanging ridges of red rock to which clung some smaller trees. After half an hour they left.
Surely in a group of five practical men like volunteer firefighters there will be at least one sane head that will point out the obvious folly of cutting down more trees, of gouging back still more of the mountain.
The better solution would have cost more, but I suspect the costs are already approaching those of the better solution, and that the municipality will eventually be faced with having to do what they should have done initially anyway.
And I have not even touched on the real concern I have; safety. What if that resident had arrived at that spot a few hours earlier ... at the moment the rock fell? His car would have been crushed and him in it, or he would have veered to the right to avoid being struck. He would have gone into the lake.
Does someone have to be badly injured or killed before this municipality makes a sane decision?
I know that this is a very tiny matter, especially when the world is concerned with the real tragedies occurring in Japan and the Middle East.
Despotic politicians. Puny man-made and ill-considered solutions to problems. A failure to respect the terrible beauty of nature.
I know the crumbling mountain across the lake is insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but it really is just a matter of scale.
We told them this before they chose the cheapest solution just described. Some of us are more knowledgeable about engineering, physics and soil than I am ... almost anyone is ... but even I know that erosion happens when you disturb the natural plant life that holds earth in place.
They had to have known.
However; they went ahead. They based their decision on relative cost. They always do.
I know ... the ubiquitous "they". Well "they" in this case is the municipality ... the same municipality that has expropriated land to allow an existing plastic factory to have a cheaper place from which to operate ... no jobs for the region ... nothing positive at all except an ugly little industrial park producing ecologically unfriendly materials. This is also the municipality that wants to put a septic waste facility for several regions on the Gatineau River above Wakefield; a facility that is not state-of-the-art as far as environmental controls are concerned. And a highway structure that may destroy the aquifer of the Wakefield spring on which many people depend for pure water.
I have not become actively involved in the ecological debates raging around the arbitrary municipal decisions being made recently --- there are too many for an old hermit to handle and many younger and more energetic activists are doing their damnedest to save out spring, to save our river, to save the environment, to save the character of Wakefield. Thank heavens for their youthful energy and commitment.
But I think they will likely be just as ineffectual in the long run as we were with the blasting on the lake.
By the way ...chunks of the mountain have been falling ever since the blasting took place ... and the whole process seems to be accelerating.
On the weekend, a rock the size of a wood shed came down and blocked the road. There was no emergency number to call, and the resident whose path was blocked, along with other neighbours, called the police who arranged to have a path cleared that would allow one vehicle at a time to use the road.
Since then the site has been visited by several trucks with different logos on them. Groups of official looking men spill out and contemplate the mess the mountain and the road have become.
This morning it was a white municipality truck and a much larger red vehicle. A group of five La Peche fire fighters tumbled out of the latter. They clustered around looking up at the overhanging ridges of red rock to which clung some smaller trees. After half an hour they left.
Surely in a group of five practical men like volunteer firefighters there will be at least one sane head that will point out the obvious folly of cutting down more trees, of gouging back still more of the mountain.
The better solution would have cost more, but I suspect the costs are already approaching those of the better solution, and that the municipality will eventually be faced with having to do what they should have done initially anyway.
And I have not even touched on the real concern I have; safety. What if that resident had arrived at that spot a few hours earlier ... at the moment the rock fell? His car would have been crushed and him in it, or he would have veered to the right to avoid being struck. He would have gone into the lake.
Does someone have to be badly injured or killed before this municipality makes a sane decision?
I know that this is a very tiny matter, especially when the world is concerned with the real tragedies occurring in Japan and the Middle East.
Despotic politicians. Puny man-made and ill-considered solutions to problems. A failure to respect the terrible beauty of nature.
I know the crumbling mountain across the lake is insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but it really is just a matter of scale.
Monday, 28 June 2010
A Book Report and Some Thoughts About the G8 and G20 Nonsense
Little Bee by Chris Cleave
My friend Erma sent me this book recently. It is wonderful. Beautifully written. A fine story. And an important one. I won't spoil it for you by telling all, but it deals with women, global ugliness, relationships, courage and cowardice, and does so in an interesting way. I couldn't put this book down.
If I had to mention one thing that sets this writer right up there with the best, and it is hard to choose just one, I would mention his care with dialogue. He captures so many ways that English is spoken ... by the Queen, by a Jamaican refugee, by Nigerians, and by a four year old who thinks he is Batman.
I was especially taken by the four year old superhero.
I could hear my grandson Max, the pirate, in every speech. It made me sad because I haven't seen Max for almost a year, not since we had his birthday party here.
At his daddy's funeral:
"Mummy, where mine daddy is now?"
.....
"Mmmn. Is mine daddy coming back soon?"
...
"Is mine daddy in that box?"
...
"Is that box heaven?"
.....
"Mummy! Get him out! Get mine daddy out of heaven!"
One of the major themes of the book is what happens when developing countries become inextricably entwined with the politics and economies of the developed nations. So that is my segue into my views about the G8 and G20 in Toronto.
Toronto, the Violent:
I have been in a great many peaceful demonstrations over the years and my first instinctual response is always to assume that demonstrators will be peaceful if they are allowed to be.
I haven't been avidly following this conference but you would have to be dead not to know that Huntsville has been locked down for some time and the central core of Toronto has been turned into a militarized zone. I was dismayed by the idea of the sound cannons.
Like most of the commentators I've listened to or read, I thought it was ridiculous to spend the kind of money being spent on this conference; nonsensical to hold it in Toronto which made policing even more expensive; and just plain ludicrous that an artificial Muskoka lake would be built next door to Lake Ontario.
So all my normal prejudices were solidly in place. Harper was over reacting and spending OUR money foolishly.
But when I began to read about the senseless violence directed against plate glass store windows, and police cars, my sentiments began to shift. These demonstrators seemed determined to create trouble rather than making solid political points.
Of course these economic conferences are always more violent than other protests; I think part of the point they are making forces them to scale walls and climb over razor wire. Part of the protest is against spending money foolishly on 8 or 20 world leaders when millions of people in those countries are not being fed, let alone feted. So spending gazillions on security is bound to create more violent behaviour anyway.
But even if one could understand the vandalizing of the police vehicles ... what about those store owners and their businesses?
And then this morning for the first time (remember I was not attempting to follow all this) I heard on CBC about a man who was about 5'4" and 140 pounds who was reporting the conference for the Guardian newspaper in Britain. The police roughed him up ... twisted his arm behind his back and then, when he was helpless, a third policeman punched him very hard in the stomach. All the while, he was protesting that he was not resisting arrest, that he was press. A Canadian reporter witnessed it all and reported it to CBC. He added the information that not only was the man small and no threat to anyone, he had one kidney and was an asthmatic.
So now all my notions, preconceived and recently formed, have been scrambled.
Maybe we got this much violent behaviour in Toronto because it was provoked ... by the police ... and by a government that expected the worst so it created an environment that encouraged it.
Early this morning I received an email that read:
"If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet." Isaac Bashevis Singer 1904-1991, Journalist and Writer
Mr. Singer died long before Mr. Harper came to power in this country, but he could have been talking to our prime minister, who has spent six times as much on this summit's security as was spent in Pittsburgh last year ... a summit that was much more peaceful and whose damage was far less costly.
My friend Erma sent me this book recently. It is wonderful. Beautifully written. A fine story. And an important one. I won't spoil it for you by telling all, but it deals with women, global ugliness, relationships, courage and cowardice, and does so in an interesting way. I couldn't put this book down.
If I had to mention one thing that sets this writer right up there with the best, and it is hard to choose just one, I would mention his care with dialogue. He captures so many ways that English is spoken ... by the Queen, by a Jamaican refugee, by Nigerians, and by a four year old who thinks he is Batman.
I was especially taken by the four year old superhero.
I could hear my grandson Max, the pirate, in every speech. It made me sad because I haven't seen Max for almost a year, not since we had his birthday party here.
At his daddy's funeral:
"Mummy, where mine daddy is now?"
.....
"Mmmn. Is mine daddy coming back soon?"
...
"Is mine daddy in that box?"
...
"Is that box heaven?"
.....
"Mummy! Get him out! Get mine daddy out of heaven!"
One of the major themes of the book is what happens when developing countries become inextricably entwined with the politics and economies of the developed nations. So that is my segue into my views about the G8 and G20 in Toronto.
Toronto, the Violent:
I have been in a great many peaceful demonstrations over the years and my first instinctual response is always to assume that demonstrators will be peaceful if they are allowed to be.
I haven't been avidly following this conference but you would have to be dead not to know that Huntsville has been locked down for some time and the central core of Toronto has been turned into a militarized zone. I was dismayed by the idea of the sound cannons.
Like most of the commentators I've listened to or read, I thought it was ridiculous to spend the kind of money being spent on this conference; nonsensical to hold it in Toronto which made policing even more expensive; and just plain ludicrous that an artificial Muskoka lake would be built next door to Lake Ontario.
So all my normal prejudices were solidly in place. Harper was over reacting and spending OUR money foolishly.
But when I began to read about the senseless violence directed against plate glass store windows, and police cars, my sentiments began to shift. These demonstrators seemed determined to create trouble rather than making solid political points.
Of course these economic conferences are always more violent than other protests; I think part of the point they are making forces them to scale walls and climb over razor wire. Part of the protest is against spending money foolishly on 8 or 20 world leaders when millions of people in those countries are not being fed, let alone feted. So spending gazillions on security is bound to create more violent behaviour anyway.
But even if one could understand the vandalizing of the police vehicles ... what about those store owners and their businesses?
And then this morning for the first time (remember I was not attempting to follow all this) I heard on CBC about a man who was about 5'4" and 140 pounds who was reporting the conference for the Guardian newspaper in Britain. The police roughed him up ... twisted his arm behind his back and then, when he was helpless, a third policeman punched him very hard in the stomach. All the while, he was protesting that he was not resisting arrest, that he was press. A Canadian reporter witnessed it all and reported it to CBC. He added the information that not only was the man small and no threat to anyone, he had one kidney and was an asthmatic.
So now all my notions, preconceived and recently formed, have been scrambled.
Maybe we got this much violent behaviour in Toronto because it was provoked ... by the police ... and by a government that expected the worst so it created an environment that encouraged it.
Early this morning I received an email that read:
"If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet." Isaac Bashevis Singer 1904-1991, Journalist and Writer
Mr. Singer died long before Mr. Harper came to power in this country, but he could have been talking to our prime minister, who has spent six times as much on this summit's security as was spent in Pittsburgh last year ... a summit that was much more peaceful and whose damage was far less costly.
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
Am I the Only One ?
Do you get this?
The PC Government want to prorogue Parliament till March. They've just had their Christmas break. And now the people we pay big salaries to are told to stay home till March? So that Stephen Harper can load the Senate? So that the government bills that might be defeated will be shelved?
I don't really care about the politics right now. But who the hell is running the country for the next three months? We are paying parliamentarians to work but Harper is giving them a paid holiday ... a holiday paid by you and me.
The only bright side of that is that my friend and neighbour spends more time up here when Parliament is not in session.
But honestly, I really don't get it at all.
Do you?
The PC Government want to prorogue Parliament till March. They've just had their Christmas break. And now the people we pay big salaries to are told to stay home till March? So that Stephen Harper can load the Senate? So that the government bills that might be defeated will be shelved?
I don't really care about the politics right now. But who the hell is running the country for the next three months? We are paying parliamentarians to work but Harper is giving them a paid holiday ... a holiday paid by you and me.
The only bright side of that is that my friend and neighbour spends more time up here when Parliament is not in session.
But honestly, I really don't get it at all.
Do you?
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
What do you do at 4 a.m.?
I go on-line looking for mental stimulation.
Today I found Heather Mallick. I love the way she writes intelligently but in a very down-to-earth way. Her metaphors and allusions are all accessible ... and very female in this piece on the federal budget.
Some excerpts and where to find the whole essay:
"Someone calm, astute, someone whose teacup isn't rattling in the saucer."
"It reads like one of my shopping lists, a document I always worry will be found on me if I'm in a car accident."
"A deficit budget that splashes cash about rather than pouring it where it is most needed."
"What a cheesy, small-time way to keep Canada just mucking along. During the biggest economic crisis the world has faced in a century, we have a prime minister as carpet salesman and a nail-biting Opposition leader in the back office with a cheap calculator."
Today I found Heather Mallick. I love the way she writes intelligently but in a very down-to-earth way. Her metaphors and allusions are all accessible ... and very female in this piece on the federal budget.
Some excerpts and where to find the whole essay:
What she wants in a crisis:
"Someone calm, astute, someone whose teacup isn't rattling in the saucer."
On the budget itself:
"It reads like one of my shopping lists, a document I always worry will be found on me if I'm in a car accident."
"A deficit budget that splashes cash about rather than pouring it where it is most needed."
Her summary:
"What a cheesy, small-time way to keep Canada just mucking along. During the biggest economic crisis the world has faced in a century, we have a prime minister as carpet salesman and a nail-biting Opposition leader in the back office with a cheap calculator."
You can read the whole thing here. It is worth reading.
http://www.heathermallick.ca/
Monday, 19 January 2009
On Balance in 2009
"1300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis killed since the Israeli offensive began on December 27."
The Israelis have ignored world pressure to stop the offensive in Gaza for over three weeks.
I have been wondering why Barack Obama has been silent on the issue.
Now BBC says that the Israeli withdrawal of troops is linked to the inauguration of the new president; that they want to begin their relationship with the Obama administration positively.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if Mr. Obama could effect world peace just by being a beacon of hope, by standing for right?
Of course no one could live up to the world's expectations of the man, but I hope he will not be crushed by the realities and disappointments that will follow when he proves himself humanly frail. I hope the American people and the world will allow him to be a decent human being, and not ask him to be Superman.
Is that what one might call a vile imbalance?
The Israelis have ignored world pressure to stop the offensive in Gaza for over three weeks.
I have been wondering why Barack Obama has been silent on the issue.
Now BBC says that the Israeli withdrawal of troops is linked to the inauguration of the new president; that they want to begin their relationship with the Obama administration positively.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if Mr. Obama could effect world peace just by being a beacon of hope, by standing for right?
Of course no one could live up to the world's expectations of the man, but I hope he will not be crushed by the realities and disappointments that will follow when he proves himself humanly frail. I hope the American people and the world will allow him to be a decent human being, and not ask him to be Superman.
Thursday, 4 December 2008
Political Disappointment
I can remember only one other time that I have been so profoundly disappointed by a political decision. In both cases the decisions seemed to me to be, not only unjust, but also unsound.
A quarter of a century ago, the Quebec government agreed to contract conditions, including salary raises that would have brought Quebec teachers into line with the Canadian average. Then they simply revoked the agreement by changing the law. We had fought for what was right. We won partly because we had gone on strike and lost salary and partly because our cause was just. The government did not like losing so it simply pulled the rug out from under us. Almost as soon as we were back in our classrooms, they passed a bill that rolled back our salaries and revoked the contract conditions we had agreed to. They behaved like little despots, and I couldn't believe this was happening in my country, my democratic, fair minded country.
Today we saw another petty tyrant, a bully, get his way. Prime Minister Stephen Harper chose to run the country using a partisan hard line and refusing to cooperate despite the fact that he had, once again, a minority government that demanded cooperation if it were to successfully govern. Finally the opposition rallied and formed a coalition that could govern. Steven Harper's response was to ask that the GG prorogue Parliament so that he would not face a vote of confidence he knew he could not win. Before he did that, he presented a vicious dishonest case to the Canadian people that could well tear this country apart.
In the meantime, between now and the end of January, nothing will be done about the economic crisis. All of our government members have been given a holiday. At the end of their holiday it is fairly certain that the government will fall and another election will be called. It will be very expensive and will mean that another 8 weeks will pass before any kind of governance will resume. At the height of a serious world crisis we are going to be floundering about in the storm in a rudderless boat.
And once again I can hardly believe that this happening in my country.
A quarter of a century ago, the Quebec government agreed to contract conditions, including salary raises that would have brought Quebec teachers into line with the Canadian average. Then they simply revoked the agreement by changing the law. We had fought for what was right. We won partly because we had gone on strike and lost salary and partly because our cause was just. The government did not like losing so it simply pulled the rug out from under us. Almost as soon as we were back in our classrooms, they passed a bill that rolled back our salaries and revoked the contract conditions we had agreed to. They behaved like little despots, and I couldn't believe this was happening in my country, my democratic, fair minded country.
Today we saw another petty tyrant, a bully, get his way. Prime Minister Stephen Harper chose to run the country using a partisan hard line and refusing to cooperate despite the fact that he had, once again, a minority government that demanded cooperation if it were to successfully govern. Finally the opposition rallied and formed a coalition that could govern. Steven Harper's response was to ask that the GG prorogue Parliament so that he would not face a vote of confidence he knew he could not win. Before he did that, he presented a vicious dishonest case to the Canadian people that could well tear this country apart.
In the meantime, between now and the end of January, nothing will be done about the economic crisis. All of our government members have been given a holiday. At the end of their holiday it is fairly certain that the government will fall and another election will be called. It will be very expensive and will mean that another 8 weeks will pass before any kind of governance will resume. At the height of a serious world crisis we are going to be floundering about in the storm in a rudderless boat.
And once again I can hardly believe that this happening in my country.
Tuesday, 2 December 2008
Not really going to drink tea cozies ...
The problem with writing and editing as soon as you open your eyes is that you sometimes completely change the meaning of the sentences you try to correct for style. Yesterday I drank tea and worked on the first felted tea cozy. I did not drink a felt cozy. I also made banana bread and sorted out tree lights and began putting away sculptures that will be replaced by Christmasy stuff. And I shoveled heavy sludgy snow.
That didn't leave me a lot of time to do more than marvel at the political situation ... but imagine ... we are going to have proportional representation ... real democracy at last. I rather wish we had chosen it in a referendum rather than having it come in by the back door ... but under a Conservative government led by Stephen Harper, that wouldn't have happened.
But back to the mundane ... I am discovering that planning a cozy, like planning a slipper, is a major problem solving exercise for someone who is spatially challenged. I have to think, cut, try on, then think and think and think some more. I spent much of yesterday looking at the deep turquoise cozy and trying to figure out how to fit it on the tea pot. Then I tried to cut out a felt gold fish for it. It looked like a spiky blob. I tried on a felt heart. Then I decided the cozy needed a felted liner. If I used the heart instead of the gold fish, the liner and stitching could be a dark red. Once I had made that decision I discovered that I had lovely felted pompoms from the same felted sweater source. And the cozy which I had been trying unsuccessfully to put on a round fat pot actually fit properly on my tin tea pot which originated in India. It is the one I use every morning and it has to have a cozy of some kind because the tin conducts the heat to my hand so that it is impossible to pour without burning myself. It has been wearing an old hat for the last year.
So ... today my plans are to bake bread, wrap gifts, work on that cozy, finish shoveling, and check to make sure I can get the car out tomorrow. Leonard was here with his plow last night after I had gone to bed. Because of the hour I couldn't move the car for him to clear that area. Every time that happens I have to dig myself out. It is bad enough to have to walk over 1/4 kilometre to get to the car but when you have to carry a shovel with you to dig out as well, the idea of a trip loses its appeal.
By the end of the winter I will have perfected all systems and will have appropriate shovels and sand at all stations and will keep an extra sled up where I park.
At the Christmas reunion last week, a man I didn't really know while we worked together said his wife would never consent to live anywhere that didn't have a basement, a garage, and no work connected with it. He couldn't even imagine her living as I do. He had tried to introduce her to the idea of living in one of the condos on the river at the edge of the village and she was horrified by the primitiveness.
Tomorrow I want to go to town to make sure I have enough lights and food for the weekend's fun. If Pat and that gang come as well, we will have a contest. Everyone will go out to find the four trees and bring them back. Then people will be put in three teams and will either pick rooms out of a hat or choose rooms. Their challenge will be to create a Christmas tree that fits thematically into the the setting. Then we will all tackle the bathroom tree. I have found all kinds of lovely beads and possible ornamentation as well as things to set under their trees ... all from my usual Christmas tree ... moose ... mice ... a Mongolian ger and boots ... rocking horses ... even a teddy riding a tricycle.
Well, now, on with my day!
That didn't leave me a lot of time to do more than marvel at the political situation ... but imagine ... we are going to have proportional representation ... real democracy at last. I rather wish we had chosen it in a referendum rather than having it come in by the back door ... but under a Conservative government led by Stephen Harper, that wouldn't have happened.
But back to the mundane ... I am discovering that planning a cozy, like planning a slipper, is a major problem solving exercise for someone who is spatially challenged. I have to think, cut, try on, then think and think and think some more. I spent much of yesterday looking at the deep turquoise cozy and trying to figure out how to fit it on the tea pot. Then I tried to cut out a felt gold fish for it. It looked like a spiky blob. I tried on a felt heart. Then I decided the cozy needed a felted liner. If I used the heart instead of the gold fish, the liner and stitching could be a dark red. Once I had made that decision I discovered that I had lovely felted pompoms from the same felted sweater source. And the cozy which I had been trying unsuccessfully to put on a round fat pot actually fit properly on my tin tea pot which originated in India. It is the one I use every morning and it has to have a cozy of some kind because the tin conducts the heat to my hand so that it is impossible to pour without burning myself. It has been wearing an old hat for the last year.
So ... today my plans are to bake bread, wrap gifts, work on that cozy, finish shoveling, and check to make sure I can get the car out tomorrow. Leonard was here with his plow last night after I had gone to bed. Because of the hour I couldn't move the car for him to clear that area. Every time that happens I have to dig myself out. It is bad enough to have to walk over 1/4 kilometre to get to the car but when you have to carry a shovel with you to dig out as well, the idea of a trip loses its appeal.
By the end of the winter I will have perfected all systems and will have appropriate shovels and sand at all stations and will keep an extra sled up where I park.
At the Christmas reunion last week, a man I didn't really know while we worked together said his wife would never consent to live anywhere that didn't have a basement, a garage, and no work connected with it. He couldn't even imagine her living as I do. He had tried to introduce her to the idea of living in one of the condos on the river at the edge of the village and she was horrified by the primitiveness.
Tomorrow I want to go to town to make sure I have enough lights and food for the weekend's fun. If Pat and that gang come as well, we will have a contest. Everyone will go out to find the four trees and bring them back. Then people will be put in three teams and will either pick rooms out of a hat or choose rooms. Their challenge will be to create a Christmas tree that fits thematically into the the setting. Then we will all tackle the bathroom tree. I have found all kinds of lovely beads and possible ornamentation as well as things to set under their trees ... all from my usual Christmas tree ... moose ... mice ... a Mongolian ger and boots ... rocking horses ... even a teddy riding a tricycle.
Well, now, on with my day!
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
Waking Up to a More Hopeful World
I don't know whether it will be a new world with Obama elected in the USA but symbolically it is important for a number of reasons besides the most obvious one; that he is the first African American president in a country whose black population has been struggling for almost the entire 232 year history of that country.
It signals the possibility of a radical shift from the policies of the Bush era. This new president has roots in the developing world and in the African American world of the USA. He cannot help but be influenced by his own history.
He is young and energetic, and his vitality has sparked something far more positive in the USA than the terrible fear that has pervaded that country and influenced all of its policies since 911, a fear that continues today during the current economic crisis. It is as though he has awakened the electorate. People who were either too timid, too disinterested or too downtrodden to participate in the political process are now involved, just as they were during the Vietnam protests and during the Civil Rights Movement days in the United States.
It has been a long time coming, and change won't happen overnight, but at least now there is hope.
My own world is also feeling more hopeful. I have reconnected in positive ways with several old friends this year, three of them in the past few days, and I have established connections with some new people whom I think may become friends. Many of those friends are doing interesting things with their lives in exciting creative ways. One is active politically. Another has just published a novel that has emerged from a two year long mourning period. A couple are producing some wonderful art; one of these seems to have awakened from a long sleep, and I feel inspired by her newfound enthusiasm. Another is becoming a star in her own field and she seems to glow with positive energy these days.
And one has simply reconnected in a very personal way that has lifted a heaviness from my heart.
As for my own activities, I have some ideas for those felted slippers, and I've even managed to read a few chapters of The Brain on Music. I still don't like it much but at least I have figured out why, so I don't feel like a complete loser every time I pick it up with a disgruntled sigh.
Today I hope to finish the book, cook a pumpkin, make a zucchini bread, and spend some time outdoors with Kenya enjoying this wonderful weather. And maybe I will start cutting out pattern pieces for the first pair of slippers.
It signals the possibility of a radical shift from the policies of the Bush era. This new president has roots in the developing world and in the African American world of the USA. He cannot help but be influenced by his own history.
He is young and energetic, and his vitality has sparked something far more positive in the USA than the terrible fear that has pervaded that country and influenced all of its policies since 911, a fear that continues today during the current economic crisis. It is as though he has awakened the electorate. People who were either too timid, too disinterested or too downtrodden to participate in the political process are now involved, just as they were during the Vietnam protests and during the Civil Rights Movement days in the United States.
It has been a long time coming, and change won't happen overnight, but at least now there is hope.
My own world is also feeling more hopeful. I have reconnected in positive ways with several old friends this year, three of them in the past few days, and I have established connections with some new people whom I think may become friends. Many of those friends are doing interesting things with their lives in exciting creative ways. One is active politically. Another has just published a novel that has emerged from a two year long mourning period. A couple are producing some wonderful art; one of these seems to have awakened from a long sleep, and I feel inspired by her newfound enthusiasm. Another is becoming a star in her own field and she seems to glow with positive energy these days.
And one has simply reconnected in a very personal way that has lifted a heaviness from my heart.
As for my own activities, I have some ideas for those felted slippers, and I've even managed to read a few chapters of The Brain on Music. I still don't like it much but at least I have figured out why, so I don't feel like a complete loser every time I pick it up with a disgruntled sigh.
Today I hope to finish the book, cook a pumpkin, make a zucchini bread, and spend some time outdoors with Kenya enjoying this wonderful weather. And maybe I will start cutting out pattern pieces for the first pair of slippers.
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Poverty Awareness Day
This is Poverty Awareness Day
I have known poverty first hand as a teenage bride and as a single mom, but I think I survived intact mainly because because I didn't come from a poverty stricken background. I never asked my father for help but I always knew that he would not let me or my children starve if things got too tough. My experiences with poverty occurred in the bad old days, the ones before medicare and other safety nets were in place.
I have seen poverty at close hand here in Canada. Two of my children were forced to go on welfare when they were single parents. But they, like me, were not undone by the experience.
In their case there were programmes in place to ensure that they lived decently if not well. And both were intelligent and knowledgeable so were able to navigate the system and get out of poverty.
In my case there were no safety nets but people were kind.
The doctor who delivered my first two children provided all my pre-natal care, performed the deliveries and included the children's well baby visits for the first year for $35 and $50 per child. I had to ask him how much I owed, and, when I asked why he hadn't billed me, he showed me his bank book and said, "Do I need to charge you money?"
The Ear, Nose and Throat specialist who cared for my children and performed their tonsillectomies gave special rates to Quebec teachers and nurses because he knew we were badly paid.
Both of those men made house calls because I had no car.
My first boss paid my $10 phone bill each month because I would need to phone if I were ever sick and my pay could not stretch that far. (I started teaching at $1800 per year and my rent was $77.50 per month.)
My neighbours gave my second child a three quart jug of milk for her birthday because she hated the powdered milk I could afford.
Through that whole period I don't think I ever felt desperate or hopeless. I was young. I was taking courses at night and in the summers. My salary would improve. If I were ever in a real jam my father would help.
The poverty I have seen in the developing world is much worse than any I saw in Canada. But even there, except for the orphaned children living under the streets of Ulaan Baatar, it was seldom completely hopeless. The Africans I knew were almost all poor, but so were their neighbours. Even the neighbours who were a little better off didn't live in radically different housing or eat different food. Everyone ate the local corn porridge with wild crafted greens stewed on the side and occasional pieces of chicken. The greens in Kenya are called sukuma wiki ... stretch the week ... and nearly everyone needed to stretch the week sometimes.
What distinguished the truly poor was their inability to provide any education for their children, and, in most places in the developing world, education is a commodity that is highly valued by everyone for without it there is no way to climb out of the abyss. And that is why I would see people with very moderate incomes ... steady jobs ... paying school fees for many children that were not their own. I once asked a woman who was comparatively well off how she managed to pay fees for sixteen youngsters. She said she had to; otherwise her children would find themselves having to help four times as many needy relatives.
I think that poverty hurts most when you are continually made to feel poor, when the systems don't work well; when everyone else around you has too much and doesn't share; when you feel smaller and less competent than everyone else.
I think that poverty devastates when you feel there is no escape route. Children without caring parents; old people; the mentally ill... those who come from a long line of poor and uneducated people ... and in a place like Africa when drought or war threatens even the most basic food supply.
I vote NDP because the party believes in helping people rise from poverty. I vote for them because their predecessors, the CCF, started a medicare system in Saskatchewan. These are the people who give people a hand up without tramplng on their dignity.
There is a saying in Africa that I heard from a Rwandan man in Kenya a couple of years ago that captures why it is important to help people help themselves rather than blaming them for their situation or pushing them out of sight.
"If you help one African he will pull 100 others out of the pit with him. If you push him in, he will drag 100 others with him."
I have known poverty first hand as a teenage bride and as a single mom, but I think I survived intact mainly because because I didn't come from a poverty stricken background. I never asked my father for help but I always knew that he would not let me or my children starve if things got too tough. My experiences with poverty occurred in the bad old days, the ones before medicare and other safety nets were in place.
I have seen poverty at close hand here in Canada. Two of my children were forced to go on welfare when they were single parents. But they, like me, were not undone by the experience.
In their case there were programmes in place to ensure that they lived decently if not well. And both were intelligent and knowledgeable so were able to navigate the system and get out of poverty.
In my case there were no safety nets but people were kind.
The doctor who delivered my first two children provided all my pre-natal care, performed the deliveries and included the children's well baby visits for the first year for $35 and $50 per child. I had to ask him how much I owed, and, when I asked why he hadn't billed me, he showed me his bank book and said, "Do I need to charge you money?"
The Ear, Nose and Throat specialist who cared for my children and performed their tonsillectomies gave special rates to Quebec teachers and nurses because he knew we were badly paid.
Both of those men made house calls because I had no car.
My first boss paid my $10 phone bill each month because I would need to phone if I were ever sick and my pay could not stretch that far. (I started teaching at $1800 per year and my rent was $77.50 per month.)
My neighbours gave my second child a three quart jug of milk for her birthday because she hated the powdered milk I could afford.
Through that whole period I don't think I ever felt desperate or hopeless. I was young. I was taking courses at night and in the summers. My salary would improve. If I were ever in a real jam my father would help.
The poverty I have seen in the developing world is much worse than any I saw in Canada. But even there, except for the orphaned children living under the streets of Ulaan Baatar, it was seldom completely hopeless. The Africans I knew were almost all poor, but so were their neighbours. Even the neighbours who were a little better off didn't live in radically different housing or eat different food. Everyone ate the local corn porridge with wild crafted greens stewed on the side and occasional pieces of chicken. The greens in Kenya are called sukuma wiki ... stretch the week ... and nearly everyone needed to stretch the week sometimes.
What distinguished the truly poor was their inability to provide any education for their children, and, in most places in the developing world, education is a commodity that is highly valued by everyone for without it there is no way to climb out of the abyss. And that is why I would see people with very moderate incomes ... steady jobs ... paying school fees for many children that were not their own. I once asked a woman who was comparatively well off how she managed to pay fees for sixteen youngsters. She said she had to; otherwise her children would find themselves having to help four times as many needy relatives.
I think that poverty hurts most when you are continually made to feel poor, when the systems don't work well; when everyone else around you has too much and doesn't share; when you feel smaller and less competent than everyone else.
I think that poverty devastates when you feel there is no escape route. Children without caring parents; old people; the mentally ill... those who come from a long line of poor and uneducated people ... and in a place like Africa when drought or war threatens even the most basic food supply.
I vote NDP because the party believes in helping people rise from poverty. I vote for them because their predecessors, the CCF, started a medicare system in Saskatchewan. These are the people who give people a hand up without tramplng on their dignity.
There is a saying in Africa that I heard from a Rwandan man in Kenya a couple of years ago that captures why it is important to help people help themselves rather than blaming them for their situation or pushing them out of sight.
"If you help one African he will pull 100 others out of the pit with him. If you push him in, he will drag 100 others with him."
Strategy sucks
Well ... so much for strategic voting! I am going back to the tried and true ... well at least to the familiar ... I will simply vote for what I believe in from now on.
Last night I went to the first meeting of a new book club. I think I will enjoy it. The books chosen range from non-fiction to biography to the short story to the novel to poetry. I like reading novels better than anything else, but maybe this will stretch me. The people seem interesting and intelligent. I just hope I can afford the books!
Today is going to be a cooking day. I am trying out recipes that are basic, down-to-earth and cheap. Yesterday I did a side dish with beans and green pepper. Today I am cooking up a minestrone and an apple cake.
I am glad this election is over and we can go on to other things, but that post election coverage on CBC was helpful last night. When I awoke every hour with night sweats I drank water while listening to the latest returns. The night passed more quickly than it usually does.
Last night I went to the first meeting of a new book club. I think I will enjoy it. The books chosen range from non-fiction to biography to the short story to the novel to poetry. I like reading novels better than anything else, but maybe this will stretch me. The people seem interesting and intelligent. I just hope I can afford the books!
Today is going to be a cooking day. I am trying out recipes that are basic, down-to-earth and cheap. Yesterday I did a side dish with beans and green pepper. Today I am cooking up a minestrone and an apple cake.
I am glad this election is over and we can go on to other things, but that post election coverage on CBC was helpful last night. When I awoke every hour with night sweats I drank water while listening to the latest returns. The night passed more quickly than it usually does.
Tuesday, 14 October 2008
On Voting Strategically
This will be the first time I have cast my ballot for any party other than the NDP ... if I can actually do it once I am in that booth. I have tried before but been unable to bring myself to put that X beside the name of the other candidate.
This time I think I will be able to even though the NDP candidate is an intelligent woman, a teacher, someone I respect.
Why?
Because I am in one of the tight race ridings. The Conservatives have a small lead over the Bloc which has a small lead over the Liberals ... and the two best parties are well behind. The incumbent here is a Conservative who has no empathy for people, not even the ones in his region. And this is Pontiac riding. It has an ultra conservative anglo population especially around Shawville. I think the Liberals are the only ones who could possibly get the English vote away from the Conservatives.
But then I think, what if other strategic voters decide to vote for the Bloc because they are in second place? What if I am simply throwing away my vote?
So ... bottom line is that I may get into that booth and waver and fail once again to vote against my heart.
This time I think I will be able to even though the NDP candidate is an intelligent woman, a teacher, someone I respect.
Why?
Because I am in one of the tight race ridings. The Conservatives have a small lead over the Bloc which has a small lead over the Liberals ... and the two best parties are well behind. The incumbent here is a Conservative who has no empathy for people, not even the ones in his region. And this is Pontiac riding. It has an ultra conservative anglo population especially around Shawville. I think the Liberals are the only ones who could possibly get the English vote away from the Conservatives.
But then I think, what if other strategic voters decide to vote for the Bloc because they are in second place? What if I am simply throwing away my vote?
So ... bottom line is that I may get into that booth and waver and fail once again to vote against my heart.
Thursday, 12 June 2008
The Apology
There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly. -Buckminster Fuller
And there is even less in a nest of snapping turtle eggs. I saw several nests on my way home from Sarah's yesterday. The one closest to the smallish turtle resting on the dirt road was full of scattered shards of white shell. The others were covered in loose dirt. The turtle waggled her head and I continued on my way, thinking about the enormous turtle we had seen years ago at our shore. Out of fear our next door neighbour shot that venerable creature. It was over two feet in diameter. This descendant of hers was only the size of a man's palm. Thank heavens these turtles live in a lake whose environment is healthy and nurturing, and that most of their human neighbours value and protect them. Thank heavens that only one nest had been ravaged by a predator, likely a natural one.
Yesterday I watched Canada's apology to the first Nations, Inuit and Metis people. Thank heavens the Conservatives finally agreed to allow responses. It became what it should have been ... an historic beginning to a new era in the relations between the people wronged so long ago and the rest of Canada.
Sarah had asked me over. She wanted to judge the sincerity for herself. I am not sure anyone can judge sincerity based on prepared speeches, and my own feeling was that this was a political necessity and an opportunity for Harper and his party to look good. But I am glad he did it properly, because he was apologizing on behalf of all of us.
I was gladdened, impressed, surprised, interested, disappointed, and touched.
* glad to see Stephane Dion take responsibility on behalf of his party.
* impressed that Harper thanked Jack Layton for not giving up on him and pleasantly surprised when he admitted that Layton had pressed the matter every week for a year and a half.
* interested in the intelligence of the Bloc's apology but disappointed that it deteriorated into a political speech against the Conservatives.
* glad that Layton spoke specifically about the harm done to these survivors and to the generations that followed them, and about what must be done to remedy their situation. He was also the one who asked us to imagine a village in which there were no children between the ages of 6 and 16.
But it was the responses of the leaders of the peoples who suffered in those residential schools which touched my heart. Some spoke with humour. Many spoke extemporaneously. They all spoke from the heart. I guess for me it was the final speaker, the woman who represented the association of women, who spoke most directly to me.
She was a warm woman, and a wise one. She didn't harangue, but she made it very clear that seven generations of her people have been badly damaged by laws that tore apart the very fabric of her culture by destroying the traditional matriarchal system.
She spoke about how ripping children away from their mothers and their influence in those very important years and keeping them away from the women who carried within themselves the bond with the earth, had created young people who were lost.
And there were seven generations of these lost children, children who could not parent, children who could not know how to protect their own children from the same kinds of harm they had suffered.
And she didn't let our political leaders relax complacently now that the apologies had been given. She reminded them with a smile that this was only the beginning.
We never had a legitimate right to force assimilation on these people. We took advantage of our superior strength to commit that crime against them, and then we turned a blind eye to the other abuses that occurred within those residential school walls far from the protection of families.
Yesterday our political leaders said what needed to be said, and we Canadians were reminded that we have an obligation to protect and nurture children ... all children. Parenting and political stewardship are similar. Both are about nurturing, not about wielding power over other beings. They are about allowing caterpillars to become butterflies and leathery eggs to become turtles. They are about keeping the places in which they live healthy so that they can grow strong and beautiful.
And there is even less in a nest of snapping turtle eggs. I saw several nests on my way home from Sarah's yesterday. The one closest to the smallish turtle resting on the dirt road was full of scattered shards of white shell. The others were covered in loose dirt. The turtle waggled her head and I continued on my way, thinking about the enormous turtle we had seen years ago at our shore. Out of fear our next door neighbour shot that venerable creature. It was over two feet in diameter. This descendant of hers was only the size of a man's palm. Thank heavens these turtles live in a lake whose environment is healthy and nurturing, and that most of their human neighbours value and protect them. Thank heavens that only one nest had been ravaged by a predator, likely a natural one.
Yesterday I watched Canada's apology to the first Nations, Inuit and Metis people. Thank heavens the Conservatives finally agreed to allow responses. It became what it should have been ... an historic beginning to a new era in the relations between the people wronged so long ago and the rest of Canada.
Sarah had asked me over. She wanted to judge the sincerity for herself. I am not sure anyone can judge sincerity based on prepared speeches, and my own feeling was that this was a political necessity and an opportunity for Harper and his party to look good. But I am glad he did it properly, because he was apologizing on behalf of all of us.
I was gladdened, impressed, surprised, interested, disappointed, and touched.
* glad to see Stephane Dion take responsibility on behalf of his party.
* impressed that Harper thanked Jack Layton for not giving up on him and pleasantly surprised when he admitted that Layton had pressed the matter every week for a year and a half.
* interested in the intelligence of the Bloc's apology but disappointed that it deteriorated into a political speech against the Conservatives.
* glad that Layton spoke specifically about the harm done to these survivors and to the generations that followed them, and about what must be done to remedy their situation. He was also the one who asked us to imagine a village in which there were no children between the ages of 6 and 16.
But it was the responses of the leaders of the peoples who suffered in those residential schools which touched my heart. Some spoke with humour. Many spoke extemporaneously. They all spoke from the heart. I guess for me it was the final speaker, the woman who represented the association of women, who spoke most directly to me.
She was a warm woman, and a wise one. She didn't harangue, but she made it very clear that seven generations of her people have been badly damaged by laws that tore apart the very fabric of her culture by destroying the traditional matriarchal system.
She spoke about how ripping children away from their mothers and their influence in those very important years and keeping them away from the women who carried within themselves the bond with the earth, had created young people who were lost.
And there were seven generations of these lost children, children who could not parent, children who could not know how to protect their own children from the same kinds of harm they had suffered.
And she didn't let our political leaders relax complacently now that the apologies had been given. She reminded them with a smile that this was only the beginning.
We never had a legitimate right to force assimilation on these people. We took advantage of our superior strength to commit that crime against them, and then we turned a blind eye to the other abuses that occurred within those residential school walls far from the protection of families.
Yesterday our political leaders said what needed to be said, and we Canadians were reminded that we have an obligation to protect and nurture children ... all children. Parenting and political stewardship are similar. Both are about nurturing, not about wielding power over other beings. They are about allowing caterpillars to become butterflies and leathery eggs to become turtles. They are about keeping the places in which they live healthy so that they can grow strong and beautiful.
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