Archive for January 2010
Online Recalibration
Like I need another blog…. but really there wasn’t much choice. I had to start Oh! Canada to keep politics from swamping in the wind. Which is supposed to be my personal blog darn it! This is supposed to be for fun. Politics is hard work. Oh! Canada will be primarily for political musings, which at the very least should provide in the wind with its own prorogation vacation. The kick-off post for Oh! Canada is, coincidentally enough, called Prorogation Vacation.
I will also be posting photographs I took at both the Waterloo and Guelph January 23rd CAPP (Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament) rallies in Oh! Canada in the next few days. After I’ve had a chance to get some work in on my novel.
adventures in micro-blogging
When I began in the wind, my first blog, I was advised to set up an identi.ca account and then to start a Twitter account, which could be linked with the identi.ca account. Since the two accounts talk to one another, if I write something on my identi.ca account, it will also go out over my Twitter account, so I only need to say things once. At that point I’d been resistant to the idea of Twitter, largely due to the fact that I have no desire to type anything on a phone beyond a phone number. The fact that I can use these things online makes all the difference. And as it turned out the advice was good as identi.ca and Twitter have proven useful not only for me to announce my new blog posts, but also for finding all kinds of useful information.
Of course nothing is perfect, and it seems that everything I see on one account does not show up on the other. Re-Tweets and Re-Dents don’t seem to cross over at all, so if it’s something one of my Twitter friends has said that I think my identi.ca friends would benefit from, I’ll sometimes cut and paste. I’ve also discovered that shortened URLs from Twitter don’t always come out correctly in identi.ca, so if I’m including a URL, I’ll usually post from identi.ca.
On Twitter you can “find people” so that you can follow them. Sometimes they will decide to follow you back. In this way we build communities. Twitter offers #tags, so you can find out what other people are saying by searching for the #tagged word in the “find a person” tab. identi.ca came after, and so has an additional capability that I find handy: !groups. When you join a group, you will have the group conversation appear in your timeline, but you also have the option of going into the group area where all the group conversation is.
On identi.ca, you don’t “follow” people, you “subscribe” to them. If you have an area of particular interest, you can either join a !group, or start your own !group. That was actually where I first began figuring how to connect with people. Signing up for the !quote group was the best thing I could have done; you can tell stuff about people based on who and what they quote. Sometimes I just look at the public timeline, or search for something I’m interested in. Twiiter seems more about sharing info and links, and that’s where I get a great deal of my political info. identi.ca seems to be more about conversation. When someone you’ve subscribed to is having a conversation with others you may not be subscribed to, you can select to see the comment “in context” so you will be able to join in if you chose.
I decided to try out TypePad. Although they offer a blogging service, you have to pay for it, which I am not inclined to do, particularlyt since I am very happy here with WordPress. But TypePad. offers free micro-blogging. Now, what they call micro-blogging is different than what identi.ca and Twitter do. Both Twitter and identi.ca describe themselves as “micro-blogging” sites, and the TypePad. micro-blogging layout actually looks very similar, but the key difference is that there is no 140 character limit. I thought I’d try it out, so I’ve written a couple of micro-blog posts starting with sharing a book can be a struggle over there just to see how it goes.
I guess ordinarily I could have made those posts here on WordPress. After all I’m quite happy with WordPress blogging, and in fact keep suggesting it to people who are considering starting a blog. But I’ve been pretty busy housecleaning… er– recalibrating– over here. However, I’m experiencing some problems in TypePad. For instance, I have yet to figure out how to “follow” people other than the ones they indicate are stars. So at the moment I am following Bill Cosby. I haven’t quite figured out what that gets me 
Also, although it gives me the option to “preview” it doesn’t actually work, so the only way I have to preview is to publish. Fortunately I don’t have any readers there yet so I can change things with impunity. It’s probably some java script thing. My operating system is currently Windows XP, and there are a zillion things wrong, one being that “NoScript” doesn’t work properly. I’m working up to switching over to an open source OS instead.
down to a dull roar…er meow
I’ll try to reign in the blogs some so I can get my novel finished. Maybe while I’m doing that I can let my computer guy lose on my main computer to get things sorted out and working properly, with a GNU Linux operating system up and running. Just to keep life interesting, I came back from my accountant friend Paul’s place with a rocking bonus:
These little brothers needed a home together, and we’ve been sadly without a pet since last summer… needless to say, thanks Paul. (And they did finally come out from behind the furniture!)
So I kind of think there is a very good possibility that my life will be undergoing even more recalibration than my blogs…
No-ProRogue Rally Etiquette
As I write this, the Facebook page Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament stands at 210,316 members. Tomorrow Canadians from all across Canada will be standing out in the Canadian cold to protest Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s ill advised decision to prorogue parliament and thumb his nose at democracy.
On Saturday I’ll be out with my family in Waterloo Square rallying for democracy. If you aren’t sure where to go in your neighborhood, check out the Google Map of Rally locations… not just across Canada, but around the world. Anywhere where Canadians are, really. Whether 1 or 1,000 we will be out there tomorrow.
Waterloo Region’s Rally for Democracy
Saturday January 23rd,
11:00am to 1:00pm
Waterloo Square
Just thought I’d pass along the pointers I got from Katie at No Prorogue! Waterloo. I would pretty much assume that many of these hints would be helpful for most any peaceful political gathering.
- Come, and bring a friend!
- Please dress warmly!
- Please STAY OFF THE ICE RINK.
There is a kids figure skating show at 2:00, after our rally.
The salt on your boots melts the ice, making it dangerous for the skaters. - Bring your Canada-Pride! Wear Red and White (if possible).Bring Canada flags, or make a sign to hold up!
- This is a PEACEFUL PROTEST.
Any violent or disruptive action of any sort is not permitted.
There will be police on site. If you see anyone doing anything dangerous to disrupt the rally, please practice the “Separation” method:
Step away from the person and isolate them from the crowd, thus allowing the police to easily locate the disruption – do not attempt to stop the disrupter yourselves.I don’t anticipate any violence, but this should be mentioned regardless.
- Please respect and obey all requests made by the police. They’re here to help ensure our safety.
- All event volunteers will have yellow ribbons tied to their arms. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask one of them.
A Different Drummer
Maybe it’s because I was a little kid in the sixties, or even that I’ve watched too many movies, or something, but I think political protests make great family outings. My sister and I took our toddlers to a protest in Ontario’s bad old Mike Harris days. I have no idea what became of the darling little protest buttons we got for the kids that day that read:
“Toddlers Against Mike Harris”.
Sadly the damage done to Ontario’s education system just keeps on keeping on. That doesn’t mean we should stop fighting for electoral reform. It just means we have to fight harder.
For families who rally together
If you’re going to be out waving flags with small children, or elderly family members, it is especially important that you check out the location to make sure you know where important things like public washrooms and escape routes are. With small kids, anyone with health concerns or any difficulty getting around, it is good to have a relatively easy time of it getting to a warm place, or just a quiet spot when you can feed the baby or give Grandma a chance to rest her weary bones. With older kids it’s a really good idea to establish a meet-up place if, say, the pre-teens get separated from the parents. Rallying for democracy is one thing, but being seen in public with your parents is something else again.
It’s always good to pack portable kid snacks, but remember it is winter and keep an eye on the temperature, particularly because the need to warm up is greatest for the youngest and oldest of us.
On the fun side, this is a great time to use all those flags all those politicians hand out on Canada Day. If you don’t have one, the dollar store will. If you’ve a full sized version, It’ll make a great “Captain Canada” cape for the mid sized kid.
Just as on Canada day face painting can be fun; If you want to make your own Maple Leaf clothing, a bit of red acrylic paint can put maple leaves on a white shirt. Just print out a maple leaf shape at the size you like, cut it out and trace around the outside on the shirt or any fablic or carboard. You can trace around the edges with a red Sharpie marker (warning: do NOT try to colour it in with the Sharpie unless you have excellent ventilation for the bad fumes. Then paint the leaf. Or flag.
Acrylic paint adheres beautifully to fabric. Don’t put it on thick and it will pretty much dry within an hour. If you let your shirt (or whatever) set for a day or two after
painting, turn it inside our before laundering ant it will last you for years. This is a great fun thing to do with the kids.
Democracy NOW!
I think we badly need electoral reform, so I tell everyone to check out Fair Vote Canada. I expect that Fair Vote Waterloo Region folk will be out at the Waterloo Rally tomorrow. I suspect it might be a pretty big turnout, as Waterloo is awash in bastions of post secondary education.
What’s Wrong With This Picture? ProROGUE State
So true!
Canadians are annoyed with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s ill considered decision to use the prorogue procedure to avoid responsibility. That’s the thing about being Prime Minister: You are ultimately responsible for the actions of your government. From out here in the peanut gallery it certainly looks as though Prime Minister Stephen Harper micromanages everything anyway, so you would think he would be aware that it all comes down to him.
Instead of facing the questions and fixing the problem he decided to throw out months of work.
I can’t even conceive of the quantity of Canadian money prorogation has just flushed, but then I’m only a citizen.
This link shows the official government chart detailing the status of all legislation making its way through the legislature just before Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogued parliament. The bills showing white boxes are those which did not make it all the way though… these are the laws that have been discarded. [Thanks Debbie Lapointe]
Certainly, much of the now discarded legislation will be resurrected for the next session, but it will have to start over again from the very beginning. And of course, our elected representatives aren’t actually doing the work they are supposed to be doing during a legislative session, they are essentially on a prorogation vacation. Get Back To Work ~ Photo by Mike Gifford
Not that the MPs caused this situation.
The misuse of prorogue is entirely thanks to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. In some ways the prorogue is more like a lockout… the MPs have been locked out of the legislature. But that’s where the analogy breaks down: they are still getting paid.
Three months off with pay is an inconceivable luxury for the average Canadian who can’t afford to take random days off work even when sick. Three months. With pay. This alone is a very big part of Canadian anger.
How many Canadians are still unemployed in this recession who would jump at the chance to be back at work. Any work. So they can feed their families.
Could it be that our most highly placed elected representative doesn’t actually understand that there is a recession? Or what that means to people?
“When a government starts trying to cancel dissent or avoid dissent is frankly when it’s rapidly losing its moral authority to govern.”
–Stephen Harper, April 18th, 2005
Our electoral system has problems, and is well overdue for electoral reform. I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on the subject.
I don’t belong to a political party. Never have.
For pretty much the same reason I don’t belong to Costco: freedom of choice. Once you pony up your ten bucks (that’s for party membership; methinks Costco membership is a tad more pricey) you have a vested interest.
I usually don’t even talk about politics. But things are getting out of hand. I don’t have a degree in political science, I’m just a mom… a writer… a Canadian.
Why on earth is advertising “necessary” let alone “allowed”?
If the people running for public office want to explain their platform to the news media, I am quite sure it would be reported. If I’m not mistaken there is some kind of legal guarantee as part of holding a telecommunications license.
Any debates politicians are brave enough to hold would be happily covered by the news media as well. But instead politicians raise vast sums of money. The single largest reason they need so much money is to advertise.
The ads don’t “tell” Canadians anything (well, I guess if it’s an attack ad it tells you something about whoever paid for it.)
These ads aren’t supposed to inform us, they exist to sell us on their political brand. Paying for advertising is one of the ridiculous costs of running for office.
The amount of money burned through just to pay for advertising is incredible. Years ago I heard that the largest Canadian advertisers aren’t corporations they are political parties. Where do they get the money? The bulk of party financing comes from corporations. There are rules limiting donation size, but they are easily got around. It would require much more effort to get the same kind of funding from individual donations. Which explains why political parties subsidized by corporations are the ones with the most ads. And the most votes.
It shouldn’t be allowed at all.
Then there are polls.
Polls are quoted breathlessly by the media as though they actually meant something.
A poll asks a small sampling of people questions. One of the reasons polling companies make big bucks is that they know who to ask to get the answers they want. To make doubly sure, the questions are slanted to lead you to the desired results.
Polling companies don’t spontaneously take polls just to find out what people think. And like lawyers, they are not going to ask you a question without having a pretty good idea what your answer will be.
Because somebody is paying for the poll. If you listen hard to the questions, you’ll probably even be able to figure out which party paid for it.
BATR: Political Polling takes a look at election polls.
Alternating Rule
On the federal level, the Canadian Prime Minister is always a Conservative or a Liberal. One or the other of these parties always leads the country.
Although they of course prefer it to always be their own party, they know it will be their turn again soon enough, so neither the Liberals or Conservatives will ever embrace electoral reform. Because then the competition stakes would be much higher.
Alternating Parties: Governing on behalf of Canadian Business not Canadian Citizens
During the current prorogation debacle, I have been hearing people point to how great the “alternate” party — the Liberals this time– have been for Canada in the past.
What is usually cited was their masterful financial policies. Liberal supporters don’t mention the fact that they balanced the budget on the backs of the Unemployed.
Canada used to have an Unemployment Insurance Program. Employers would make deductions from employees and pass these deductions along to the federal government. Then when an employee became unemployed, they could apply for unemployment insurance benefits. They could receive payments for up to a year while they searched for suitable employment. If a job could not be found during that time, the benefits would stop and the job seeker would have to instead apply for welfare.
The difference between unemployment and welfare was that welfare recipients must take any job. A downsized engineer on welfare would have no choice but to accept a janitorial position if that was all that was on offer. If she didn’t, she’d be cut off. My understanding of the Liberal budget balancing was that they made it pretty much impossible for most people to ever collect Unemployment Insurance benefits. Thus, the UI funds were available for redistribution. In accounting circles, this type of book-keeping magic is routinely called “robbing Peter to pay Paul”. In government it’s called “balancing the books”.
This fact is that employees are not allowed to opt out of UI payments, these deductions are automatic. So essentially, UI has been turned into yet another way to tax citizens. I suspect that many Canadians have learned about this the hard way during the recession.
But we must remember: we DO have a choice. It does not have to be one or the other, they just want us to think it does.
Strategic Voting
Whenever Canadian unrest is building and we all know there is an election on the horizon, the alternate political party starts telling everyone not to vote for who we actually want, but rather to vote “strategically”.
The thing is, the people telling you this are asking you to vote for their candidate– invariably a member of the out of power alternate party. They tell us that we need to vote strategically for their candidate, because that will give their candidate a chance of winning back power. Funny, the people advocating strategic voting never offer to throw their votes behind your candidate.
If you have an awesome candidate in your riding who you are sure would do a great job and would actually represent you in the legislature, you are told it would be better to vote for their candidate instead — because it’s “strategic”.
It certainly is a strategic way to get the votes of people who wouldn’t have otherwise to voted for your own party. It’s “strategic” for the recipients. (And if it works when they get strategically elected, they talk about how voters gave them a “a clear mandate”)
Strategic voting is never “for our own good”.
High Finance
When I was a kid, working mothers were a rarity. (Yes, I’m that old.) With only one working parent, Canadian families could routinely afford to buy their own family home. Today, even with both parents working buying a home is an unreachable dream for far too many families.
Suburbia: The Canadian Dream
The biggest difference between then and now is that individuals pay the lions share of tax today, while corporations pay little or none. Back then people paid their taxes, but corporations paid their fair share too. It seems to me that we got into this situation because the alternating parties cater to big business at the expense of Canadian citizens.
Even so, corporations beg the government for tax deferrals and the government gives them.
Why is that?
We are told to think that people on welfare are bad but corporate welfare is somehow acceptable.
What Can Canadians Do?
All across Canada there are non-partisan “Say No to Prorogue” rallies being organized for January 23rd. Check the
No Prorogue! website to find out what is happening in your area. The sight of our warm bodies huddled out in the cold will no doubt do the most to tell Prime Minister Stephen Harper just how angry Canadians really are. Dress warm and get out there. Bring flags if you’ve got them!
[Many thanks to Colin Carmichael for providing Canadians of every political persuasion this excellent outlet.]
And as always you can start by sending Email to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Prime Minister/Premier Ministre Stephen Harper <pm@pm.gc.ca>
You can also send him postal mail without a stamp. Canada Post delivers mail to and from the Canadian government representatives gratis:
The Right Hon. Stephen Joseph Harper, P.C., B.A., M.A.
1600 90th Avenue Southwest, suite A-203
Calgary, Alberta
T2V 5A8
The government gives more credence to postal mail than email. Maybe because it’s more expensive.
And as always, send a copy to your own Member of Parliament.
Find your MP with this lovely link that will also help you find out who your MP is if you don’t know.
Find your Member of Parliament
Globe and Mail: Prorogation only a blip on ‘Richter scale of upset,’ Clement says
Seems Canadians need to tell Tony Clement what we really think. Maybe if enough of us do, he will finally hear us. The Honourable Tony Clement, P.C., B.A., LL.B., Minister of Industry
The Hon. Tony Clement, P.C., B.A., LL.B.
126 Kimberley Avenue, Unit 1
Bracebridge, Ontario
P1L 1Z9
Canada badly needs electoral reform. Take a peek at the Non-Partisan Fair Vote Canada site to get information some ideas of electoral reform.
P.S. You can also sign the online petition “Declaration of Voters Rights“
Time for a change?
Back to Canada, we have a Prorogue
Forward to No-ProRogue Rally Etiquette
P.S. Cindy’s Google Map of All Protest Sites
Thanks to Cindy, a Facebook Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament (CAPP) member for compiling this awesome map of ALL the protests for Saturday.
Cindy’s Google Map of All Protest Sites
NOTE: You don’t have to join the Facebook Group, or the No Prorogue Group or any other group to attend a rally on Saturday. Dress warm, and bring a flag if you’ve got. See ya out there!
Canada, we have a Prorogue: Part 3 of 3
PART 3 of 3
NOTE: I’ve broken the original gigantic “Canada, we have a Prorogue” article into 3 more manageable segments with no additions,
EXCEPT I’ve added postal mail addresses after email addresses at the bottom of this one.
So if you read the long version, you will have already read this.
Alternating Parties
In the Post-Trudeau world, the two “alternating ruling parties’” candidates began to merge into an indistinguishable gray mass. Possibly in atonement for the long years of Trudeau rule, the Canadian Liberal party started getting more like the Conservative Party. And of course, the “Conservative” Party was actually calling themselves the “Progressive Conservative” Party so they wouldn’t sound so anti-progress… The ideologies between these two parties especially became so fluid that the Liberals and Conservatives SOP is to steal platforms from one another, or even from the weaker parties, like the NDP or the Greens. Because in reality, the big parties aren’t really about ideology anymore. The big Canadian political parties have one one overwhelming motive. Their goal isn’t to govern. It is to be re-elected.
And of course the easiest way to be elected is to have massive amounts of money so you can do a lot of advertising. This strategy has helped to continue the tradition of alternating between Liberal and Conservative governments ruling the country. It doesn’t matter to big business which of these parties is in charge, because both the the Liberal and Conservative parties represent corporate Canada. Both parties are probably funded about equally by the large corporations doing business here. It is far easier to raise election campaign funds from big fish corporations than it is from small fish citizens. So of course both these parties have the largest advertising budget.
Always Elected but Never in Charge
My only union membership was my former membership in the former ACTRA Writer’s Guild (now the Writers Guild of Canada). Although I think trade unions used to do a great deal of good, over time they have given the public more than enough reasons for disillusionment. Many people assume that the NDP exists solely to represent unions. I suspect they would garner more support if they made it clear that they didn’t. From what I have seen the NDP is the only party that appears to represent Canadian citizens rather than corporations. Of course, that may well change if they actually end up in power. I’ve been reading a certain amount of Jack Layton bashing lately, and I’m not quite sure why, unless it is that many people are nervous when the NDP actually has some meaningful input. For myself I’ve been happy to see that the NDP has recently been championing net neutrality issues. Overall though, some NDP governments have done very well indeed while others have not. I suspect it depends on the individuals involved. As far as I can see, the NDP has done a lot of good for people, usually during minority governments.
Tommy Douglas' grandson Kiefer
Of course, a lot of people have a knee-jerk reaction to words like “socialist”, and that’s another reason the NDP has trouble getting votes. Socialism is like communism, right?
For myself as a citizen I certainly enjoy socialist initiatives like universal health care. Canada enjoys universal health care thanks to Tommy Douglas, former Saskatchewan Premier, who went federal when his Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) merged with the Canadian Labour Congress forming the New Democratic Party (NDP). (Of course Douglas’ other great claim to fame is being Kiefer Sutherland’s grandfather.)
No wonder the Conservative and Liberal parties have done a lousy job maintaining universal health care. It was after all forced on them, so in a way I’m surprised that it still exists at all, even in its current weakened state. Left to their own devices, Canadian medicare would never have happened at all, and the alternating parties know they can’t actively dismantle our healthcare system, but they can let it decay… Certainly these two pro-business political parties must be under extreme pressure from the business world to privatize health care, particularly now that the United States is threatening to follow the Canadian health care lead.
Almost all new Canadian political parties begin as a single issue parties. People come together to address a single specific political aim.
The Bloc Québécois started with the intent to foster the separation of the Province of Quebec from the rest of Canada. Interestingly enough, a lot of anglophone Canadians are suggesting a coalition government might work with the Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe at the head.
Gilles Duceppe has generated a great deal of respect in English Canada. Which begs the question: if Canada had a Bloc Prime Minister, would Quebec still want to separate?
No Seats…. YET
The Green Party of Canada began with the single plank of environmental care. When they first set up shop all their other policies seemed cloned from the conservative agenda. Over the years they have in fact been quietly crafting their own platform so they are no longer simply conservatives with an environmental bent. Like Duceppe in the Bloc, the Green Party leader Elizabeth May has been building a very good reputation.
If Canada had proportional representation, the Green Party would have at least several seats in parliament. Instead, they have none at all, since the “first past the post” system we are currently stuck with favors the two biggest parties, the Liberals and Conservatives. Is it any wonder they aren’t embracing electoral reform? That is the last thing they want.
Another party I’ve had my eye on is the fledgling Pirate Party of Canada. Probably the youngest political party in Canada, not just in terms of length of existence but in the age of its membership. Like the European Pirate Party they no doubt hope to emulate, their stated intent is to “to reform Canadian copyright laws, reform the patent system, and protect every Canadian’s right to privacy” These are big issues among the world’s youth who rightfully resent the fact that they are being criminalized for personal use of copyright material.
To illustrate the legitimate uses of internet file sharing as a way for artists to promote and distribute their work the Pirate Party established the Canadian Pirate Tracker. Unfortunately they’ve not done much since that I’ve seen. I’m not quite sure if it’s because they are being hampered by the undoubtedly mind-numbing red tape required in setting up a Canadian political party or if it is just because they haven’t yet sorted themselves out as a group, but I would have expected them to have made a submission to the Canadian Copyright Consultation, as copyright law reform is the main plank in their platform. I’m surprised they haven’t recruited or at least solicited advice and strategy direction from copyright experts like Russell McOrmond, Howard Knopf, Michael Geist and Cory Doctorow. Or maybe they think these copyright heavyweights are too old to be trusted.
Still, times like this when serious voter frustration is rampant are the ideal time to get the word out and build a base following. It’s certainly have been a good time to get visible. Yet I haven’t heard a peep from the Pirate Party through the entire prorogue debacle. If the Pirate Party doesn’t DO something soon they’ll just fall through the cracks. Which would be too bad.
Voter Apathy
Canadians have become increasingly frustrated with our politicians. Many Canadians proclaim that they don’t vote, almost as if it was a badge of honor. And in fact far too many Canadians don’t bother. I certainly don’t blame them, because I’ve felt the frustration myself.
It irritates me that after every election there is invariably at least one newspaper editorial chastising those who haven’t gone out to vote. Because even though I think that voting is necessary, I can well understand why so many Canadian people don’t vote.
It sounds like no one is listening.
For many years it seemed to me that there wasn’t even anyone to vote for if I voted “against”. But as more and more citizens refrain from voting, the worse it gets. A spoiled vote doesn’t count. Apparently a Declined votes count at Provincial levels, but since nobody knows what it means it may as well not count.
There doesn’t seem to be anything we can do. But it is clear that we can’t just leave it to them.
What Canadians really need is electoral reform
There was a time when I had hopes for a political party.
The National Party of Canada
In 1993 bookseller, nationalist and creator of the Canadian Encyclopedia, the incredible Mel Hurtig launched the National Party of Canada in 1993. The National Party ran candidates ran in every riding cross Canada that year with a platform in opposition to the Progressive Conservative party initiatives including the Canada/U.S. free trade agreement, privatization, the GST and other initiatives.
To me, the National Party sounded like exactly what Canada needed. Instead of electing any National Party candidates, however, Canadians simply gave the “alternate” Liberal Party a resounding 177 of 295 House of Commons seats.
So yes, Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative party was crushed, but in reality it didn’t really make much difference to Canadians, because we did what we always seem to do: we put the Liberal alternate party back in power. And funny, it took a little time, but turns out that the Progressive Conservatives had to reinvent themselves but they are STILL the other “alternate party”. Canadians are forgiving, or maybe just forgetful.
The Point
And of course that is what Prime Minister Stephen Harper is counting on. He thinks that the worst consequence he’ll have to face is the resumption of business as usual. But in the interim he’ll have had a nice vacation at the Olympics and maybe even a bit of a tan.
Canada has been deeply wounded by this recession. The fact that our Prime Minister would be so self serving as to flush a year of his own government’s work in order to avoid responsibility for his actions is not sitting well with Canadians. A government led by someone who can’t comprehend what it is like to be an ordinary Canadian has not helped. Doesn’t Prime Minister Stephen Harper know who paid for this work, not to mention all those government salaries? Canadians have been struggling to put food on the table for our families and he thinks wasting our money is acceptable?
I don’t have any magic answers. I do have some ideas. At the very least, Canada needs electoral reform. Since I’m running long (even for me), I’ll reserve my thoughts on reformation for my next blog post.
What Can Canadians Do?
All across Canada there are non-partisan “Say No to Prorogue” rallies being organized for January 23rd. Check the
No Prorogue! website to find out what is happening in your area. The sight of our warm bodies huddled out in the cold will no doubt do the most to tell Prime Minister Stephen Harper just how angry Canadians really are. Dress warm and get out there. Bring flags if you’ve got them!
[Many thanks to Colin Carmichael for providing Canadians of every political persuasion this excellent outlet.]
And as always you can start by sending Email to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Did you know you can send him snail mail without a stamp? I’m actually surprised that that one is still on the books but it is true, Canada Post will carry all Canadian mail to our elected representatives gratis.
Prime Minister/Premier Ministre Stephen Harper <pm@pm.gc.ca>
The Right Hon. Stephen Joseph Harper, P.C., B.A., M.A.
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
…oh wait, what am I thinking! I guess he isn’t likely to be there!
Best send it to his Constituency address:
The Right Hon. Stephen Joseph Harper, P.C., B.A., M.A.
1600 90th Avenue Southwest, suite A-203
Calgary, Alberta
T2V 5A8
They actually give more weight to snail mail than email. Maybe because it’s more work: we have to physically go out and mail a snail mail letter.
As always, send a copy to your own Member of Parliament.
Find your MP with this lovely link that will also help you find out who your MP is if you don’t know.
Find your Member of Parliament
Globe and Mail: Prorogation only a blip on ‘Richter scale of upset,’ Clement says
Seems Canadians need to tell Tony Clement what we really think. Maybe if enough of us do, he will finally hear us. The Honourable Tony Clement, P.C., B.A., LL.B., Minister of Industry
The Hon. Tony Clement, P.C., B.A., LL.B.
44A King William Street
Huntsville, Ontario
P1H 1G3
OR
The Hon. Tony Clement, P.C., B.A., LL.B.
126 Kimberley Avenue, Unit 1
Bracebridge, Ontario
P1L 1Z9
OR
The Hon. Tony Clement, P.C., B.A., LL.B.
17 James Street
Parry Sound, Ontario
P2A 1T4
Take a peek at the Non-Partisan Fair Vote Canada site to get some information about the idea of electoral reform.
Back to Canada, we have a Prorogue: Part 1 of 3
Canada, we have a Prorogue: Part 2 of 3
PART 2 of 3
NOTE: I’ve broken the original gigantic “Canada, we have a Prorogue” article into 3 more manageable segments with no additions
So if you read the long version, you will have already read this.
My take on Canadian politics
I first became aware of politics during the Trudeau era.
Our dashing PM with John and Yoko
Pierre Elliot Trudeau was undoubtedly Canada’s most dashing Prime Minister. And although almost unheard of in politics, Trudeau was SINGLE. A suave and sophisticated bachelor– heck he even dated my favorite movie star diva Barbra Streisand!
Checking out Trudeau’s biography on Wikipedia just now, I am aghast to discover that he was much older than my Dad. I guess our own parents always seem old.
High School
A lot of who we are begins in high school. Now, I have always felt mathematically challenged and I’m quite sure the introduction of the metric system while I was in school didn’t help matters any. Which isn’t to say that introducing the metric system wasn’t a good thing for Canada.
In order to survive high school math I didn’t even pretend to convert.
Memorize:
20 degrees Celsius = 70 degrees Fahrenheit = no coat
Let me tell you that I credit my favorite high school teacher, Mr. Ziegel, for helping me learn how to think for myself in his grade ten history class. I grew up in a large family, and you better believe it, with six siblings you learn how to argue if you want to survive. So going in I thought I knew how to hold my own and make a point; because after all arguing was practically an Olympic event at home.
The best teacher I ever had.
But Wayne Ziegel was a master.
He quite often argued points that I am sure he didn’t believe in order to make us think. I don’t know if it worked for anybody else, but he certainly forced me to think.
Mr. Ziegel’s devil’s advocacy both infuriated me and challenged my perceptions.
- Why did I think what I thought?
- Did I understand or,
- did I just think what my parents thought?
- Did I have facts?
- Could I back them up?
- Did I really know?
- Was I just parroting what I had heard?
- How did I reach these conclusions?
- Did I use logic?
- Or guesswork?
At the time I don’t think I entirely understood what was happening. But I knew it was important. I made a point of taking every class he taught for the remainder of my high school sojourn. I’ve had other good teachers in my life but none that could touch him. Thank you Mr. Z.
Mr. Ziegel made the prediction to our history class that gas prices would reach $2.00 a gallon by the year 2000. This “wild prediction” made everyone think Mr. Ziegel had lost his mind.
This was after all the enlightened 1970′s. There was no way anything that insane would ever happen. After all, Canada had our own oil fields. Yet since that time Canadian gasoline prices have exceeded one dollar a litre. Which converts to something in the neighborhood of four dollars a gallon. So as it turns out, Mr. Ziegel’s prediction actually turned out to be terribly conservative.
2005 Gas Prices: $1.19 per litre
You may well be asking: high school? The metric system? Is this a digression or what?
And I’d have to say no, not entirely.
One of Prime Minister Trudeau’s majority governments forcibly implemented the metric system on Canada. Although the metric system is rational, our largest trading partner — the United States — was not on the metric system. (Of course they weren’t using the imperial system either, heck, I’m not sure what the American system is called.)
Canadians were not pleased. Not pleased at all. This was imposed on the country without any consultation. What recourse to Canadians have against a majority government? Uh, none actually. Our only option is to vote against next chance we get.
So what happened? Trudeau was voted out and Joe Clark in. Sadly Clark’s minority government only lasted a couple of months before a non-confidence vote triggered an election. During the campaign I remember Prime Minister Joe Clark warning Canadians that if Trudeau was re-elected, gas prices would rise by an extraordinary amount. And Trudeau countered with the promise that gas prices would not go up as much as Clark said. Naturally Canadians re-elected Trudeau with another majority government. Of course, Trudeau actually kept his promise because gas prices didn’t hit the high promised by Clark. Gas prices actually went much much higher.
The Trudeau Legacy
2005 Gas Prices: $1.36.9 per litre
But even so we still didn’t really get it.
What we saw was that the big number on the gas station that used to be seventy cents was now only twenty cents. What didn’t really sink in was that twenty cents a liter really meant eighty cents a gallon. Because the real reason we got the metric system was so that adult Canadians who weren’t adept at conversion (aka, everybody) would not really understand that gas prices were actually going up so much.
Prime Minister Trudeau certainly had chutzpa, as well as being the most intelligent man to hold the Canadian office of Prime Minister. Even worse, he wasn’t just intelligent, he was smart. And yes, he did some good things for Canada, but still, I will never forgive him for realizing that under our electoral system a majority government is essentially a dictatorship with a time limit. Even worse, for making that fact crystal clear to all his less brilliant contemporaries.
Is it any wonder Canada has been poorly served by succeeding governments?
My political “awakening” happened in high school, thanks to Mr. Ziegel as well and other fine history teachers our school had. They taught us we could make a difference. I remember writing a letter to my MP Perrin Beatty and being totally amazed at a telephone call I received in response. But that was then. The Progressive Conservatives were the out of power “alternate party” so of course they were approachable.
Like many other Canadians, I have been increasingly disappointed in our governments.
Canada, we have a Prorogue: Part 1 of 3
PART 1 of 3
NOTE: I’ve broken the original gigantic “Canada, we have a Prorogue” article into 3 more manageable segments with no additions.
So if you read the long version, you will have already read this.
A flag flies in rural Canada
It takes a lot to anger Canadians, but when riled, that anger can move mountains.
The last time the Canadians got really angry at our government:
“The oldest party in Canada was reduced from a 151-seat majority to two seats in the worst defeat ever suffered for a governing party at the federal level.”
Funny, that was a Conservative government too.
Canadian Politics
The Canadian Encyclopedia
online article about the Canadian
House of Commons tells us that:“The Parliamentary Calendar specifies the time of the year that the House sits. Sessions of Parliament begin with a summons and end with prorogation. Both are formally issued by the governor general in response to the government’s request.
Minority parliaments recently have lasted only one or two sessions. Between 1867 and 1938 the annual sessions lasted only a few months; now they normally run a full year, with 3 long adjournments. The main purpose of prorogation is to wipe clean the Order Paper. All business unfinished at the end of a session – unanswered questions and all orders relating to bills and motions – die on the Order Paper. The House controls its own adjournments, but the CROWN (which in this instance is the cabinet) controls both the length of a session and the Parliament. ”
Just as every session of Parliament begins with a Summons,
every session of parliament ends with Prorogation.
Prorogation is intended to halt the law making process, and is generally employed after the all the new legislation has been passed. Or not. An administrative device to clear the decks before an election, prorogation sweeps away any incidental unfinished bureaucratic detritus and allows the new government coming in after the election the opportunity to govern from a fresh start as a a courtesy. This is perfectly reasonable… why should the newly elected government be obliged to clean up the unfinished business of the old?
Prorogation can also be used for a changing of the guard without calling an election. When Brian Mulroney chose to step down and hand the reigns of power over to Kim Campbell, he would have prorogued parliament, just as Prime Minister Jean Chrétien did when he retired in office and handed the reigns of government to his successor Paul Martin Jr. This allows the successor to start with a clean slate, and falls under the normal intended uses of the prorogation procedure.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has now twice employed prorogation in a completely abnormal way. Harper prorogues parliament long before the legislative business of parliament is finished. Because prorogation discards any laws that have not yet been voted on, most of the legislation that has cost a Canadians a great deal of time and money to craft — all the legislation which has not yet been passed into law — has simply been swept away in the blink of a Prime Ministerial phone call to his tame Governor General.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has treated a great deal of the work done by the 40th Canadian Parliament by discarding the bulk of the legislation as bureaucratic detritus.
Until now, prorogation was simply a bit of political jargon that covered a routine bit of business. Like every other ordinary Canadian, I hadn’t even heard the term prorogation before Prime Minister Stephen Harper chose this way to subvert the Canadian democratic process.
“Canadian prorogations of 2008 and 2009
During the 40th Parliament of Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has prorogued Parliament twice, both times attracting significant national and international media attention. Canadian Parliaments have always been prorogued every one to two years, but those prorogations were usually seen as procedural rather than political moves and attracted little media attention. The 2008 prorogation was soon after the first session began and was to avoid a vote of no confidence from opposition parties, an unprecedented use of prorogation. ”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has now twice misused the prorogue process in order to bypass Canadian democracy. Prorogation to evade hard questions and retain personal power has cost taxpayers far more money than an election would have, since all of the unpassed laws that this session of parliament was working on have been swept into the trash. Heaps of money wasted. All so Harper could remain in office with the hope Canadians would forget the questions we have demanded answers to.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper doesn’t much like leading a minority government. He seems to have a great deal of difficulty playing well with others.
American President Richard M. Nixon
For myself, I am very happy that we have a minority government, probably for the very same reasons that Mr. Harper is not.
Because the Prime Minister of a minority government is accountable. The plug can be pulled on his authority at any time. That’s a good thing for citizens. One of the reasons Canada needs election reform is that when we have a minority government there is currently no mechanism in our electoral system to remove a bad Prime Minister.
One thing I admire about the American electoral system is that they have legal remedies: even their president is not above the law because impeachment is a remedy open to them. Another is the fact that a President is barred from serving more than two consecutive terms. In itself that would prevent a lot of electoral abuse in Canada. When we have a majority leader in Canada we’re stuck with him.
Canadian Writers! Artists! Say “No” to GBS Settlement
If anything you have written has been published, or will be published, it is important for you to act quickly.
Because the Google Book Search Settlement will apply to
all published material in large American libraries
Under the terms of this settlement ANYTHING that might be in a library could be scanned and digitized by Google for their own benefit.
I don’t hate Google. I love the Google search engine because it works so very well. In fact when using it to look for links on this subject it was very helpful, it even highlighted this lovely quote from the amazing Ursula LeGuin:
“You decided to deal with the devil, as it were, and have presented your arguments for doing so. I wish I could accept them. I can’t. There are principles involved, above all the whole concept of copyright; and these you have seen fit to abandon to a corporation, on their terms, without a struggle,” she wrote in her letter of resignation.”
Ursula K. LeGuin in the GUARDIAN article Writers’ groups lobby US Congress against Google books deal
But I don’t think that businesses have any business owning copyright — CREATORS are the only ones who ought to own copyright. The reason copyright is in the absurd place it is today is because for years the corporations who owned the distribution networks were able to used their absolute power to deny artists access to a mass audience unless the artists were willing to give up some or all of their copyright to the corporation. In law that’s called “duress”. But that was SOP. Only the select few artists who struck it big ever had a hope of regaining control because they shifted the balance of power.
There are all sorts of reasons why this Google Book Search Settlement should not go through… one being that the scope is just too large. The outcry from other American writers groups indicates clearly that The Authors Guild, Inc.does not speak for all American writers, yet they have brought their suit on behalf of all the writers in the world and are prepared to accept a settlement which is clearly not acceptable to their American brethren, let alone writers from the rest of the world.
It is ludicrous to think a single writers collective can possibly speak for all the writers AND artist AND songwriters of the world
In the first place copyright law is NOT universal. This is why countries like Germany, France and the UK have fought hard against the original Google Book Scan settlement– and in fact won their freedom from this settlement.
Writers from Australia, Canada and the USA will be losing their digital copyright to Google. But that will not be the end of it.
Other things besides books are published and housed in libraries. Magazines. Newspapers. Sheet Music. Lyrics. But as well as written material, there is also a great deal of art published and held in library collections. I haven’t heard anything about artist’s rights being looked out for.
How can this be?
So in this second attempt at reaching a Google Book Scan settlement the only countries who may end up stuck with this legal travesty are Australia, Canada and the USA. Apparently there has not been much of a to-do about this issue in Australia, which leads me to believe that Australian Writers and Artists are just as much in the dark about this as I was yesterday. So they have not been presented with this information and will lose their digital rights without even being aware it is happening.
They don’t have the right to give away our digital rights.
The best case scenario is to stop this class action suit settlement because it will strip away the digital rights of creators. That’s what the Canadian Petition letter is aiming to do. Read it on Sarah Sheard’s blog: LETTER IN PROTEST OF THE GOOGLE BOOK SETTLEMENT <em>[editor's note: Sarah Sheard seems to have taken all the GBS material down, breaking all the links, so I'm just disabling them here.]
Better yet– sign the petition!
Sarah Sheard and David Bolt stress that This is not an opt-out petition
Although I’m an optimist by nature, life has taught me to expect the worst, so I as well as adding my signature to the letter I am also opting out, just in case.
Much more information about the legalities can be found on the American National Writers Union FAQ. I had technical difficulties with the National Writer’s Union sample letter (which would only open as “read only” in Open Office) so I retyped it into my blog post so you can easily cut and paste if from in the wind: Google Book Search OPT OUT letter: WRITERS. The National Writers Union is only one of many American writer’s groups are campaigning hard against this grossly unfair settlement deal in the United States.
There is a facebook group from which I learned that January 28th is just the opt-out deadline, but that there are additional hearings:
from the Facebook Group:
Canadian Writers Against Google Settlement says:• Notice begins: Monday, December 14, 2009.
• Opt-out/objection/amicus deadline:
Thursday, January 28, 2010 (45 days later).
• DOJ files its response: Thursday, February 4, 2010 (7 days later).
• Plaintiffs move for final approval:
Thursday, February 11, 2010 (7 days later).
• Final fairness hearing: Thursday, February 18, 2010 (7 days later)
It would seem to me that if there are VAST amounts of opt-outs, the court may well decide to throw out this settlement as well.
More Coverage of this important story can be found at:
Authors lobby U.S. court to reject Google deal
Writers’ groups lobby US Congress against Google books deal
Canadian Authors Mount Anti-Google Campaign
Quill & Quire: U.S. writers’ groups team up to protest Google settlement
Computer Weekly: US authors appeal to Congress over Google Books deal
New York Times: Writers Groups Oppose Google Settlement
[To make up for the broken links, here's a Bonus Link: Google, Publishers, Authors Defend Book Settlement (Update2) ]
And to restore substance, I’ve found the petition:
LETTER IN PROTEST OF THE GOOGLE BOOK SETTLEMENT
The following Canadian authors and copyright holders wish to protest the Google Book Settlement. Even in its revised form, it is an assault on international copyright law and has distorted class action law for the benefit of a predatory corporation.New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa and India – all countries with English-language presses similar to Canada’s — have been exempted from the settlement because they protested vigorously against it.. We wish to protest just as loudly. The Governments of France and Germany protested that illegal digitization of books amounted to theft of a cultural heritage. We agree, and believe that Canada’s heritage of Cultural nationalism should be applied to the Google settlement. All of continental Europe is now exempt, and so should Canada be.
We believe that Canadian Copyrights should be subject to Canadian courts, as well as to the Berne Convention. We believe that Canadians should not lose control over their works because they fail to sign up in a registry in another country; and, further, that the opt-out (rather than the time-honoured opt-in) clause serves to co-opt many copyright holders who do not have the the time or inclination to study this complicated settlement. Also, the deadline for opting out insults common sense and benefits only Google.
The director of the US Copyright Office has said “no factors have been demonstrated that would justify creating a system akin to a compulsory license for Google – and only Google – to digitize books for an indefinite period of time.” She has called it “an end-run around copyright law”. We agree.
The US Department of Justice sees no reason why Google should not negotiate with authors and publishers individually, just like anyone else who wants to purchase copyright licences. We agree.
The Google Settlement was negotiated by the Authors Guild of the U.S. But other U.S. groups — the National Writers Union, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers — are all unequivocally opposed to it. We do not accept that the Authors Guild speaks for us and join the above organizations in demanding that the settlement be rejected.
If the settlement is not rejected, we see no reason to trust in the future. The Google Corporation has behaved in an illegal and predatory fashion in the past and will likely go on behaving in this way.
We join with the writers’ and publishers’ groups, as well as with the foreign law courts and governments, who reject the settlement in its entirety.
—Vancouver Observer: Canadian Authors Mount Anti-Google Campaign
Google Book Search OPT OUT letter: WRITERS
Thanks to Sarah Sheard’s Writers Round Up and her links to the American National Writers Union I have just learned about the infamous Google Book search settlement.
(Out of touch: who me?)
If the Corporate Copyright Lobby has their way nothing from Mickey Mouse onward will ever enter the public domain. So the thought of slapping copyright on material that is already in the public domain is repugnant to me. I knew had heard that Google was scanning public domain books and making the resulting digitized version available under Google copyright. I thought that was bad, but at the same time it is better than having books lost forever. [Note: Robert Shaw has corrected this error on my part. I've just downloaded one of Google's digitized public domain books and it does not in fact carry a Google copyright. There is a cover letter where Google lays down the ground rules, and the document is apparently watermarked.
Myself I much prefer the wonderful Project Gutenberg, which scans books and makes them available to everyone everywhere absolutely free online without copyright.
Digitizing public domain work for the common good.
But that is not all Google is doing:
1. What is the Google Book Search (GBS) lawsuit about?
Since 2004, Google has been scanning the entire collections of several major libraries, without asking for or obtaining permission from the authors or other copyright owners.
Google scans entire books and other works, converts the scans from images to text, indexes them, and republishes them for profit by including “snippets” from scanned books in results of Google searches and selling ads on these search result pages. None of the money from these ads goes to the author or copyright holder, even if someone searches for a quotation from your book, poem, etc., or all the search results on the page with the ads come from your book.
The Authors Guild (without consulting or involving the NWU or any other writers’ organization) and the Association of American Publishers (which represents major New York commercial publishers) sued Google in federal court in New York for copyright infringement. Their lawsuit was provisionally certified as a class action on behalf of all authors and publishers anywhere in the world whose works were scanned by Google.
The original settlement got so much flack from so many countries that this new settlement has been scaled back so that the only countries it will be inflicted on are Australia, Canada, and the USA. Perhaps if we make enough of a fuss this settlement will also be quashed.
Sarah Sheard has mounted a Canadian Writers’ Petition in an effort to attempt to stop the settlement, particularly for Canadians.
Every Canadian writer should sign, published or not.
This petition can help achieve the best possible outcome: for the settlement to be denied. (There are many American writers organizations vigorously fighting against this settlement as well.) Should the court approve this settlement it will be binding on American, Australian and Canadian writers. The time frame to do anything is ridiculously short, as the decision will be made after submissions stop being accepted on January 28th, 2010.
The American National Writers Union provides a list of options, including my favorite, which is to opt out of the settlement. By opting out you deny Google the opportunity to take control of your work; you retain your rights. Even though I have not yet finished my novel, I will, because I plan to self publish it and many more.
The NWU provides a sample letter for writers to use. Even though it was not a PDF it was read-only for my computer, so I’ve taken the liberty of re-typing it here to make it easy for writers to use with simple cut and pasting.
NWU GBS OPT OUT SAMPLE LETTER
Office of the Clerk of the Court
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of N.Y.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse
500 Pearl Street
New York, NY 10007-1312Re: The Authors Guild, Inc., et al. v. Google Inc., No. 05CV 8136
By this letter, I opt out of the proposed settlement in this case. I am opting out of both the “Author Sub-Class” and the “Publisher Sub-Class,” and out of the settlement in its entirety.[Optional]
I have written and/or published works under names including, but not limited to, the following variant spellings, forms, pen names and pseudonyms:[Optional]
My works include, but are not limited to the following:[Optional]
I am opting out becauseSincerely,
______________________________________________
cc: Google Book Search Settlement Administrator
c/o Rust Consulting
P.O. Box 9364
Minneapolis, MN
USA 55440-9364[Optional copies for Google, print publishers, and the Authors Guild:]
Michael J. Boni, Esq.
Joanne Zack, Esq.
Joshua Snyder, Esq.
Boni & Zack LLC
15 St. Asaphs Rd.
Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004 bookclaims@bonizack.comJeffrey P. Cunard, Esq.
Bruce P. Keller, Esq.
Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
919 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10022 bookclaims@debevoise.comDaralyn J. Durie, Esq.
Joseph C. Gratz, Esq.
Durie Tangri Lemley Roberts & Kent LLP
32 Pine Street, Ste. 200
San Francisco, CA 94104 bookclaims@durietangri.com
Exercising A Middle Aged Brain
[This blog post is dedicated to Mr. Collins, my Grade 10 EDSS English Teacher, with thanks.]
High School
It was routine for me to be juggling six books at any given time when I was in high school. Several would be sandwiched between my school books, so if I had a few minutes between classes I could open any of them and know exactly where I was in the narrative. This was the reading equivalent of cat naps, cat reading allowed me to read a lot. Even better — I retained what I read.
digression
In the tenth grade I had a terrible English teacher who also happened to be a great guy.
Maybe Mr. Collins wasn’t really a terrible teacher, maybe it’s just that Grade 10 English was exceptionally awful for me since it was an entire year of grammar. (It sure seemed that way!)
Naturally I loved the Grade 9 teacher who only gave us three days of grammar. But then, Grade 10 English might not have been so bad if I’d had the grade 9 foundation of grammar necessary to handle the tenth grade curriculum. Even worse, I had absolutely no motivation to learn the rules of grammar. What was the point? Because I was a reader I was capable of intuitively following the rules of English grammar in much the same way people drive cars without having a clue how internal combustion engines work.
I thought grammar was a terrible waste of English class time… we might have been reading all the great classics — but instead we were learning about dangling participles. To this day I don’t know what a dangling participle is, and what’s more I don’t care. But the curriculum said we had to learn it.
Hmmm…. maybe Mr. Collins was actually a very good English teacher. Mr. Collins helped me to not fail tenth grade English. (It was really close.) Somehow Mr. Collins convinced me to try.
Part of the curriculum was having to memorize poetry. I simply did not want to waste the time and brain cells memorizing poetry I didn’t like. This is another example of where Mr. Collins proved to be a great guy; instead of forcing me to clutter up my head with poetry I did not like, he allowed me to memorize poetry I DID like. I will be forever grateful for that… particularly since it is still stored safely in my memory to this day….
Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn in Peter Jackson's movie trilogy Lord of the Rings
All that is gold does not glitter
Not all those who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither
Deep roots are not touched by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken
A light from the darkness shall spring
Renewed shall be the blade
that was broken
The crownless again shall be king”–J.R.R. Tolkien
Lord of the Rings
I have NOT checked the text so a word or two may have drifted or otherwise altered in my memory since I first memorized Lord of the Rings poetry for English classes more than 30 years ago, but just typing it out now I still get shivers.
Another time my friend Carole and I each took over a wall of blackboard and held an impromptu longest run-on-sentence competition. Can’t remember who won, just that it was fun. Not too many teachers would have been cool enough to let us go nuts all over his blackboards.
Thanks Mr. C.
College
My mind was abuzz with all the new ideas and attitudes I was being exposed to in the wider world, I was lucky to find the time to read six recreational books a year. Thinking, feeling, experiencing, pushing the envelope. Lots of exercise for a young brain.
Working Girl
When working as an assistant story editor in the Hot Shots story department my brain did the job that IMDB does now… I could rhyme off the plots and credits from pretty much every movie or TV show I’d ever seen. I accepted this ability to be able to remember and retrieve the necessary information as needed as natural. I even started memorizing frequently needed work phone numbers.
I thought there was no end to it.
Brain Full
Until the day I moved and simply could not remember my own new phone number.
Jello Brain
Suddenly it became clear that my memory storage capacity was not infinite. My brain was full.
I would get annoyed when I couldn’t recall things that I thought I should be able to remember. My husband would laugh when I’d come back from shopping without the specific item I’d gone to get. He said my memory had just become more like a normal person’s memory. (Well, his.) His point was that I used to have a better than average memory. This did not make it any less frustrating however.
confessions of a middle aged brain
It’s taken time for me to come to come to accept my aging memory functions, my brain falls within the “middle age” parameters.
“The brain, as it traverses middle age, gets better at recognizing the central idea, the big picture. If kept in good shape, the brain can continue to build pathways that help its owner recognize patterns and, as a consequence, see significance and even solutions much faster than a young person can.”
Barbara Strauch, New York Times Article:
How to Train the Aging Brain
Barbara Strauch’s New York Times article is an interesting look at how older brains learn. They don’t simply fall into disarray as was previously thought. And although it can take longer, middle aged brains can in fact learn new tricks.
mental calisthenics
Several years back I bought some one inch ceramic letters on magnets to spell out our names. It became a family game because whenever we’d have a chance we’d rearrange the letters into different words, so part of our fridge looked like a crossword puzzle or a scrabble board.
It was’t just fun, I could actually feel my brain working to come up with a better configuration of words or letters. It got so that we all knew the possible words we could make, so it stopped being as much fun. The craft store I’d bought the letters from had closed down, so it was a while before I was able to increase our letter stash.
The “HOUSE” theme on our fridge
Eventually I found another source of letters so we were able to expanded our alphabet so that we could create themed crosswords. This enables the use of large words (like “diagnostician”) and we try to follow whatever theme emerges. As the letters get used up eventually the idea simplifies, and the new objective is to use up all the letters. I love this because it feels like calisthenics for the brain.
Digital imaging to promote Project Gutenberg
A few years ago I plunged into the computer pool, learning to use Photoshop for digital photo restoration and then progressing into digital manipulation. From a practical standpoint there is good and bad in that, since I am at the point where just about every photograph can be fixed.
The “bad part” being that just about every photograph can be fixed…. so I could spend the rest of my life fixing the photos I’ve already taken.
In some ways, digital imaging is similar to other creative work I’ve done in the past. At the same time, there was an awful lot to learn that wasn’t. Quite a bit of mental stretching necessary. The new “middle age” brain research indicates that those of us with middle age brains can in fact learn new tricks, and in particular we do better by challenging our perceptions.
It seems I’ve been doing that inadvertently, learning how to code XHTML. Without the awesome free HTML Dog online tutorials I doubt I’d have ever been able to get anywhere. Although I bought Patrick Griffiths’ HTML Dog book for reference it was the online tutorials which actually helped me master this. Never in my wildest imaginings would I have thought I could manage the technical stuff of web page design. Still, it boggles my middle aged mind that I can read source code.
Then of course I’ve found myself drawn into the Usage Based Billing issue, which naturally led into the net neutrality issue, which in turn led to the copyright issue.
The copyright issue was a particular challenge. As a writer I wanted to participate in the Canadian government’s copyright consultation process. Writing my copycon submission forced me to really think about it, sifting through the new ideas that turned the old way of thinking on its head. Just as the article discusses, copyright challenged my established brain connections.
“The brain, as it traverses middle age, gets better at recognizing the central idea, the big picture. ”
Barbara Strauch, New York Times Article
How to Train the Aging Brain
One of the reasons that Barbara Strauch’s article resonates with me personally is that it has helped me to understand what in many ways had seemed like magic more than logic. It’s good to know that my copyright theories aren’t in fact the product of some magical alchemy.
My middle aged brain was able to assimilate many ideas proposed by others, assess policies and practices relating to copyright I’ve seen in my lifetime and combine this all with my own personal life experience to arrive at some startling conclusions. Certainly I would never have come to any of these radical conclusions in my youth back in the day. The world has changed and my middle aged brain has allowed me to step back and look at the big picture with startling clarity.
The science discussed in the article indicates that the divergences I’ve taken away from “normal” are probably why my brain feels much more agile than it has in years. It is because I have been pushing my middle aged brain to learn and do such different things that allows it to continue its life long job of learning so that I can continue to learn and do such different things.
Who’d have thought.
[note: I read the New York Times article thanks to a sandynunn re-tweet. Thanks Sandy.]
