Blogging While I Should be Working

People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news.

1. J. Liebling (1904 - 1963)

Here I am at my computer keyboard when everywhere I look about my apartment I see tasks at which I should be engaged. What I need to do is figure out some way to earn a living at this. At least the washing machine is working while I poke away here. Today ruminations on items I’ve seen recently in the news.

Just finished looking at a website that shows waiting times at our various US Border Posts. Our border guards have been much in the news of late and it would seem that their mal-content leads them to hold the public hostage in long line-ups as they bargain with their employer, our government. First they demanded to be armed, to my mind a dubious right especially given the fact that wearing a side-arm is as much a danger to the holder as to anyone else. I’ll not even touch the issue of tasers. Now that they have those weapons lo and behold they are requesting wage-parity with police officers who are also so-armed. Let’s not go there.

Islam wants to make it a crime to question or make fun of their religion. A recent comic on the cover of New Yorker renewed this debate. Christianity once played at that game; we called it the Inquisition. Any system that is so weak that it can't stand up to criticism or parody deserves to be made fun of.

In Canada we rail about government inefficiency and miss-spending and shake our heads at the Auditor-General's Report. In Russia 50,000 artefacts worth several million dollars have gone missing. In the wake of the US invasion of Iraq the record of mankind's earliest civilization was looted. In Bulgaria $11 Billion in EU Subsidies are in peril due to corruption. Is there such a thing as honesty in government?

What is it about stardom that seems to place celebrities above the law, at least in their own minds? Somehow I have the feeling that movie stars have always miss-behaved but in recent years law enforcement agencies are no longer willing or able to clean up their dirty laundry. Since the paparazzi ensure that everything gets reported about these people's lives no infraction they commit can be ignored. The price of success, as Christian Bale can tell you, is that even petty family disputes become tabloid headlines.

It's summer and once again young people are proving that although they feel invincible in reality they are mortal just like everyone else. Hospital rehabilitation units start planning for the influx of summer vacation clients in March each year and this year a new crop are arriving right on schedule. Of course this past weekend 4 teens died by drowning raising the question as to who are the lucky ones--those who succumb or those condemned to paralysis and pain.

The list of companies cutting back on employees just added Bell Canada. Bell Canada just eliminated 2500 management staff which amounted to only 15%--by my calculation that means they have 17,000 managers. No wonder nothing ever got done! It’s one thing for businesses to reduce work forces to enable themselves to stay in business and the current round of cut-backs appears to signal a major slow-down in our economy. It’s quite another matter that many of the cut-backs announced in the last six months were made to ensure that corporate profits could be maintained for the sake of shareholders. In the present case it’s the latter that would seem to apply however I doubt if any member of the public will notice any difference in their service from Bell Canada.

Catching Up 2008-07-23

Yes, I’ve fallen behind.  As the cause of my current malaise choose between the weather, my recent retirement, or the news that delivery of my RV will be delayed.  None of these topics is apt to do much to raise my mood. 

 

With time on my hands I just finished browsing through a week’s worth of news updates from CBC.  The news is filled with murders, scandals, petty larceny, malicious gossip, and predatory online scams while at the same time statistics Canada announces that, overall, crime has decreased by over 8%.  Somehow I felt safer when I was less well-informed.  Lest anyone be hoodwinked into believing that action by any level of government or police service is responsible or that the addition of more police services or government policies and legislation will make us even safer; take note that the primary factor in the drop of crime in North America as a whole is the reduction in the number of people in the demographic that commits crime in the first place.  In simple terms our population is getting older. 

 

I suppose I should be thinking about disconnecting my computer as we are under a severe thunderstorm watch and the sky outside has darkened from grey to nimbus.  Since one is advised to calibrate a laptop battery once a month by running the computer until the onboard system shuts it down this seems like as good a time as any to do just that.  Disconnected from the internet and removed that cable as well.  Since I don’t live out in the country with above ground wires I’ll not run around and disconnect every major appliance in the house as my Mother would have done.  On the other hand I’ll not initiate any phone calls. 

 

The above dirge could have been written at any point in the last week and a half.  This morning, Friday, July 25, 2008, the sun has finally put in an appearance leaving me no environmental excuse to continue in my morose moodiness.  While I cleaned up my kitchen and made a late, for me, breakfast I listened to an Afghani writer talking about the trials of attempting to organize an Afghan Relief Committee in California.  In summarizing a 20 minute excerpt from a book he has written it would seem that even in America Afghan relief is beset by tribalism, suspicion, distrust of authority, in-fighting, and rivalry; the same characteristics that have plagued Afghan society for millennia. 

Wild Rice Salad | Simply Recipes

Wild Rice Salad | Simply Recipes: "nuts"

Wild Rice Salad

Ingredients

• 1 cup long grain rice
• 1 cup wild rice
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 4 stalks celery, sliced
• 8 green onions, sliced
• 2 cups thawed frozen peas
• 1/2 cup pine nuts
• 3/4 cup dried cranberries
• Salt and pepper

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 Tbsp dark sesame oil

Method

1 Put the chicken broth in a medium sized saucepan. Add the rice and wild rice, bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover. Let cook for 40 minutes. Remove from heat. Cool completely.

2 Heat a small skillet on medium high heat. Add the pine nuts. Cook, stirring frequently, until lightly toasted. Remove pine nuts from pan and let cool.

3 Whisk together the olive oil, red wine vinegar, sugar, and sesame oil.

4 In a large bowl gently mix together the cooled cooked rice, chopped celery, green onions, peas, dried cranberries, pine nuts, and dressing. Add salt and pepper to taste, if needed.

Chill completely before serving. Serves 8-10.

Blog Entry 2008-07-15.doc

With sufficient bandwidth anything is possible online it seems. I have never invested in cable TV and after nearly four years without a working TV during which I watched DVD’s on my computer I finally invested in an LCD TV once the cost reached my price range. I spent the first 16 years of my life without TV in fact I’m old enough that I predate the first Canadian TV broadcast. Two years later I went off to college where TV was again unavailable the dorm TV’s being monopolized by my Jewish neighbours who insisted on watching American Sports channels in which I had no interest. My first TV was bought years later during a visit from my Mother so that she could watch her soap operas. From then until now I managed on what rabbit ears and a loop could pull off the airways. After 4 years of no TV I now find TV commercials insufferable. Therefore, when I attempted to watch Flashpoint on Friday night I was turned off both by the interminable commercials and the poor reception.

This morning I discovered that although CBS will not allow Canadians to watch their programming online the show is available online at CTV here:

http://watch.ctv.ca/flashpoint/season-1/flashpoint-ep-101-scorpio/#clip64083

however whereas programming on CBC is commercial-free on CTV the program is interrupted every 10 or 15 minutes by a commercial which forces one to reset the full-screen option. Despite all this I must agree that this is a good show which I will probably watch again. And if you’d rather spend your money the show is also available as a paid download on iTunes.

Blog Entry 2008-07-14

I forgot when I was writing my last entry to comment on the actor who stars in Children of Dune. Those outside the Sci Fi world know James McAvoy from the movie Atonement but seeing him in this mini-series I was hard-pressed to distinguish which of the above actors was which. The one on the right is Gregory Smith of TV’s Everwood fame.

As I begin my last week of employment at Canada Post my feelings are mixed. I am not accustomed to being treated with so much deference and respect. Not that I don’t feel I merit it; just that I don’t normally receive it.

After work I went shopping and again I am hit by the monopoly wholesalers have over the marketplace. Why is it that California strawberries manage to look bigger, brighter and fresher than local ones grown a few miles from the store? The local ones were puny and over-ripe. My grandparents bought a hundredweight of flour and sugar, salt and tea for a dollar; I, on the other hand was able to carry $150 worth of groceries up to my apartment in one load.

Weekly Rant 2008-07-12.doc

Saturday, July 12^th

Lately this is becoming more like the weekly whine. Learned yesterday what I had already suspected, that my RV will be late arriving. I'll hold off writing about it until my system has had more of an opportunity to digest these details; there being too much vitriol in my present thoughts.

The weather is out as a topic of discussion. Suffice it to say that things are unsettled and camping is likely to be a washout. Given the weather we’ve had to this point I somehow doubt we’ll notice the arrival of the dog days of summer. The news is best avoided being filled with man’s inhumanity to man, murder, mayhem on the roads and waterways, financial chaos, and rising fuel costs. Theologically I’m not certain whether there is a lack of faith on man’s part or God has ceased believing in mankind. Outside my windows the world is lost in grey fog and the diesel engine of some heavy truck disturbs my peace though the trees block any view without doing much to muffle the noise. On the plus side I just noticed that finally the last of the colony of fruit flies I’ve been battling finally died out—it’s easier to avoid them than eradicate them once they move in. My neighbour seems to have gone off somewhere with her dogs and peace reigns supreme on that side of my dwelling; if the new neighbours have arrived on the other side I have not seen or heard them.

Tried several alternatives to begin this entry and ended up back working in Word despite its drawbacks—the devil you know, so to speak. The monthly update for Windows this Tuesday was 68 MB nearly half the size of Service Pack 1 for Vista—nothing broken there? Whether the two are connected I couldn’t say but last night I encountered glitches everywhere I turned including new configurations for the latest iTunes update for which there were no warnings. I detest it when I have to spend more time working on computer systems than actually using them—I decided that hate was too strong a word using more energy than I’m presently willing to commit.

One of the joys of the internet experience is the ability to research almost anything you want to know about movies on the Internet Movie Data Base

http://www.imdb.com/

One of my guilty pleasures is the 1991 teen movie Toy Soldiers. One of its lesser stars Shawn Phelan has always appealed to me and when I decided to see what he’d done in later years I was saddened to read that just four years after he made this movie he was injured in a car accident and died without regaining consciousness 4 years later. Truly a sad end to a promising career.

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Sunday, July 13^th

Returning to watch movies you’ve seen before is always instructive; but then it is with that joy in mind that one purchases the DVD’s in the first place. Rewatched the mini-series Frank Herbert’s Dune and its sequel Children of Dune in the past few days—5 disks worth. It’s been five years since the second series so it would seem that the franchise has come to an end. After watching Dune twice when I received it in the mail; the second time almost immediately I found Children of Dune to be a disappointment. Upon due consideration and the passage of time “Children” appears to be a more intellectual pursuit with less action and more introspection.

Tonight I’ve dug out the VHS version of Robert Redford’s The Milagro Beanfield War. Redford’s second directorial outing; it unfolds at a leisurely pace and despite some serious undertones manages to inject humour, never taking itself too seriously. Coming from a small village myself I can understand living in a community in which everyone knows everyone else’s business, everyone is related, and news travels faster than the speed of light. Redford is an actor’s director and in this movie along with Ordinary People and A River Runs Through It, the actors respond to their audience of one in very personal ways.

Time on My Hands

Discovered a National Film Board opus which was presented during the Toronto International Film Festival this morning called, Late Fragment. It is being launched on DVD come Tuesday with a release party at a Toronto Tatto Parlour, of all places. The hook is the fact that this is an interactive movie billed as having 380 clickable selections. Don’t expect I’ll be braving the expressways for a party in Toronto that runs to 2:00 AM on a work night but I may actually invest in the DVD. Details here:

http://www.latefragment.com/

When I’ve watched it I’ll review it on my sister blog. Sounds to me like a project for a rainy day.

In other news there is a grass-roots movement in San Francisco to name their new sewage treatment plant after George Bush in a definite left-handed compliment to his presidency. Finally an American Movement I could actually subscribe to.

http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/07/02/bush_sewage/

My Way or the Highway

The president of a large corporation opened his directors meeting by announcing, "All those who are opposed to the plan I am about to propose will reply by saying, 'I resign'."

Some people don’t handle rejection well.

Finally a take on the good life, fame and fortune; apparently it is not all that kind to those who attain it. Those old enough to remember will recall the decline of Chet Baker from former matine idol good looks to the ravaged druggie with the missing front teeth who fell out of a hotel window in Amsterdam:






Or James Taylor--who is that old bald geezer:






Or Chris Isaak--actually he’s aged better than most:







When I had a regular subscription to the TSO it was always a game to see if the press photo from the concert program was recognizable as the stooped, pot-bellied gray beard who stumbled out on stage.

Retirement--Stressful?

The best-laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley.

­­--Robert Burns

Efficiency is intelligent laziness.

Anonymous

If a train station is where the train stops and a bus station is where the bus stops, what is a work station?

Finally, a forecast with four days of yellow suns in it; as long as the threat of thunderstorms stays south of the Great Lakes.

Retirement is rated as second only in stress level to the death of a spouse. I wonder why? Plan for your retirement they say? I gave my employer over seven month’s notice of my wish to terminate my employment and they waited six months to send me the first shred of paper. I planned a retirement that involved travel and the price of gasoline increased by 50%. I gave the dealership six months notice to supply my RV—3 months more than they said they needed—and four days before I’m supposed to be taking delivery they can’t even supply me with a Vehicle Identification Number so that I can insure it. Do I have any reason to go postal?

If Santa Claus lives at the North Pole he’d better invest in a houseboat or he’s going to be treading water. In an article entitled Santa’s Pool Party it is announced that for the first time in millennia there is every possibility of the Polar Sea becoming open ocean this summer. Archaeologists have proven that during geologic time there were periods when Canada’s high arctic enjoyed equatorial climates. Whether this summer’s melt is part of a natural phenomena or the result of Global Warming brought on man’s intervention our polar bears are going to be sweltering onshore while they starve because there are no ice pans from which to hunt for seals. While Bush fiddles the ice cap burns.

Riffing on Jane Jacobs

Suburban sprawl with its emphasis on the automobile has an isolating and alienating effect on those who dwell there. Getting almost anywhere requires transport of one sort or another. For the young that means Mother’s taxi and for the elderly, losing the right to own a drivers license is not only a blow to one’s ego but means the loss of mobility. For the elderly this usually results in forced residence in a senior’s home. With homes built on postage stamp-sized lots young people have no place to play but the street. The few available public spaces become gathering places for teens to ‘hang out’ and boredom and lack of direction tend to lead to delinquency.

Petroleum being a finite resource shortages are inevitable. Whether the present spike in gas prices is opportunism on the part of the industry or the result of the law of supply and demand is immaterial; sooner or later the world is going to run out of oil. Given this inevitability city planners will need to return to a more self-sufficient community model in which residents can walk or bike to the local mall, students can walk to school, and recreational opportunities can be accessed locally. Although alternate sources of energy may become available once necessity forces the automobile industry to actually commit to research and development practical results are decades down the road and alternate fuels are not likely to be either as efficient or economical. Already school bus companies are attempting to renegotiate contracts with school boards as rising fuel prices make their operations unprofitable, taxi drivers agitate for higher fares, and airlines lay off staff, reduce speeds, and cut schedules. Given this scenario the concept of bussing children long distances to schools becomes impractical, hopping in the car at the drop of a hat unaffordable, and commuting to work a luxury.

Whereas the suburbs of the past were an impersonal blob those of the future are going to have to place more emphasis on community. Schools, shopping, and recreational opportunities will need to accessible on foot. As people get out of their automobiles and meet face to face a greater sense of community will naturally result. Regions where residents actually know their neighbours will become safer communities where greater pedestrian traffic will give ownership of the streetscape to those who live there. The opportunity to walk to work or work from home will have a premium attached to it. This essay has emphasized the socio-economic results of an apprehended fuel shortage; the environmental effects of our dependency on fossil fuels are yet another compelling argument for future change.