Category Archives: Just Stuff

Investing In Their Future, Not Ours

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Get Some Of That Overseas Booty

Get Some Of That Overseas Booty

 

Mr. Harper is crowing ( and I can’t even imagine Christie’s twisting and twerkings at this news) over the Petronas announcement that they will invest a total of $36 billion to build an LNG facility and associated infrastructure here in BC. Setting aside considerations of the fried planet with continued burning of fossil fuels, setting aside the devastation of hydraulic fracturing with its negative impacts of both land and water, not to mention the possibility of poisoning from sour gas, set aside the considerations of the corruption in the political and economic systems, and let’s talk about what investment really is in this context. Simply, it’s that we are unwilling to invest in our own economy, so we bring in the outside money, money that has a price. Not only does this take us back to the days of hewers of wood and drawers of water, it ensures that the best of the value generated by local activity ends up in Kuala Lumpur. This situation is particularly acute in the face of an administration that refuses to invest in a truly sustainable future by creating local capacity to employ our own citizens to provide for our own needs before we go off to look after the needs of shareholders in the international commodities market. For every $30 billion that comes into the country, we can count on that much leaving the country in short order, along with a premium for profit and the damage to the local landscape for which no one will be responsible under the current system of privatizing profits and socializing costs. Mr. Harper will just tell us to suck it up and either ignore what we can’t see or pay ourselves for his gifts to investors. My capitalist friend wags his finger at me and tells me that this attitude ensures that nothing will ever get built and that we will languish in the dark and twiddle out economic thumbs, that there is no prosperity without foreign investment. So far, based purely on my own narrow (but long time) observations, we’re headed that with the investors, so I don’t see that there’s a lot to gain. Saint Ronald Reagan’s Shining City On The Hill is a chimera populated only by those ranked bishop and above, or whatever the secular equivalent might be, leaving the rest of us to toil in obscurity and frustration. When investment becomes mostly local and supportive of people, I’ll be on board. In the meantime, I’m probably headed for some metaphorical equivalent of Lampedusa.

In The Night Garden

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My grand daughter used to watch a rather pointless television show called iIn The Night Garden, and example of which you can find here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeYhb8h47CE

 

I was out planting the last of the garlic this morning and found this.

 

Calling Card

Calling Card

 

It’s about ten centimetres across, and is either from a very big dog, or, more likely, one of our local bears. We’re very careful about compost and we don’t leave fruit on the trees. This part of the garden is fenced, but bears hardly deign to recognize the existence of a fence. I went looking for the “deposit” type of calling card, but found nothing.

Meanwhile, here is what I brought in for Sunday dinner with the rest of the family. Grandchildren do love them some corn, and there seemed to be no difficulty in giving away some butter to go with it.

A Gathering

A Gathering

In addition, there remains a load of stuff to be harvested on an ongoing basis, some of it to be mulched and some to have tents for cover through the cold, rain, and snow, truly local food, which brings me to the subject of today’s venting: local food that isn’t.

A recent labeling decision by the provincial government defines as local anything that comes from this province, meaning that food from the Peace River area is now local to Vancouver Island, a notion so patently absurd that it could only have come from the kind of government currently occupying the throne. This is the kind of drek that allows supermarkets to advertise local food that patently isn’t local, and who’s to tell the difference? It represents further cheapening of language by removing any sort of precision from the meaning of key terms so as to keep maximum hold on all aspects of the economy in the hands of Jimmy Pattison. There have been many attempts to water down the idea of organic culture, and it’s getting to the point where organic will be impossible because there will be so much genetic pollution in the seed pool that there will be no organic feed nor fertilizer, meaning there will be no organic food in the real sense, but who knows what Christy lark, Stephen Harper and Jimmy Pattison (or any of the Westons, or others of that ilk) will be able to call organic and actually have people believe.

Finally, and after this I’ll go do something constructive, I promise, in response to a Facebook post by Denis Olsen, I posted this video link of Albert Collins playing with Lonnie Mack and Roy Buchanan. Check out where Collins attaches his capo!

Collins, Mack and Buchanan

 

 

Two Teles and a V

Two Teles and a V

 

 

 

 

 

Send In The Clowns

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Un Clown peut en cacher un autre!

Un Clown pet en cacher un autre!

Had a chat with a friend about how Berlusconi can send the whole Italian government down the crapper when he, and probably a good number of his colleagues ought to be locked up and forgotten. Yet somehow, he retains office and influence al out of proportion to his contribution to society: some folks there seem to identify with him even though they are most likely among his victims.

Loose lips, and all that.

Loose lips, and all that.

Of course the Italians have no corner on the idiocy in politics market, and a swing through Washington these days is likely to be good for a few guffaws before the spate of tears that must inevitably follow, given the consequences of the lack of substantive action in the face of impending disaster. It’s not just Ted Cruz reading Dr. Seuss (you can almost hear the Seussian spirits gagging in the next dimension), but the whole notion that the peoples’ business can be stopped dead in its tracks by the collection of louts that sits in those august chambers is beyond ridicule and goes a long way toward explaining why nothing has been done about climate change, about oil spills and the devastation of water resources through tracking, the sacking and pillage of the economy by the sponsors of said louts, who mostly hail from Wall Street, the crisis, not only of health care, but of health itself, brought on by our inability to tell ourselves the truth about diet, medication, exercise and the spare parts philosophy of care.

Innocent-looking fellow, don't you think?

Innocent-looking fellow, don’t you think?

 

Caped Cruzader? Cruz Missile? Here is another man whose message is hidden behind the rhetoric of individual freedom. The unstated and sinister part of the message is that he protects his own freedom to plunder at the expense of the freedom of millions of fellow citizens, and he has a lot of company.

It’s everywhere: the Olympic torch has left Greece headed for Sochi, for a winter pageant to be held in a place with a sub-tropical climate, and where the vultures have moved in to boost the cost of hosting the event to something in the $50 billion range, according to recent reports on CBC news.

The government in Ottawa is removing the culture of medicinal marijuana from small operations run by individuals and is putting it in the hands of large corporate concerns. It will be interesting to see if the Bronfman clan gets in on the action. This looks from the outside as an invitation to graft and corruption where the current group in Ottawa are running like hell to catch up to the crew in Washington.

Go find a copy of Stephen Bruton’s song “The Clock”: it’s ticking, you can hear it every time you contemplate the direction set by leaders in all levels of political and corporate governance. What did Frank Zappa say about stupidity? That there’s more of it in the universe than hydrogen, and that it has a longer shelf life….

 

 

More Misdirection

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Journo

This pic is from:
http://suttonhistoricalsociety.blogspot.ca/2011/08/small-town-newspaper-news-opinion.html

 

Small town newspapers can be charming, a little quaint, terribly parochial and downright ridiculous when they try to be something other than a small town paper. Our local paper is right in line with most of this: they’re essentially a mouthpiece for the local chamber of commerce types, heavy on gossip and filler from sources from farther away, including most of the editorials, pretty much all of which parrot the editorial stance of the parent company, that being, don’t risk annoying anyone who might buy advertising, and besides, we want to be on the side of the economic winners.  I’m saying this for a couple of reasons: 1) it’s very difficult for dissenting opinions to get published, even in the letters section of the editorial page, and, once labeled a dissenter, nothing gets into the paper, even completely non-controversial material relating to community cultural activities, and 2) anything is an excuse to sling more advertising, in whatever guise it may appear.

As to the first reason, I was a little taken aback to hear my wife mutter something about having the wrong last name in response to some item she thought ought to be highlighted in the letters column, and that she was going to write. I guess some of the bitter tone might have been directed at me for pissing off the powers that be, but she was also certainly lamenting the difficulty of getting anything with our last name past the gatekeepers at the editorial desk. I guess that might have something to do with my writing here occasionally, and in full knowledge that it’s about as likely to be read as it would be in the local paper, with the one consolation that it isn’t likely to be a bed for budgie droppings or a wrap for dead fish.

But here’s the killer: yesterday was deemed Raise-A-Reader Day to promote literacy, and the town notables were on the street soliciting donations for local literacy initiatives but, strangely, handing out copies of a rag from the bigger town 80 kilometers to the South and East (said paper being in some foo-doo for a second incidence of publishing material deemed by local First Nations to be blatantly racist). As well, the local had an insert devoted entirely to supporters of literacy, with a few nice pictures, a little bit of text and captioning, but you’ll have intuited that most of the space was taken up by advertising for those staunch business supporters of literacy who, coincidentally, would like us to drop by and leave behind some cash, while we’re at it. My literacy training tells me that there’s a lot less interest in literacy than in business, and I keep wondering why I deem it my civic duty to subscribe to the local paper, because, frankly, I only get from it the gloss that tells me what the parent company wants me to think is news. Newspapers are becoming irrelevant because they are patently not what people want them to be, or at least need them to be, that is to say, distributors of information and forums for real debate. Perhaps time to let the subscription lapse and redirect the funds to real journalists. Just as an example, have a look at Bob Mackin’s piece about the same event under discussion here:

http://2010goldrush.blogspot.ca/2013/09/raise-reader-rouse-adman.html

 

Friday Chimes

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Andy_McKee

 

I first Saw Andy McKee in a video from TrueFire, I think, and he was one of those people like Pete Huttlinger, Vicki Genfan, or Tommy Emmanuel whose apparent talent would be overwhelming to a budding old guitarist unless he had a really thick skin and a firm sense of his place in the musical universe. This is not my absolutely favourite musical genre, but it can be great listening, and especially getting to watch the magic of the hands and fingers working with the wood and steel can cause bouts of rêverie.

 

http://youtu.be/Exm5g6Z3f9Y

 

Have a lovely Friday evening. I’m off to commune with the Bandudes.

Tilting at Windmills?

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Art by:http://leventep.deviantart.com/art/Don-Quixote-134537223

Art by:http://leventep.deviantart.com/art/Don-Quixote-134537223

 

It could be said of the NDP:

The future, like everything else, is not what it used to be.
—Paul Valéry
Particular since the advent of Thomas Mulcair as Leader of the Opposition, the party seems to have staked out territory firmly in what might be deemed the middle of the political spectrum, just slightly to the left of the Liberals, who seem to want to plant a foot in the centre left and the other firmly on the right (from which they would govern, if past experience teaches us anything), leaving no one to defend the interests of the majority of Canadians.  Into this quagmire steps Linda McQuaig, who won the NDP nomination in  the upcoming Toronto-Centre by-election, a presence that could inject some interesting sparks into the debate leading up to the by-election, as well as in any parliament in which Ms. McQuaig would sit, as long as she doesn’t run into too much of that ol’ party discipline.
Linda McQuaig
The problem lies in her background of tireless and well-documented opposition to the trade agreements of whatever initials that have essentially turned the world into a sandbox for the playing out of corporate misdeeds, games in which the government referees only get to rule in favour of one business interest or another, and where the welfare of the broader constituency is of no account.  If the NDP can’t embrace McQuaig’s distaste for corporate shenanigans, she will be hung out to dry, or might have to join Elizabeth May in a coalition of the disdained, the lonely Cassandra party, trumpeting wisdom and truth that will be utterly ignored by both the press and the general electorate. What happens when you have good people butting their heads against a nonsensical and intransigent system? I suspect we will get a good look at it if Ms. McQuaig gets elected, giving her the chance to tilt at the Mulcair/Trudeau/Harper windmills.

Planting Seeds

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home-attractor2_0

 

Why is it that the Hupacasath First Nation seems to be the only group in Canada willing to make some noise about the China-Canada Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement, a sort of NAFTA on steroids that would strip all Canadians of the right to do business in the interest of local, regional, provincial or national well-being, that well-being to be sacrificed on the altar of corporate profits? A story from the CBC outlines the concerns that the Port Alberni/West Coast First Nation has about lack of consultation and the potential impact on the 300-member group (does this sound like something out of The Mouse That Roared?), with the understanding that these impacts will equally affect all Canadians. The agreement is essentially a complete surrender of sovereignty and a charge toward economic oblivion, yet Canadians can’t seem to get terribly worked up about this latest attack on Canada from within, courtesy of the Harper government, with the connivance of sundry provincial administrations, a bought off press and a distracted citizenry.  Pretty sad stuff.

A Clear(-cut) Case, or, Somewhere Over The Rainbow

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Rainbow

 

News footage showing the gathering around a roaring fire when there is a burning ban in effect doesn’t arouse a great deal of sympathy, and the media don’t o much to paint a positive picture of those traveling to join the host. There are legitimate concerns about the park resources being overwhelmed and about some of the folks being insanely unprepared for conditions at the northern end of Vancouver Island. The sad fact is that there aren’t likely a lot of communities hereabouts that would offer an alternative without some up-front money for services and damage deposits, funds unlikely to be forthcoming from the Rainbow Family. I guess, since this gathering won’t inject millions of dollars into the local economy, that most communities would rather they just not hold the gathering at all, even in the case where people might approve of some of the RF outlook. So BC Parks Service has closed Raft Cove Provincial Park and will station personnel on site to ward off any new arrivals. Cited as reasons for the closure were concerns about public safety, specifically that of the campers who seemed ill-prepared for the hardships they would face. There were also worries about damage to a sensitive local environment.

However, it might seem somewhat hypocritical of the authorities in light of what is a major part of the activity that sustains communities all up and down Vancouver Island, and the manner in which that business gets conducted (see below).

 

 

CC

Speaking of Burning

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_IREMEN

 

There have been a lot of letters to the editor of the local papers about the cost of firefighters’ salaries, with some going so far as to suggest that this is one of the items on the city budget that is likely to lead us to a Detroit-style bankruptcy. The final straw was an op-ed in the Globe and Mail wherein Margaret Wente bemoaned the trend to becoming a nation of $100k firefighters, part of her argument centering on how cushy a job it is hanging around the firehall, doing 24-hour shifts where nothing happens and then going off to work another job so as to further feather the nest. I think she mentioned Owen Sound as a community that was bending under the pressure of salaries paid to these ne’er-do-well layabouts. I suspect that a certain amount of the local outrage is focused on anyone who has a better job than the complainer, or someone who feels that his property taxes just don’t represent good value for money. However, the jealousy and pettiness that underlines many of the complaints belies the worth of the work done by firefighters when called upon to get dirty, to get hot, to face fatigue and danger while working to save life and goods in situations where ordinary citizens are neither trained nor equipped to do the job. There is a certain amount of background noise, mostly emanating from some regional jurisdictions, but mostly from the provincial government, about the monetary value of work done by public servants in general, this coming from people, mostly politicians, who benefit hugely from the public purse, and who sit in the legislature for a miniscule portion of the year. I find it particularly appalling that citizens would call for the conversion of full-time fire fighting jobs to volunteer positions, implying that these folks should do the work for no pay. I would propose, rather, that those who perform volunteer firefighting duties be converted to at least part-time salaries, or perhaps some fee-for-call-out scheme. This should apply to all first-responders, ambulance drivers, first-aid attendants, auxiliary police, or anyone else who performs a valuable service for the community. Where do we get the money? Start taxing capital at the same rate as labour: with trillions stashed in offshore havens, there is a large pool of capital cannibalizing the work that people do without creating real value or building an economy where people willing to work can make a decent living.

firetruck

 

(Photos are from the PAFD site)

Old Friends

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Objects can’t be friends, I know, but sometimes there is something familiar in the feeling of manipulating an object that has become a fixture over the years. So, then, in a fit of teen fantasy about music that swirled around my head (and sometimes still does), in the midst of a summer soaked with Dickey Betts and company playing stuff from Brothers and Sisters, the first post-Duane recording, I went out and bought this:

 

Old Gold

Old Gold

It’s strange, in a way, that a chance encounter at the Student Union Building a couple of weeks earlier had pretty much decided me that I wouldn’t be pursuing music as a career. The building was on an events-only status, meaning that my games area gig had turned into door security for some events, one of which was a party of some sort where a pick-up band was scheduled to be the entertainment. One of said musicians drove up in a very banged-up Beetle and approached the door with what was clearly a case with some variety of Gibson guitar in it. He was early and pleased enough to show off his ’54 Les Paul Gold Top, then to give a quick overview of what he could do with it (without any sort of amplification), proving that he was a fine musician. We got to talking some, and he allowed that he wasn’t exactly basking in the glow of recognition of his talent, nor was he spending freely the largesse of the music-loving public, little of which seemed to have been deposited in his pockets, and he and his wife were struggling to make ends meet with their two children, even though she worked at a reasonably well-payed job. Apparently, she respected his talent and desire enough to continue to subsidize his playing habit. Finally, he handed the LP over to me, an opportunity I couldn’t resist despite minimal learning and possibly even less innate talent. His example was enough of a cautionary tale, despite his encouraging words, to keep me from ever seriously considering music as a steady gig. However, it never kept me from playing, though mostly in the comfort of my own quarters, where I get to play what I want, when and how I want.  I have also managed to acquire other instruments, all  of which I like a lot, but this old warhorse has tolerated my moods and continues to pump out lovely sounds when I take the time to work at it. It’s rare, particularly when life seems to be constantly accelerating change cycles, to keep something for forty years, but today is the fortieth anniversary of this particular acquisition and I thought it would be nice to share the thought.

 

Here is what Bruce (and co-conspirator Garfield) cooked up for me:

 

Money well spent.

Money well spent.