Friday Chimes

Posted on 2013/09/20 by danneau

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?

Posted on 2013/09/16 by danneau

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.

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.

The Country That Cried Wolf

Posted on 2013/09/01 by danneau

A long-time associate told me last Tuesday that he had written Barack Obama to tell him that the US had no business being involved in Syria and that the “intelligence” on which the possible intervention was based was sounding a lot like Colin Powell at the UN a decade ago, or the Gulf Of Tonkin stuff of 1964 or whatever other BS the American military has cooked up over the years. It now seems that several sources, including the Wall Street Journal, are pointing out the there have been admissions by Syrian rebels that it was they who deployed, perhaps by accident, chemical weapons that originated in Saudi Arabia. This leaves the US with no credibility at all, renews the idea that the Nobel folks erred seriously in awarding Obama a Peace Prize, and reframes the Syrian conflict very much as part of the Wahabist endgame of establishing the primacy of the house of Saud and the Sunni sect, as though it was worth hitting Dublin because of the Troubles in the Six Counties. Another sad aspect is that the Globe, The Star, The Vancouver Sun and other press organs seem to be missing the shift here, not surprising as they seem to be consistent cheerleaders for war and not all that keen on providing full coverage, particularly when that coverage might short-circuit the reasons that the powers that be might have for sending people off to die so that Lockheed, Boeing, Halliburton et al can cash in yet again on misery inflicted on people all over the world.

Update:

Allison at Creekside reports…

http://creekside1.blogspot.ca/2013/09/bomb-bomb-bomb-iran-syria.html

Wanda Ballantyne over at POCLAD linked to this:

http://nsnbc.me/2013/08/28/confirmed-us-claims-against-syria-there-is-no-evidence/

…and several other articles that suggest pretty strongly that Obama, Cameron and Hollande need to step back. We’ve come to expect this from Obama, and Cameron has never been, nor has expressed any inclination to be, anything other than a cheerleader for the empire of Capital, but the Socialist-In-Name-Only Hollande has been a disappointment on pretty much everything: foreign policy and economic policy that might follow on Sarkozy in the same way that Obama seems to out-Bush good ol’ GWB, despite and conrtary to the glowing rhetoric.

Planting Seeds

Posted on 2013/08/12 by danneau

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

Posted on 2013/08/10 by danneau

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).

Speaking of Burning

Posted on 2013/08/10 by danneau

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.

(Photos are from the PAFD site)

The Town Isn’t The Only Thing Being Burned

Posted on 2013/08/07 by danneau

Ring Of Fire

MM&A today filed for bankruptcy protection. This is the legal was of the principals in a company walking away from the consequences of acts brought on by the actions of their company. This is the result of laws defining limited or non-public liability. The shareholders may or may not have done well with this outfit,I suspect management did all right, the railroaders probably made enough to get by, but perhaps not enough to be really committed to the job and the company, but the people of Lac Mégantic are going to be left holding the bag, along with the Province of Québec and the citizens of Canada as a whole. The whole system works in favour of the investing class and, unless criminal responsibility can be established, it seems reasonable to assume that the railroaders will be looking for work, the shareholders will get what value hasn’t already been sapped out of the corporate structure, and the mucky-mucks will join some of their other friends on another corporate management team. It seems unlikely that there will be much left to pick over by the residents, either through compensation or lawsuit, and I wish them the best of luck dealing with the insurance folk. Any time anyone who has worked in management says the words “transparency” and “accountability” you can bet that they are talking about what they get from others. Make no mistake, this ought to be construed on several levels as a criminal act, it’s just that there will be no culprit because the law forgives MM&A its trespasses before they’re ever committed, if I read the signs right. Read Greg Palast.

Update:

Please have a look at:

http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.ca/2013/08/lac-megantic-survivors-get-victimized.html

A Sad Commemoration

Posted on 2013/08/06 by danneau

Necessary?

Agugst 6, 1945:

Talk about your revised baselines, how about a world without nuclear weapons and the attitudes they represent. People will invent all manner of deviltry, often because someone else might otherwise do it first, and once something is invented, of course, it has to be tried, not just in the New Mexican desert, but, what the heck, let’s let it loose on a real city. What the heck, we’ve already firebombed Tokyo with a cool 100,000 casualties, why not go for the whole enchilada. Anyone less than 70 years old has lived his whole conscious life under this cloud, and we’re piling on even more disastrous potential with each passing year. There’s something seriously wrong, and we can’t seem to even contemplate the solutions.

Have a nice day.

Old Friends

Posted on 2013/07/28 by danneau

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

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: