This weekend sees the election of a new leader for the Liberal party of Canada, the long long battle for power which has been going on for almost a year now.
There are eight contestants: Michael Ignatieff (intellectual and former journalist), Bob Rae (former NDP premier in Ontario), Gerard Kennedy (social reformer young type), Stephan Dion (Quebecois candidate, former Minister for the Environment here), Ken Dryden (former hockey goalie and newbie politician), Scott Brison (Nova Scotian who has been the star of this blog before), some other non-entity I can't remember and Martha the woman with the double barrelled name who is coming in last.
There's a huge conference in Montreal where they are all giving speeches tonight and so I am in happy land.
Prepare to be bored for the next twenty four hours.
Very very bored.
Obviously I am up for Bob Rae. Although Ken Dryden's my underdog hero and his speech rocked just a bit ago. And when he came offstage a journalist asked him what he wanted and he bellowed "I want my canada back" at her. V. funny. I know exactly what he meant.
Stephan Dion is talking now and he has a very strong Quebec accent which I find offputting (along with most of Canada although they won't admit it). Although Dion was a good Minister of the Environment.
But he won't win I think. Although traditionally Liberal leaders come from Quebec.
Paul Martin was from Quebec, but he didn't sound like Dion.
Happy happy junkie politics place....! They're all taking lumps out of the Tories.
I should get myself a beer now.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Exciting (or possibly tragic) news on the critter front!
Queenie went out last night and had a few pints to mark the last night of being able to smoke in the pub and needless to say the pub was packed so she crawled home too late. And all day today she had a headache. Until she left work at four o'clock, whereupon the headache miraculously disappeared.
Which just goes to prove that it is work that I am allergic to and not too much alcohol.
I always knew that.
Anyways, on to critter talk and then we will be done with it.
Himself shot Mr. Buck through the lungs the other night with his Swedish early twentieth century sniper rifle and now we have a freezer full of venison.
So there. No more critter talk, there's too much death in it.
Tragic perhaps. Yummy definitely.
Which just goes to prove that it is work that I am allergic to and not too much alcohol.
I always knew that.
Anyways, on to critter talk and then we will be done with it.
Himself shot Mr. Buck through the lungs the other night with his Swedish early twentieth century sniper rifle and now we have a freezer full of venison.
So there. No more critter talk, there's too much death in it.
Tragic perhaps. Yummy definitely.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Tragic news on the critter front!
Alexa and Peter are dead.
I was home from work on Friday so I didn't feed them till eleven when I realised that Alexa was dead. Peter was pushing her body around the fish tank sort of aimlessly.
So I took her out and cleaned the tank and the filters and checked Peter for lice etc but he looked okay.
But today, when we got up he was sitting on the bottom of the tank, obviously in trouble. And when we tried to push him gently to see whether he would move, he shot forward, knocked his head against the filter and died!
I feel like such a failure. I'm sure I overfed them.
It's very quiet now with no tank bubbling away in the corner.
Himself has taken them back to the island to bury them under the chestnut tree in the yard.
Together forever...
They were only goldfish but they were great company for me when I was alone here last winter.
I was home from work on Friday so I didn't feed them till eleven when I realised that Alexa was dead. Peter was pushing her body around the fish tank sort of aimlessly.
So I took her out and cleaned the tank and the filters and checked Peter for lice etc but he looked okay.
But today, when we got up he was sitting on the bottom of the tank, obviously in trouble. And when we tried to push him gently to see whether he would move, he shot forward, knocked his head against the filter and died!
I feel like such a failure. I'm sure I overfed them.
It's very quiet now with no tank bubbling away in the corner.
Himself has taken them back to the island to bury them under the chestnut tree in the yard.
Together forever...
They were only goldfish but they were great company for me when I was alone here last winter.
Moose Doosie and other critters - two
Not having a green bin down at the house on the island, we dump our organic waste outside the house where it lasts approximately forty seconds before it is taken by one of the many critters that share the neighbourhood with us. Usually the crows get to it first, having a helicopter view of the food situation, but it can attract raccoons and our pet deer too. If the location and time of day are right.
Crows are very intelligent critters, aren’t they? Down on the island, we have a mess of crows that wake us up every morning – quaaw, quaaw, quaaw they go - from about 6.30 onwards, insistently stirring up the whole house.
Usually I burn the toast in the morning, as I forget I am using the oven grill and not a toaster. Plus it’s the morning, so I can’t handle complicated technology.
Also it’s an excuse to put burnt toast out on the deck and watch quietly to see what will come for it.
If we sit quietly for a few minutes, momma crow (that’s who we think she is anyway) usually sidles up along the wall of the house, NYPD style, and slowly sticks her head around the edge of the patio doors for a look-see.
The first hint we get is when the sharp corner of a beak appears in the bottom right hand corner of the door. The trick is not to laugh, no matter how much you want to, as she takes the hump and flies off if you do.
She checks four or five times, exposing more of her head each time. We have to stuff our fists in our mouths to stop shaking with laughter.
Then, when she thinks it’s safe, she whips her head around to signal to the others – quaaw, quaaw, quaaw – who swoop down and carry off the booty.
A sort of crow version of Heist.
Not only that, but if you nip over to the back of the house and check out the kitchen window, you can watch them dipping the toast in a puddle to moisten it.
Very intelligent critters.
We got apples for the deer, to try to get them to come up to the back of the house, and all day that day you could see the crows hauling them, one at a time, off to wherever it is they stash their food.
We see the deer at night usually: a doe and two fawns. They come out of the woods at the back of the house and walk down to the orchard to eat the rose hips growing around the pond. If you drive up to the house at night, the headlights of the car will pick out three pairs of glistening eyes.
Himself is hoping that deer will evolve soon and start to realise that looking at a light is what gets them killed. There’ll be a new breed of super-deer, all wearing designer shades. Of course, it doesn’t stop him from shining a light out the back of the house every night in search of Mr. Buck. Who’s fair game apparently. Who knows this. Who’s far too canny to come down to the house in search of rose hips.
That’s what the missus is for.
She in her turn sends the fawns out first.
They gently nuzzle each rosehip off the branch individually, legs all akimbo trying to balance eating and standing.
It’s hunting season in Nova Scotia, so we are desperately hoping that no one will shoot them by mistake (or design). Hence the apples to keep the doe and fawns coming to our yard at night when the woods are full of people trying to shoot something.
Some people, who are the epitomy of ‘the market will solve everything’ philosophy that results in so many selfish actions, and the reason why this planet is in such bad shape, put apples in piles in the woods and then sit in a tree above the apples and shoot the deer when they come out to eat them.
Those people shouldn’t be allowed to shoot deer. In fact, those people should be invited to a free party, in a big fenced off area, which has a bar under a tree, and see if they like being duped.
Last Saturday morning, Himself had driven to work and I was upstairs when I heard a ‘come quick’ hissed from the kitchen. I went down and K was gesticulating wildly in the direction of the kitchen window, which looks out up the hill behind the house into the orchard and the woods behind.
The doe was frozen to the spot in the yard, staring in the window at us. She’d never been that close before. Then I realised, the car was gone, so she must have assumed the house was empty.
Little minx. She’s been coming down to eat the rosehips when Himself is gone to work.
I get such a kick out of watching animals engage with the possibilities offered by human neighbours.
Last week we had mackerel for supper and left the heads and tails on a platter on the deck for the raccoons.
Bad idea. The raccoons came alright, but hauled the mackerel heads off the platter round to the side deck to eat them in peace. Next day there was dried blood everywhere and teeny, tiny, blood-stained raccoon footprints running over and back across the deck, down the steps and along the footpath to the brook that runs in front of the house.
They snuck them out from underneath our noses that time. During the summer, we often got to see them sneak onto the deck to grab whatever we’d left out for them. I always imagine they’re a form of guerrilla fox with their bandanas and small handlike paws.
Then there are the squirrels.
Last weekend we went walking in the woods to see if we could find the buck that must be around somewhere and sure enough after about twenty minutes of tracking prints and scraped earth and trees (it being the rutting season) we turned a corner into a glade and there he was, just about to leap into the trees and freedom. If I was one to anthropomorphise animals I would say he tossed his antlers disdainfully at us before he leaped.
We came out of the woods eventually and met a guy on the road who was going to tend to his apple pile. Himself told him all about the buck we’d seen, up back of the old road, over a piece and toward so and so’s place, just by that alder stand where the such and such happened etc etc.
Captain Golden Delicious was delighted with the news and roared off in his pick-up. We walked on.
“Why did you tell him about the buck?”
“So he’d go lookin’ for it.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Well, he won’t find it where I told him it was, now will he?”
I had to take his word for it. News of his demise has not filtered through the community yet, though, so I have to assume he’s safe.
Not that we didn’t make a desultory effort to get him.
Towards dusk Himself loaded his gun and we went back up to the woods and climbed a tree where he has an old door lashed into place as a deer stand. We sat there for over an hour but Mr. Buck didn’t show.
Of course not.
We were sitting in the wrong tree, as far as I could see, it being about two hundred yards off the deer tracks we’d found earlier. There was another tree a bit further on that would have been more suitable. But I didn’t say anything.
I think Himself doesn’t have the heart to shoot a deer in front of me. I think he just wanted us to sit in a tree and hear the music of the woods settling down for the night.
After twenty minutes it was so quiet I could hear my blood running around my body.
Then a squirrel came along. He jumped from tree to tree underneath us, taking his time. Then he landed on our tree and scurried past and on up the hill. He was headed to another tree further up the glade, where his lady friend lives. I know this because I was sitting under that tree in the sunshine by myself a couple of weeks ago and they started going at it with great gusto, right above my head.
It was nearly dark anyways, and I had to climb out of the tree, so we decided it was time to leave.
You know you’re re-connecting with your environment when you leave the squirrels to enjoy the twilight in peace, don’t you!!
Crows are very intelligent critters, aren’t they? Down on the island, we have a mess of crows that wake us up every morning – quaaw, quaaw, quaaw they go - from about 6.30 onwards, insistently stirring up the whole house.
Usually I burn the toast in the morning, as I forget I am using the oven grill and not a toaster. Plus it’s the morning, so I can’t handle complicated technology.
Also it’s an excuse to put burnt toast out on the deck and watch quietly to see what will come for it.
If we sit quietly for a few minutes, momma crow (that’s who we think she is anyway) usually sidles up along the wall of the house, NYPD style, and slowly sticks her head around the edge of the patio doors for a look-see.
The first hint we get is when the sharp corner of a beak appears in the bottom right hand corner of the door. The trick is not to laugh, no matter how much you want to, as she takes the hump and flies off if you do.
She checks four or five times, exposing more of her head each time. We have to stuff our fists in our mouths to stop shaking with laughter.
Then, when she thinks it’s safe, she whips her head around to signal to the others – quaaw, quaaw, quaaw – who swoop down and carry off the booty.
A sort of crow version of Heist.
Not only that, but if you nip over to the back of the house and check out the kitchen window, you can watch them dipping the toast in a puddle to moisten it.
Very intelligent critters.
We got apples for the deer, to try to get them to come up to the back of the house, and all day that day you could see the crows hauling them, one at a time, off to wherever it is they stash their food.
We see the deer at night usually: a doe and two fawns. They come out of the woods at the back of the house and walk down to the orchard to eat the rose hips growing around the pond. If you drive up to the house at night, the headlights of the car will pick out three pairs of glistening eyes.
Himself is hoping that deer will evolve soon and start to realise that looking at a light is what gets them killed. There’ll be a new breed of super-deer, all wearing designer shades. Of course, it doesn’t stop him from shining a light out the back of the house every night in search of Mr. Buck. Who’s fair game apparently. Who knows this. Who’s far too canny to come down to the house in search of rose hips.
That’s what the missus is for.
She in her turn sends the fawns out first.
They gently nuzzle each rosehip off the branch individually, legs all akimbo trying to balance eating and standing.
It’s hunting season in Nova Scotia, so we are desperately hoping that no one will shoot them by mistake (or design). Hence the apples to keep the doe and fawns coming to our yard at night when the woods are full of people trying to shoot something.
Some people, who are the epitomy of ‘the market will solve everything’ philosophy that results in so many selfish actions, and the reason why this planet is in such bad shape, put apples in piles in the woods and then sit in a tree above the apples and shoot the deer when they come out to eat them.
Those people shouldn’t be allowed to shoot deer. In fact, those people should be invited to a free party, in a big fenced off area, which has a bar under a tree, and see if they like being duped.
Last Saturday morning, Himself had driven to work and I was upstairs when I heard a ‘come quick’ hissed from the kitchen. I went down and K was gesticulating wildly in the direction of the kitchen window, which looks out up the hill behind the house into the orchard and the woods behind.
The doe was frozen to the spot in the yard, staring in the window at us. She’d never been that close before. Then I realised, the car was gone, so she must have assumed the house was empty.
Little minx. She’s been coming down to eat the rosehips when Himself is gone to work.
I get such a kick out of watching animals engage with the possibilities offered by human neighbours.
Last week we had mackerel for supper and left the heads and tails on a platter on the deck for the raccoons.
Bad idea. The raccoons came alright, but hauled the mackerel heads off the platter round to the side deck to eat them in peace. Next day there was dried blood everywhere and teeny, tiny, blood-stained raccoon footprints running over and back across the deck, down the steps and along the footpath to the brook that runs in front of the house.
They snuck them out from underneath our noses that time. During the summer, we often got to see them sneak onto the deck to grab whatever we’d left out for them. I always imagine they’re a form of guerrilla fox with their bandanas and small handlike paws.
Then there are the squirrels.
Last weekend we went walking in the woods to see if we could find the buck that must be around somewhere and sure enough after about twenty minutes of tracking prints and scraped earth and trees (it being the rutting season) we turned a corner into a glade and there he was, just about to leap into the trees and freedom. If I was one to anthropomorphise animals I would say he tossed his antlers disdainfully at us before he leaped.
We came out of the woods eventually and met a guy on the road who was going to tend to his apple pile. Himself told him all about the buck we’d seen, up back of the old road, over a piece and toward so and so’s place, just by that alder stand where the such and such happened etc etc.
Captain Golden Delicious was delighted with the news and roared off in his pick-up. We walked on.
“Why did you tell him about the buck?”
“So he’d go lookin’ for it.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Well, he won’t find it where I told him it was, now will he?”
I had to take his word for it. News of his demise has not filtered through the community yet, though, so I have to assume he’s safe.
Not that we didn’t make a desultory effort to get him.
Towards dusk Himself loaded his gun and we went back up to the woods and climbed a tree where he has an old door lashed into place as a deer stand. We sat there for over an hour but Mr. Buck didn’t show.
Of course not.
We were sitting in the wrong tree, as far as I could see, it being about two hundred yards off the deer tracks we’d found earlier. There was another tree a bit further on that would have been more suitable. But I didn’t say anything.
I think Himself doesn’t have the heart to shoot a deer in front of me. I think he just wanted us to sit in a tree and hear the music of the woods settling down for the night.
After twenty minutes it was so quiet I could hear my blood running around my body.
Then a squirrel came along. He jumped from tree to tree underneath us, taking his time. Then he landed on our tree and scurried past and on up the hill. He was headed to another tree further up the glade, where his lady friend lives. I know this because I was sitting under that tree in the sunshine by myself a couple of weeks ago and they started going at it with great gusto, right above my head.
It was nearly dark anyways, and I had to climb out of the tree, so we decided it was time to leave.
You know you’re re-connecting with your environment when you leave the squirrels to enjoy the twilight in peace, don’t you!!
Friday, November 17, 2006
Moosie Doosie and other critters - one
I’m no Kate Moss.
For one thing, I’m dating a bassist. Not a lead singer. The bassist in Bandit, doncha know. Not the highly strung, former Libertine and current frontman of Babyshambles. My bassist is not a crack head neither, although he likes his vodka.
I’m not dressed like her neither. No thigh high boots topped by a pair of slinky shorts for this girl, although I’ve had my fashion moments. I’m wearing jeans and a fleece top, to ward off the evening fog creeping in from the Bay of Fundy.
I’m not chopping high grade cocaine into lines on top of an amp, long brown hair hiding my face.
I’m not hanging with Pete and his mates in a recording studio somewhere in trendiest London. I am in Freeport, Long Island, Nova Scotia. With Himself and his band mates, who are tuning up and drinking beer and doing all the noisy, pointless things that men do when they’re getting ready to play.
We are sitting in Bandit’s band shed. And it is Saturday night, just as it is all over the world.
We all find our own level of glamour. This is mine currently.
No rock stars in my firmament. Just real ones. Peeking through the fog swirling around Freeport.
Moosie Doosie is staring at me from underneath his fez. At least, I think he is. I can’t see behind his enormous yellow Elton John sunglasses. When I asked the guys, they said Himself had gotten him in Cape Breton and brought him home. He’s their mascot. He being the head of a four hundred pound bull moose, mounted onto a mahogany panel for display purposes. I found out later that Moosie Doosie used to hang on the living room wall in Himself’s house, where he convinced his young nieces and nephews that Moosie ran down the hill so fast he burst through one day and got stuck.
Looking at Moosie, I thought nice buy, dude, despite the fez and the sunglasses. Well spotted. He has a great eye for the eclectic, my man. A nip into some grubby ‘antiques’ store in Cape Breton must have resulted in this find.
Then I’m told Himself found Moosie Doosie standing in a swamp in Cape Breton, tracked him, circled him, shot him in the heart, then shot him six more times to stop Moosie’s death charge towards them in its tracks, tagged him, bled him, then winched him onto a truck and drove him home.
Of course.
Silly me.
Anyways, he’s retired from the house onto the wall of the band shed, alongside a poster of Elvira looking very 1985, pouting down from where she is draped over the bonnet of a classic car.
This is not the first band shed I have hung out in during a long life of trying to score the coolest guy in the room, but it is by far the coolest. And I’ve scored the coolest guy in the room.
Band sheds. As women have houses and living rooms and kitchens beauty parlours and shopping malls to bond in, men have band sheds.
Being a doyenne of these things, I understand the privilege of my position – a girl in the band shed. So I sit and drink my beer and stay quiet.
Across from my perch on the sofa (or cot as they say on long island), the wall is lined by an enormous baby blue cooler, lifted from a Dairy Queen years ago. Its got wonderful fifties curved lines. A relic of the days when things were made by people who had jobs in factories and mortgages and cars, not life sentences for sedition and a cot in a labour camp.
Down at the far end is a wood stove and a dart board.
Male heaven. Aren’t I the privileged little Queenie. Being allowed into the bandshed.
I am sitting on a green sofa, which is surprisingly clean and comfortable for a band shed sofa. I have a twelve pack of Schooner and three of the Bandits are tuning up while the drummer, who’s had quite a bit to drink today apparently, tries to crawl to the drum kit.
It’s proving pretty difficult for him to manoeuvre his way through the cables and amps and mike stands arranged around the practice area, even on all fours. In happy acknowledgement of his master’s quadrapedic behaviour, his Mamaluke is wandering around knocking things over with his tail.
Hell that’s a big dog. He can eyeball me when I’m sitting down. An Alaskan canine version of Boxer (Animal Farm), bred to pull extraordinarily heavy weights over short distances on ice. Because of that breeding, his shoulders are huge and his haunches are over-developed, but because of his thick fur you can’t see the muscle, and so he looks like an obese huskie without their cold cold eyes. After he knocks over my beer twice in vain attempts to lick me with his loofah of a tongue, I get his owner to put him outside.
This proves more traumatic for the owner than for the Mamaluke, as outside can only be reached by a steep staircase that plunges into the darkness of the hall. I forgot to mention that, didn’t I. The band shed isn’t a shed, it’s an old house the guys have done over to hang out in.
Of course.
What do you do when you’re in your thirties and you can’t play guitar at home anymore because you’ll wake the kids? You buy an old house in Freeport, near the Legion of course, and turn it into your dream hangout.
For one thing, I’m dating a bassist. Not a lead singer. The bassist in Bandit, doncha know. Not the highly strung, former Libertine and current frontman of Babyshambles. My bassist is not a crack head neither, although he likes his vodka.
I’m not dressed like her neither. No thigh high boots topped by a pair of slinky shorts for this girl, although I’ve had my fashion moments. I’m wearing jeans and a fleece top, to ward off the evening fog creeping in from the Bay of Fundy.
I’m not chopping high grade cocaine into lines on top of an amp, long brown hair hiding my face.
I’m not hanging with Pete and his mates in a recording studio somewhere in trendiest London. I am in Freeport, Long Island, Nova Scotia. With Himself and his band mates, who are tuning up and drinking beer and doing all the noisy, pointless things that men do when they’re getting ready to play.
We are sitting in Bandit’s band shed. And it is Saturday night, just as it is all over the world.
We all find our own level of glamour. This is mine currently.
No rock stars in my firmament. Just real ones. Peeking through the fog swirling around Freeport.
Moosie Doosie is staring at me from underneath his fez. At least, I think he is. I can’t see behind his enormous yellow Elton John sunglasses. When I asked the guys, they said Himself had gotten him in Cape Breton and brought him home. He’s their mascot. He being the head of a four hundred pound bull moose, mounted onto a mahogany panel for display purposes. I found out later that Moosie Doosie used to hang on the living room wall in Himself’s house, where he convinced his young nieces and nephews that Moosie ran down the hill so fast he burst through one day and got stuck.
Looking at Moosie, I thought nice buy, dude, despite the fez and the sunglasses. Well spotted. He has a great eye for the eclectic, my man. A nip into some grubby ‘antiques’ store in Cape Breton must have resulted in this find.
Then I’m told Himself found Moosie Doosie standing in a swamp in Cape Breton, tracked him, circled him, shot him in the heart, then shot him six more times to stop Moosie’s death charge towards them in its tracks, tagged him, bled him, then winched him onto a truck and drove him home.
Of course.
Silly me.
Anyways, he’s retired from the house onto the wall of the band shed, alongside a poster of Elvira looking very 1985, pouting down from where she is draped over the bonnet of a classic car.
This is not the first band shed I have hung out in during a long life of trying to score the coolest guy in the room, but it is by far the coolest. And I’ve scored the coolest guy in the room.
Band sheds. As women have houses and living rooms and kitchens beauty parlours and shopping malls to bond in, men have band sheds.
Being a doyenne of these things, I understand the privilege of my position – a girl in the band shed. So I sit and drink my beer and stay quiet.
Across from my perch on the sofa (or cot as they say on long island), the wall is lined by an enormous baby blue cooler, lifted from a Dairy Queen years ago. Its got wonderful fifties curved lines. A relic of the days when things were made by people who had jobs in factories and mortgages and cars, not life sentences for sedition and a cot in a labour camp.
Down at the far end is a wood stove and a dart board.
Male heaven. Aren’t I the privileged little Queenie. Being allowed into the bandshed.
I am sitting on a green sofa, which is surprisingly clean and comfortable for a band shed sofa. I have a twelve pack of Schooner and three of the Bandits are tuning up while the drummer, who’s had quite a bit to drink today apparently, tries to crawl to the drum kit.
It’s proving pretty difficult for him to manoeuvre his way through the cables and amps and mike stands arranged around the practice area, even on all fours. In happy acknowledgement of his master’s quadrapedic behaviour, his Mamaluke is wandering around knocking things over with his tail.
Hell that’s a big dog. He can eyeball me when I’m sitting down. An Alaskan canine version of Boxer (Animal Farm), bred to pull extraordinarily heavy weights over short distances on ice. Because of that breeding, his shoulders are huge and his haunches are over-developed, but because of his thick fur you can’t see the muscle, and so he looks like an obese huskie without their cold cold eyes. After he knocks over my beer twice in vain attempts to lick me with his loofah of a tongue, I get his owner to put him outside.
This proves more traumatic for the owner than for the Mamaluke, as outside can only be reached by a steep staircase that plunges into the darkness of the hall. I forgot to mention that, didn’t I. The band shed isn’t a shed, it’s an old house the guys have done over to hang out in.
Of course.
What do you do when you’re in your thirties and you can’t play guitar at home anymore because you’ll wake the kids? You buy an old house in Freeport, near the Legion of course, and turn it into your dream hangout.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Why there is a worker shortage in Nova Scotia
I am tired listening to employers whinge about how they can't get workers. I really am.
Serious rant alert boys and girls...
There is a growing workers shortage in the province of Nova Scotia. In order to solve this problem we must admit to ourselves exactly why there is a growing shortage.
There is a shortage primarily because there aren't enough people to work in the Halifax Regional Municipality, where most of the jobs are. You might think this is a no-brainer, but in Poland for example, they have an 18% unemployment rate and a shortage of workers. So it is important to make this distinction. Demographic shifts, an ageing workforce, a baby boomer generation who have good pensions and can retire early, and a massive drop in births are the big drivers of this.
I say primarily because there are two other reasons why there are worker shortages.
In some parts of Nova Scotia (Cape Breton, South West Nova) there are high-ish levels of unemployment side by side with worker shortages. In this situation, the government's labour market policy has failed to shift workers from a declining sector (usually primary production or traditional manufacturing) into a developing sector (usually business services or health services). Alternatively, labour market policies have failed because they didn't make it easy for unemployed people to enter the workforce, take up a trade, for example, or to learn IT skills when it became clear that there would be a shortage of these workers.
In some sectors of Nova Scotia (mostly health) there are shortages because there is no one with the available specialist skills and it takes a lot of time and money to create these workers. Tomes have been written about the shortage of health workers in the developed world and there is no consensus apart from the fact that you get what you pay for.
Basically, it is not just demographics. A lot of this is the government's fault. They should have prepared for this.
Now that it's happening, the first thing we need to do is find out what shortages are there exactly, in what sectors, how many and for how long (if there will be too many nurses in three years, then there's no need to panic is there)?
Do what the Paddies did. Set up an Expert Group on Future Skill Needs. Get business, labour, post-secondary and labour market people involved. Make them responsible for their own recommendations. Do separate reports on key sectors - healthcare, trades, ICT transport.
Identify the shortages, identify the reasons for the shortages, identify the ways in which we can eliminate those blockages, identify the future workers, identify how we will train them and when they will be ready. They can be immigrants, or unemployed people brought back to work, or Nova Scotians lured home, or young people coming up, or women, or Mi'k Maq or African Nova Scotians who have been ignored until now or whoever.
Leave no stone unturned.
The next thing we need to understand is why people are leaving. So we can staunch the bleed. All the people I know who left for Alberta did so because they were tired of scratching a living on Nova Scotian wages, paying Nova Scotian taxes and paying off huge Nova Scotian student loans. They would rather live here (where their wives, children, families are) but they can't afford to.
Rant alert
The middle class in this province has its head in the sand about poverty. If you make $60k here and you're in a dual income household you have a pretty good standard of living - two cars, cottage, meals out, bottles of wine, etc with few of the strains of big city life. Why is that? This nice lifestyle is on the back of people who get paid crappy wages to deliver services to you. That's why they're so cheap. This has not sunk in with most people. Europeans take it for granted that in order to have social stability and low levels of poverty, you must have good service wages and a high cost of living.
Extreme rant alert
Here, poverty is an opportunity to show how generous you are. I have never, ever, ever in my life encountered a place where you have to buy a lorry-load of tinned food at the start of the Christmas party scene and pop one or two Campbell's Soup cans into your velvet purse every time you go out. Why? Every social occasion in Nova Scotia is used to collect food for the Food Bank.
I'd rather pay more tax, really I would.
I feel like Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist. It's off to the poor house with you me lad!!
- Pharmacy assistant - $8 an hour x 40 = $320 per week
- Call centre person - $11 an hour x 40 = $440 per week
- Labourer - $10 an hour x 60 = $600 per week
- Truck driver - $15 an hour x 90 = $1,350 per week
Crappy work environment examples:
- A friend recently told me that she earns $10k less in Alberta than she did in Nova Scotia and she still comes out $5 richer on a pay packet.
- Overtime starts in this province after 48 hours. It's worse in the construction sector.
- OHS standards in the construction sector are the worst in Canada. More people die at work here than anywhere else.
- They've just started discussing whether to have legislated lunch breaks here. I kid you not. Even the queen of white collar herself - i.e. moi - rarely gets one.
Enough said.
Okay, back to demographics - a key issue, but one that occurs in other provinces and in other countries. They solve that with immigration. Atlantic Canada's immigration policies have failed for a number of years and very little has been done to redress that. People talk about the need for more immigration. This is true, and we need to develop innovative immigration policies but we also need to look at why there are so few immigrants, apart from the fact that we are not made feel very welcome in AC.
Let's see:
- It's really difficult to get a well-paid job here if you are a graduate.
- Most immigrants to Canada are graduates.
- Immigrants are not prepared to work for $7 - 15 an hour while paying off heavy student debt loads any more than Nova Scotians are.
The business community, having lost the opportunity to lord it over average joe Nova Scotians with crappy jobs, terrible labour standards and mediaeval human resource practices, are now grasping at immigration as a straw.
They have missed the point completely.
Instead of asking themselves - why are all our former workers sitting homesick in Fort McMurray (or Fort McMoney as it's called now), working long hours in terrible weather in a polluted atmosphere, paying exorbitant rents for crappy trailers, when they could be home with their families - they are now thinking, ahaa, we'll get immigrants to come over and fill these spots. Sure they'll be delighted to be let into this great friendly little province.
- Immigrants are not stupid.
They will wonder where all the young people are. And then they will find out and why and move to join them. Because you don't move yourself and your family halfway across the world for $10 an hour.
Yes, in the long term we need better immigration levels, but it's going to take years to convince people to come and settle here, particularly as many young people are leaving. What we need is flexible, innovative migrant worker policies for key sectors. Both skilled and unskilled.
Lots of people would come to work here for a year if it were possible. Then they might possibly like the place and ask to stay for longer. Of course, you would have to attract these people with good wages and resettlement packages and have a govt unit that works with employers to ensure they can drive, get car insurance or health insurance, a credit card, a health card, etc - all the things that are an incredible hassle to organise if you are a migrant worker at the moment.
Extremely extreme rant alert
The government spends all its time advertising Nova Scotia as a place to live to the people who already live here. See www.novascotialife.com for an hilarious look at how important Nova Scotian media analysts think Nova Scotia is.
They should maybe think about advertising it to people who think Halifax is a place in England with a crappy football team and don't realise that it's actually the centre of the universe and the best little city in the world etc. Most people in the world don't know where Halifax is.
I know that's a terribly shocking thing to say but I know my geography and this time two years ago I didn't know where Halifax was. Never mind Pictou County.
So I should wrap up this rant. What I'm trying to say is that there is a reason why this is happening, that is cultural, that is much deeper than ageing population or not enough immigrants. This cultural identity, which is 'I'm alright Jack, so it must be your fault if you're not getting on' fits quite nicely with right wing ideology. It is rampant in Nova Scotia. People have had enough and are leaving in droves. Immigrants are not settling here because it is anathema to them.
Yeah, immigration, training, improved access to education and interesting labour market interventions are exactly how we should solve this problem. They should have a conversation about why they're in this mess sometime too.
We could have a potluck. Talk it over. Don't forget to bring a can for the food bank with you though, or we'll think less of you!!
Serious rant alert boys and girls...
There is a growing workers shortage in the province of Nova Scotia. In order to solve this problem we must admit to ourselves exactly why there is a growing shortage.
There is a shortage primarily because there aren't enough people to work in the Halifax Regional Municipality, where most of the jobs are. You might think this is a no-brainer, but in Poland for example, they have an 18% unemployment rate and a shortage of workers. So it is important to make this distinction. Demographic shifts, an ageing workforce, a baby boomer generation who have good pensions and can retire early, and a massive drop in births are the big drivers of this.
I say primarily because there are two other reasons why there are worker shortages.
In some parts of Nova Scotia (Cape Breton, South West Nova) there are high-ish levels of unemployment side by side with worker shortages. In this situation, the government's labour market policy has failed to shift workers from a declining sector (usually primary production or traditional manufacturing) into a developing sector (usually business services or health services). Alternatively, labour market policies have failed because they didn't make it easy for unemployed people to enter the workforce, take up a trade, for example, or to learn IT skills when it became clear that there would be a shortage of these workers.
In some sectors of Nova Scotia (mostly health) there are shortages because there is no one with the available specialist skills and it takes a lot of time and money to create these workers. Tomes have been written about the shortage of health workers in the developed world and there is no consensus apart from the fact that you get what you pay for.
Basically, it is not just demographics. A lot of this is the government's fault. They should have prepared for this.
Now that it's happening, the first thing we need to do is find out what shortages are there exactly, in what sectors, how many and for how long (if there will be too many nurses in three years, then there's no need to panic is there)?
Do what the Paddies did. Set up an Expert Group on Future Skill Needs. Get business, labour, post-secondary and labour market people involved. Make them responsible for their own recommendations. Do separate reports on key sectors - healthcare, trades, ICT transport.
Identify the shortages, identify the reasons for the shortages, identify the ways in which we can eliminate those blockages, identify the future workers, identify how we will train them and when they will be ready. They can be immigrants, or unemployed people brought back to work, or Nova Scotians lured home, or young people coming up, or women, or Mi'k Maq or African Nova Scotians who have been ignored until now or whoever.
Leave no stone unturned.
The next thing we need to understand is why people are leaving. So we can staunch the bleed. All the people I know who left for Alberta did so because they were tired of scratching a living on Nova Scotian wages, paying Nova Scotian taxes and paying off huge Nova Scotian student loans. They would rather live here (where their wives, children, families are) but they can't afford to.
Rant alert
The middle class in this province has its head in the sand about poverty. If you make $60k here and you're in a dual income household you have a pretty good standard of living - two cars, cottage, meals out, bottles of wine, etc with few of the strains of big city life. Why is that? This nice lifestyle is on the back of people who get paid crappy wages to deliver services to you. That's why they're so cheap. This has not sunk in with most people. Europeans take it for granted that in order to have social stability and low levels of poverty, you must have good service wages and a high cost of living.
Extreme rant alert
Here, poverty is an opportunity to show how generous you are. I have never, ever, ever in my life encountered a place where you have to buy a lorry-load of tinned food at the start of the Christmas party scene and pop one or two Campbell's Soup cans into your velvet purse every time you go out. Why? Every social occasion in Nova Scotia is used to collect food for the Food Bank.
I'd rather pay more tax, really I would.
I feel like Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist. It's off to the poor house with you me lad!!
- Pharmacy assistant - $8 an hour x 40 = $320 per week
- Call centre person - $11 an hour x 40 = $440 per week
- Labourer - $10 an hour x 60 = $600 per week
- Truck driver - $15 an hour x 90 = $1,350 per week
Crappy work environment examples:
- A friend recently told me that she earns $10k less in Alberta than she did in Nova Scotia and she still comes out $5 richer on a pay packet.
- Overtime starts in this province after 48 hours. It's worse in the construction sector.
- OHS standards in the construction sector are the worst in Canada. More people die at work here than anywhere else.
- They've just started discussing whether to have legislated lunch breaks here. I kid you not. Even the queen of white collar herself - i.e. moi - rarely gets one.
Enough said.
Okay, back to demographics - a key issue, but one that occurs in other provinces and in other countries. They solve that with immigration. Atlantic Canada's immigration policies have failed for a number of years and very little has been done to redress that. People talk about the need for more immigration. This is true, and we need to develop innovative immigration policies but we also need to look at why there are so few immigrants, apart from the fact that we are not made feel very welcome in AC.
Let's see:
- It's really difficult to get a well-paid job here if you are a graduate.
- Most immigrants to Canada are graduates.
- Immigrants are not prepared to work for $7 - 15 an hour while paying off heavy student debt loads any more than Nova Scotians are.
The business community, having lost the opportunity to lord it over average joe Nova Scotians with crappy jobs, terrible labour standards and mediaeval human resource practices, are now grasping at immigration as a straw.
They have missed the point completely.
Instead of asking themselves - why are all our former workers sitting homesick in Fort McMurray (or Fort McMoney as it's called now), working long hours in terrible weather in a polluted atmosphere, paying exorbitant rents for crappy trailers, when they could be home with their families - they are now thinking, ahaa, we'll get immigrants to come over and fill these spots. Sure they'll be delighted to be let into this great friendly little province.
- Immigrants are not stupid.
They will wonder where all the young people are. And then they will find out and why and move to join them. Because you don't move yourself and your family halfway across the world for $10 an hour.
Yes, in the long term we need better immigration levels, but it's going to take years to convince people to come and settle here, particularly as many young people are leaving. What we need is flexible, innovative migrant worker policies for key sectors. Both skilled and unskilled.
Lots of people would come to work here for a year if it were possible. Then they might possibly like the place and ask to stay for longer. Of course, you would have to attract these people with good wages and resettlement packages and have a govt unit that works with employers to ensure they can drive, get car insurance or health insurance, a credit card, a health card, etc - all the things that are an incredible hassle to organise if you are a migrant worker at the moment.
Extremely extreme rant alert
The government spends all its time advertising Nova Scotia as a place to live to the people who already live here. See www.novascotialife.com for an hilarious look at how important Nova Scotian media analysts think Nova Scotia is.
They should maybe think about advertising it to people who think Halifax is a place in England with a crappy football team and don't realise that it's actually the centre of the universe and the best little city in the world etc. Most people in the world don't know where Halifax is.
I know that's a terribly shocking thing to say but I know my geography and this time two years ago I didn't know where Halifax was. Never mind Pictou County.
So I should wrap up this rant. What I'm trying to say is that there is a reason why this is happening, that is cultural, that is much deeper than ageing population or not enough immigrants. This cultural identity, which is 'I'm alright Jack, so it must be your fault if you're not getting on' fits quite nicely with right wing ideology. It is rampant in Nova Scotia. People have had enough and are leaving in droves. Immigrants are not settling here because it is anathema to them.
Yeah, immigration, training, improved access to education and interesting labour market interventions are exactly how we should solve this problem. They should have a conversation about why they're in this mess sometime too.
We could have a potluck. Talk it over. Don't forget to bring a can for the food bank with you though, or we'll think less of you!!
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Monday, November 06, 2006
Breathtaking insouciance
I hope I'm using this word in the right context.
Today I sat and watched a presentation from a senior manager in a company that specialises in building systems for fighter jets. He showed a picture of Albert Einstein while talking about 'not knowing the things you don't know', which is of course Rummyspeak. Then he gave us all a lecture on the importance of ethics in business.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So I just went back to the office and ate sweets all afternoon and wrote questions on the Nova Scotian economy (which according to this morning's seminar is going down the tubes fast).
And then it snowed.
Thank you for today Baby Jesus. I'll not forget this one in a hurry.
Today I sat and watched a presentation from a senior manager in a company that specialises in building systems for fighter jets. He showed a picture of Albert Einstein while talking about 'not knowing the things you don't know', which is of course Rummyspeak. Then he gave us all a lecture on the importance of ethics in business.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So I just went back to the office and ate sweets all afternoon and wrote questions on the Nova Scotian economy (which according to this morning's seminar is going down the tubes fast).
And then it snowed.
Thank you for today Baby Jesus. I'll not forget this one in a hurry.
Monday, October 30, 2006
A Stern Warning
Read the Stern Review on Climate Change.
Well, read the Executive Summary anyways.
The Long Version if you don't mind.
Go on, it's only 27 pages. I read it on the bus home.
Thanks...
Well, read the Executive Summary anyways.
The Long Version if you don't mind.
Go on, it's only 27 pages. I read it on the bus home.
Thanks...
Friday, October 27, 2006
Happiness, by Robertson Davies
Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
Don't say you weren't told now...
Don't say you weren't told now...
Friday, October 13, 2006
I hate when my horoscope orders me around
"It's my job to be emotional," rock music goddess Bjork told Nylon magazine. "Doctors cure diseases and shoemakers make shoes. It's my job to go through emotions and describe them to other people." By my astrological reckoning, this is also an apt description of the role you should play in the coming weeks, my fellow Cancerian. It's a perfect time for you to commune with every feeling on your vast palette, as well as to add some new colors and textures you've never imagined before. One more piece of advice: As you express the richness of your inner world to interested parties, be artistic and entertaining, never self-indulgent or sloppy.
Free Will Astrology (c)
I LIKE being self-indulgent and sloppy. 'Specially when I'm tired.
I've opened Queenie's Store on www.lulu.com by the way, for all your Christmas calendar shopping. You can shop for my stuff here. My margin is very small. I'm going for the bulk sales business model.
Actually, I was going for the high end market and then I looked at the competition and they were all charging less than me.
Maybe you should check out their stuff. Some of it is pretty good.
But then again, you KNOW me, don't you. Brand loyalty and all of that. Cradle to grave marketing.
Speaking of, I could probably do a baby calendar when I go home to Ireland, such is the level of fecundity on the big island. I have friends emailing me in extreme excitement to tell me they're going to be GRANDPARENTS these days.
ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I want to hear about other things now please.
That sounds very Sarah Jessica doesn't it. I don't mean it to.
Thing is, there's a lot of baby talk in my physical surroundings and on my electronic airwaves, which is lovely and I'm all for being excited about new lives and new people arriving on the scene.
But I can't help thinking that there must be some people who have to listen to this stuff day in day out who don't want babies, or can't have babies, or won't have babies, or don't feel capable of rearing children, or have had miscarriages or have chosen to have terminations, or are facing into the emotional centrifuge that is IVF, or are trying to get accepted for adoption, or fostering, or whatever.
And I think that people who are lucky enough to produce issue with fuck all effort or thought (although I'm sure a huge amount of thought has gone into most of the issue I know about recently) - watch Queenie tiptoe around the sleeping baby of this issue - still, people who are lucky to have a perfect baby in their lives (or two or three) should be a bit more understanding of the huge range of emotions that constant babbling about how easy/ fantastic/ brilliant/ tiring/ exhausting/ etc etc babies are can bring on in those of us who fit into one or more of the other categories.
There. I've said it.
It needed to be said.
Back to lulu.com.
Now that I've alienated my entire customer base!
My photobook will be on electronic shelves soon as they get the template out of Beta.
Will SOMEONE please effing explain Beta to me sometime!
Mr. Monkey??
Anyone??
One final baby thought... wouldn't it be great if people could be as open about not having babies as they are about having them. That would sort it all out wouldn't it.
That'll never happen of course.
But it would get over the whole 'there I was just being excited about reproducing myself and hoping my mates were and now they're bitching about me on their blog which they have time to write because they're childless selfish bitches' backlash I totally deserve now.
I do love my future pension contributors. Everyone of them. And I promise to check out early to save them a few bucks.
Am I forgiven now?
I'm wondering why this is news
Some guy who used to run faith-based initiatives for Bush said:
There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus," he said. "What you've got is everything - and I mean everything - being run by the political arm."
Jesus Christ on a bike, what did he think he was getting into when he went into politics?
There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus," he said. "What you've got is everything - and I mean everything - being run by the political arm."
Jesus Christ on a bike, what did he think he was getting into when he went into politics?
Friday, October 06, 2006
Modern day Clampetts
I had to meet with some oil people again yesterday. I keep having to meet with oil people who are over from Alberta politically schmoozing, as I am the researcher with responsiblity for stuff like that.
Because of what the oil industry in general is doing to the prairies, I am usually very cross with them and manifest my anger by looking over the top of my glasses at them and locking stares, which is becoming a more effective put down strategy as I get older.
Unfortunately they are almost always slightly modified cowboys, who act like they just happened upon enormous oil patches and the accompanying business wheeling and dealing, and they don't wear thousand dollar suits or smoke big cigars, or have Crackberries like other people who just think they are important, and consequently they are very charming in a completely non-schmoozy way, with strange body language and a hatred of having to suck up to politicians that's palpable. It's so funny and endearing I have to keep poking my guard to make sure it stays up.
Sometimes my job is very difficult!
Because of what the oil industry in general is doing to the prairies, I am usually very cross with them and manifest my anger by looking over the top of my glasses at them and locking stares, which is becoming a more effective put down strategy as I get older.
Unfortunately they are almost always slightly modified cowboys, who act like they just happened upon enormous oil patches and the accompanying business wheeling and dealing, and they don't wear thousand dollar suits or smoke big cigars, or have Crackberries like other people who just think they are important, and consequently they are very charming in a completely non-schmoozy way, with strange body language and a hatred of having to suck up to politicians that's palpable. It's so funny and endearing I have to keep poking my guard to make sure it stays up.
Sometimes my job is very difficult!
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Do headless android chickens run in electric circles?
I am starting to forget things. I don't know if it is my age, or if I am too mithered with work and other things to focus properly. I am a bit worried about it, as what I do is very much dependent on remembering a gazillion little things and multi-tasking them all the time.
But work is getting out of control. Today, the bus was late and slow so I spent most of the time reading the Halifax Regional Economic Development plan while getting into work. I got a good chunk of it read and hoped to have it finished by eleven. Since getting into work though, I have been interrupted so many times I gave up. I have had to deal with: school sidewalks, or lack thereof, adult literacy, energy efficiency in public buildings, the alcohol and gaming authority, trade union recognition in the food sector, violence in the workplace, workers compensation and wind energy. I have had to take calls, visits from lobbyists, journalists, members of the public, politicians, civil servants and colleagues.
I am now eating my lunch and writing this on my lunchbreak which I never get, because I am too tired in the evening to blog.
After lunch, I will try to get back to HRM economic development. Then after that, I have reading/ policy work to do on: gambling and young people, the Nova Scotia oil and gas industry, energy demand side management strategies, comparative Canadian labour relations legislation, elementary education policy in rural areas, pensions, the economic implications of trade liberalisation with east Asia (I kid you not), chronic pain in women workers (I assume my tendonitis is included in that), after which time my inbox will be full and it will all start over again.
My work outputs range from verbal briefings to written briefings, to meeting positions, to letters, to legislation, to parliamentary questions, to press releases, to spreadsheets.
My outcomes... well as with most knowledge workers I don't have any. Cos they're kinda hard to measure. But I'm sure I'm doing a great job. The key thing is to always know the answer to the question that you're being asked or to know how to get the answer in ten seconds.
Is everyone's job like this nowadays? Or is it just my sector? I think I am getting too old for this. Would someone like to give me a job where I don't have to multi-task so much all the time?
Where I could sit around and think about stuff for just a minute or two?
But work is getting out of control. Today, the bus was late and slow so I spent most of the time reading the Halifax Regional Economic Development plan while getting into work. I got a good chunk of it read and hoped to have it finished by eleven. Since getting into work though, I have been interrupted so many times I gave up. I have had to deal with: school sidewalks, or lack thereof, adult literacy, energy efficiency in public buildings, the alcohol and gaming authority, trade union recognition in the food sector, violence in the workplace, workers compensation and wind energy. I have had to take calls, visits from lobbyists, journalists, members of the public, politicians, civil servants and colleagues.
I am now eating my lunch and writing this on my lunchbreak which I never get, because I am too tired in the evening to blog.
After lunch, I will try to get back to HRM economic development. Then after that, I have reading/ policy work to do on: gambling and young people, the Nova Scotia oil and gas industry, energy demand side management strategies, comparative Canadian labour relations legislation, elementary education policy in rural areas, pensions, the economic implications of trade liberalisation with east Asia (I kid you not), chronic pain in women workers (I assume my tendonitis is included in that), after which time my inbox will be full and it will all start over again.
My work outputs range from verbal briefings to written briefings, to meeting positions, to letters, to legislation, to parliamentary questions, to press releases, to spreadsheets.
My outcomes... well as with most knowledge workers I don't have any. Cos they're kinda hard to measure. But I'm sure I'm doing a great job. The key thing is to always know the answer to the question that you're being asked or to know how to get the answer in ten seconds.
Is everyone's job like this nowadays? Or is it just my sector? I think I am getting too old for this. Would someone like to give me a job where I don't have to multi-task so much all the time?
Where I could sit around and think about stuff for just a minute or two?
My kind of bear
Recent news reports from Washington State are telling the story of a bear who ambled up to a campsite and got into someone's cooler in a national park, drank 36 cans of beer and climbed a tree (unsteadily, I'd imagine) to sleep it off. Park rangers managed to coax him down from the tree and capture him, for release away from the campsite, using two cans of beer.
The hair of the dog etc..
The hair of the dog etc..
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Cape Breton Fall Colours
Everything you've ever heard about Cape Breton in the Fall when the leaves turn is true.
Magenta claret plum lilac crimson fire engine red rose peach apricot sienna umber terracotta traffic light orange tangerine lemon gold blonde palest yellow leaves all bouncing and shaking in the autumn wind against the backdrop of evergreens - sage, emerald, moss, Sherwood green. Tufts of heather and blazing ferns at the base of every tree. Rivers winding slowly through boulder-strewn valleys, waiting for rain to fill up the channels.
Winding roads up and down the North Mountain and Smokey, hugging the side of the hills with nothing beyond the cliff edge but a vast cerulean sky and a dark blue ocean capped with off-white tufts of foam meeting at a horizon that stretches all the way east to home.
Magenta claret plum lilac crimson fire engine red rose peach apricot sienna umber terracotta traffic light orange tangerine lemon gold blonde palest yellow leaves all bouncing and shaking in the autumn wind against the backdrop of evergreens - sage, emerald, moss, Sherwood green. Tufts of heather and blazing ferns at the base of every tree. Rivers winding slowly through boulder-strewn valleys, waiting for rain to fill up the channels.
Winding roads up and down the North Mountain and Smokey, hugging the side of the hills with nothing beyond the cliff edge but a vast cerulean sky and a dark blue ocean capped with off-white tufts of foam meeting at a horizon that stretches all the way east to home.
Doubting the need for doubt is a doubtful strategy
I always try to remember the words of the great man himself, Plato:
One of the penalties of refusing to be involved in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
Then sometimes I wonder whether he wasn't talking about me.
But it's not something I can ever have a conversation with my colleagues about, because doubt is a scarce commodity in political staffers.
Which is a bad thing, I think.
But maybe that's just me.
Tired. Of politics. And crazy men shooting women and children in schools because of the way they were raised. The men I mean.
Why do we raise our boys so badly?
One of the penalties of refusing to be involved in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
Then sometimes I wonder whether he wasn't talking about me.
But it's not something I can ever have a conversation with my colleagues about, because doubt is a scarce commodity in political staffers.
Which is a bad thing, I think.
But maybe that's just me.
Tired. Of politics. And crazy men shooting women and children in schools because of the way they were raised. The men I mean.
Why do we raise our boys so badly?
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