Nominations closed today.
Apparently that's a big day here.
I can't remember if it's the same at home.
Anyways, a number of things happened today.
The men were being extra-special-nice.
Queenie's wrath is obviously more impressive than she thought.
She only had a quiet word with one of them.
But the word is out.
The ladeez were coming down with compliments about their shoes and work and commitment to the cause etc.
To the extent that we almost ran out of salt.
And Queenie is the first to be moved out to a campaign.
She is assured the two issues are not connected.
She doesn't care.
She's off to the action.
In Cape Breton apparently.
That should be fun.
I was saving Cape Breton for when Polly comes over. But I'll avoid the nice bits.
Shouldn't be too hard where I'm going.
We don't win too many seats in the mountains.
So Queenie is doing a mix to celebrate.
She's going to hand it out at work tomorrow, to thank all the incredibly cool people she has met in the last few weeks.
We are going to make history boys and girls, so we need a soundtrack.
First up, Maggie May.
I know, I know...
He can't be perfect. Our Great Leader.
1973, he could have picked Led, he could have picked Springsteen, he could have picked
Alice Cooper for chrissakes.
That's what he really wanted.
So we'll put on No More Mr Nice Guy next.
And now I'm going to put on Thin Lizzy, The Boys are back in town.
For the boys.
For being so nice today.
It was appreciated.
Then, I can't get next to you, by The Temptations, which is the song Queenie chose for the campaign, but which didn't get picked, because it was too cool.
That's Nova Scotia for ya.
Moby, Lift me up. Ya gotta have a bit of Moby. Anthemic, boppy, happy clappy music with soul-destroying lyrics.
Speaking of, Barbara told me Glastonbury is not on this year and so tickets to Electric Picnic are already sold out. So much for that plan.
Never mind.
Miracles, by Firstborn, because you always need one of them.
And then a bit of AfroCelt SoundSystem. Saor/ Free/ News from Nowhere. For Angel and her man. Take the sunglasses off girl, you're at home now!
Next, Boredoms, Two Circles, because everyone at home in Ireland in the other one was off watching them while I was home having a nervous breakdown. Or in work having one. Can't remember which.
Because I was missing the gig, of course.
Not because I was letting the election stress get to me.
The Doves' Firesuite, because Hotspurr the Goddess of Spin likes her Doves.
Then speed it up again with Firestarter, by The Prodigy.
For our own Special Agent Felicity Shagwell. For her battle against Dr. Evil and mini-me.
Took a while for them to notice the flames, but they did eventually.
Mofo, from U2's Pop, because that's what I feel like most days. But some days you gotta stand your ground.
Then a bit of Linkin' Park.
For a nice long stretch of highway up towards Canso.
I can't wait to do that drive.
Better hurry up - I am actually feeling sleepy for the first time in about a month, as opposed to just exhausted and wired, so I should take advantage of it and go to bed.
The Who. Of Course.
Bloc Party. Of Course.
The Wailin' Jennies, Beautiful Dawn. In case we have one.
And finally, The Waterboys, When ye go away.
For when they all do.
Campaigns.
Stress. Heartache. Conflict. Herculean effort. Boredom.
One of the days I'll know why I do this.
Old friendships. New friendships. The first coffee of the day. The chase. The release. The coverage. The mop up. The endless trips to Wendy's. Sitting in the sun talking about old campaigns. The total inter-connectedness of everything everyone does for a finite period of time. The sore feet. The back aches. The shared bottle of Tylenol.
The store of memories growing.
Maybe it's all I know how to do?
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Monday, May 29, 2006
E-15 Skippy's trampling on our hearts
This is the face of evil.
I shit you not.
It's a work thing. I'm not at liberty to explain it here.
You guys have gotta trust me on this one.
Besides, there are those who read this who will understand. And they need a laugh.
So, why do we do this?
We were asking ourselves today.
Not for the glory. Oh no. That's for the men.
Not for the glamour. Although my sparkly sandals added a bit today. The only bit of me that sparkled today.
But there's nothing glamorous about the work I did today.
Dear X, it would be great if you would vote for us, because then we would invest in education and you would learn how to use punctuation properly.
Dear Y, it would be great if you would vote for us, because then we would ensure you got the tax break as well as those goddamn single mothers you were ranting about in your long capitalised email.
Dear Z, it would be great if you would vote for us, because ....
Why because?
If we all have the same platform and we all have the same vision, what's the difference?
The application.
We stand for dignity, for caring, for inclusion, for equality, for freedom of expression.
That's what we stand for.
It's all in the application, boys and girls.
No, there's absolutely no irony in what I am saying.
None.
You must be mistaking me for someone who was reduced to tears today by the blatant sexism wrapped up as 'the way we do things here' that's appeared in my workplace.
Tomorrow:
I am going to sing slowly to myself all day, quite possibly to the tune of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo:
I am the epitome of what I believe in and work for. I am a caring, inclusive, committed, experienced, talented, unique, bright, sparkling example of what the alternative could be for us all. I represent both the vision and the application of what we stand for. The how of things is as important to me as the what or the why.
I am surrounded by people like me. They cloak me in a forcefield of wit and humour and love that protects me from any permanent scarring. I cloak them in return and protect them.
What's going on doesn't matter, because it's people like us who will win in the end. We have to because the how of now is destroying everything.
The desire to control, to divide, and to manipulate always stems from a deep insecurity. So deep that it is often unrealised. That insecurity disappears when the desire to care becomes stronger.
It takes a long time for some people to get to that place.
The reason I know we will win in the end is because Mama Gaia's need to be cared for ain't gonna wait that long more...
It was 25 degrees today. In Halifax. In the Northern Atlantic.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
E-16 Bears in the Alps!
If you go down to the Alpine woods you're in for a big surprise: a 100kg wild brown bear who goes by the name of Bruno, writes Derek Scally in the Irish Times.
He has had the starring role in a three-week bear scare after leaving his home in the Italian Alps for Tirol in western Austria. He crossed the border into Bavaria last weekend, making him the first bear sighted in the region since 1842.
Italian nature groups say Bruno is likely to be one of 20 cubs born in the mountains since a group of Slovenian bears were let into the wild there a decade ago.
But, on his travels, Bruno is suspected of slaughtering dozens of sheep, chickens and racing pigeons, as well as breaking and entering several bee hives.
Bavarian police circulated blurry mugshots of Bruno, warning local people to keep clear of the violent animal. Bavarian environment minister Werner Schnapauff branded Bruno a problembär because he seemed fearless of approaching humans. Last Monday, the minister bowed to demands to allow farmers and hunters to shoot the bear on sight "in cases of physical or mortal danger".
Animal rights activists, angry at the decision of the Bavarians, were infuriated when, on Tuesday, Austrian authorities decided to follow suit.
Germany's Bild newspaper put an image of Bruno in a gun's crosshairs on its front page under the headline: "Death Sentence for Bear". But since the sentence was pronounced, Bruno has gone on the lam.
Hunters have tried without success to lure him into a 2m-wide aluminium tube trap. Another suggestion to set up snares was rejected by the director of Munich Zoo, Henning Wiesner. He told a Bavarian newspaper that a bear such as Bruno would rather gnaw off his own leg while dangling from a tree than get caught by hunters.
Mr Wiesner suggested using darts to knock Bruno out after locating him with a pack of hunting dogs. "The only problem is that no hunting dogs in Germany have ever smelled a bear," he said.
Yesterday it emerged that he has probably escaped Germany and is now in Tirol. But Austrian authorities say Bruno is an unbearable threat and will be killed when caught after they conduct a DNA test to make sure they have their bear.
Hoteliers in the Bavarian village of Garmisch-Partenkirchen on the Austrian border have jumped on the bandwagon. They're offering Bruno-spotting packages starting at €169 a night.
He has had the starring role in a three-week bear scare after leaving his home in the Italian Alps for Tirol in western Austria. He crossed the border into Bavaria last weekend, making him the first bear sighted in the region since 1842.
Italian nature groups say Bruno is likely to be one of 20 cubs born in the mountains since a group of Slovenian bears were let into the wild there a decade ago.
But, on his travels, Bruno is suspected of slaughtering dozens of sheep, chickens and racing pigeons, as well as breaking and entering several bee hives.
Bavarian police circulated blurry mugshots of Bruno, warning local people to keep clear of the violent animal. Bavarian environment minister Werner Schnapauff branded Bruno a problembär because he seemed fearless of approaching humans. Last Monday, the minister bowed to demands to allow farmers and hunters to shoot the bear on sight "in cases of physical or mortal danger".
Animal rights activists, angry at the decision of the Bavarians, were infuriated when, on Tuesday, Austrian authorities decided to follow suit.
Germany's Bild newspaper put an image of Bruno in a gun's crosshairs on its front page under the headline: "Death Sentence for Bear". But since the sentence was pronounced, Bruno has gone on the lam.
Hunters have tried without success to lure him into a 2m-wide aluminium tube trap. Another suggestion to set up snares was rejected by the director of Munich Zoo, Henning Wiesner. He told a Bavarian newspaper that a bear such as Bruno would rather gnaw off his own leg while dangling from a tree than get caught by hunters.
Mr Wiesner suggested using darts to knock Bruno out after locating him with a pack of hunting dogs. "The only problem is that no hunting dogs in Germany have ever smelled a bear," he said.
Yesterday it emerged that he has probably escaped Germany and is now in Tirol. But Austrian authorities say Bruno is an unbearable threat and will be killed when caught after they conduct a DNA test to make sure they have their bear.
Hoteliers in the Bavarian village of Garmisch-Partenkirchen on the Austrian border have jumped on the bandwagon. They're offering Bruno-spotting packages starting at €169 a night.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
E-21 The Age War has begun
Ben should be using his vote because he can be bloody sure that Brian will.
The Age War has begun
This was the last two lines of a great article by Andrew Rawnesley in last Sunday’s Observer, which I am only reading tonight because I am always in work.
The article was very close to my heart.
It was all about how the baby boomers are going to bankrupt us lot. And all we have to look forward to at the end of it is no pension and no kids to worry about when we get old. Which boils down to no kids to look after us when we grow old, of course.
I am being extreme. And I don’t really mind because I happen to think seniors are worth looking after. But nowhere is the building problem more evident than in Nova Scotia.
There are currently 95,000 seniors (that’s what we call them in polite Canada, you know them as old people, or aul’ wans, in Ireland) living in Nova Scotia. That’s about 10% of the population. By 2030(?) that will have gone up to about 150,000. And the population of Nova Scotia isn’t going to expand dramatically anytime soon, far from it. The population of under-fives, the people who will be in their mid-thirties in 2030, dropped by one fifth in the last ten years, to just 47,000-ish.
You do the math.
Seniors are expensive.
They need healthcare, long term care, nursing home care, drugs, palliative care, etc.
They get pensions.
They don’t pay much tax.
Young people on the other hand, are cheap. If they don’t contribute you can just ship them off to the Oil Sands of Northern Alberta.
Of course, you don’t get their tax payments then.
You do the math.
So what do we do?
The article in the Observer said that politicians would find it difficult to balance this war of the generations.
Bloody right, they will.
The first thing that needs to be done is for someone, somewhere, to tackle the ridiculous price of drugs.
There is no reason why they should be so expensive. Other than the stock market.
No, there isn’t.
India has a remarkable generic drugs industry that should be examined for ways in which to apply it to other jurisdictions.
The second thing that needs to be done is for a model of community care to be worked out, so that elderly people don’t need as much hospital care as they do now.
That means rethinking workplace models so that 9 – 5 m/f patterns are finally abolished and giving communities some money and time to develop ways in which to care for older and younger members on a more flexible basis so that working age people can work.
Work however it suits the community. Part-time, or for a couple of months a year, or whatever. But the days of one young, fit, educated, experienced person staying at home full-time for years to look after one other person (or maybe two, if there’s enough money), while another person works ridiculous hours in order to deliver a necessary health or educational or other product or service to society MUST end.
I’m going to get it in the neck for that.
I don't care.
The nuclear family is not working. It takes a village to raise a child and a community to care for an elderly person and the reason why we have juvenile crime and scared old people is because we leave it up to hassled stressed parents who aren’t even sure they want to be together anymore to raise their children by themselves.
We should bring in ASBOs that involve sitting talking to old people for six hours a day. That would sort out juvenile crime in ten seconds.
They'd either refuse to reoffend out of boredom, or they'd refuse to leave the stories of the war and the old days because they're so interesting.
The third thing that must happen is that immigration must become more fluid. For chrissakes, I’m a productive member of Canadian society and I can’t even get a credit card. It took three months to get a work permit sorted out. It will take me months more to get a driver’s licence, years to get a mortgage or a health card if I want one.
And I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m not a neurologist driving a cab because the Medical Association ‘doesn’t trust my experience and qualifications’.
Yeah. I believe you. I've been to the conferences.
If this part of the world has skills shortages and a need for people to come and work in the caring professions, then people who live in parts of the world and who want to come here to live and work should be able to without having to become full-time forever residents. They should have portable residencies. Like we do in the European Union.
Think globally, act locally is great for recycling your egg cartons, but sometimes you need to think locally and act globally.
I’m going to bed now – I’m very tired.
The Age War has begun
This was the last two lines of a great article by Andrew Rawnesley in last Sunday’s Observer, which I am only reading tonight because I am always in work.
The article was very close to my heart.
It was all about how the baby boomers are going to bankrupt us lot. And all we have to look forward to at the end of it is no pension and no kids to worry about when we get old. Which boils down to no kids to look after us when we grow old, of course.
I am being extreme. And I don’t really mind because I happen to think seniors are worth looking after. But nowhere is the building problem more evident than in Nova Scotia.
There are currently 95,000 seniors (that’s what we call them in polite Canada, you know them as old people, or aul’ wans, in Ireland) living in Nova Scotia. That’s about 10% of the population. By 2030(?) that will have gone up to about 150,000. And the population of Nova Scotia isn’t going to expand dramatically anytime soon, far from it. The population of under-fives, the people who will be in their mid-thirties in 2030, dropped by one fifth in the last ten years, to just 47,000-ish.
You do the math.
Seniors are expensive.
They need healthcare, long term care, nursing home care, drugs, palliative care, etc.
They get pensions.
They don’t pay much tax.
Young people on the other hand, are cheap. If they don’t contribute you can just ship them off to the Oil Sands of Northern Alberta.
Of course, you don’t get their tax payments then.
You do the math.
So what do we do?
The article in the Observer said that politicians would find it difficult to balance this war of the generations.
Bloody right, they will.
The first thing that needs to be done is for someone, somewhere, to tackle the ridiculous price of drugs.
There is no reason why they should be so expensive. Other than the stock market.
No, there isn’t.
India has a remarkable generic drugs industry that should be examined for ways in which to apply it to other jurisdictions.
The second thing that needs to be done is for a model of community care to be worked out, so that elderly people don’t need as much hospital care as they do now.
That means rethinking workplace models so that 9 – 5 m/f patterns are finally abolished and giving communities some money and time to develop ways in which to care for older and younger members on a more flexible basis so that working age people can work.
Work however it suits the community. Part-time, or for a couple of months a year, or whatever. But the days of one young, fit, educated, experienced person staying at home full-time for years to look after one other person (or maybe two, if there’s enough money), while another person works ridiculous hours in order to deliver a necessary health or educational or other product or service to society MUST end.
I’m going to get it in the neck for that.
I don't care.
The nuclear family is not working. It takes a village to raise a child and a community to care for an elderly person and the reason why we have juvenile crime and scared old people is because we leave it up to hassled stressed parents who aren’t even sure they want to be together anymore to raise their children by themselves.
We should bring in ASBOs that involve sitting talking to old people for six hours a day. That would sort out juvenile crime in ten seconds.
They'd either refuse to reoffend out of boredom, or they'd refuse to leave the stories of the war and the old days because they're so interesting.
The third thing that must happen is that immigration must become more fluid. For chrissakes, I’m a productive member of Canadian society and I can’t even get a credit card. It took three months to get a work permit sorted out. It will take me months more to get a driver’s licence, years to get a mortgage or a health card if I want one.
And I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m not a neurologist driving a cab because the Medical Association ‘doesn’t trust my experience and qualifications’.
Yeah. I believe you. I've been to the conferences.
If this part of the world has skills shortages and a need for people to come and work in the caring professions, then people who live in parts of the world and who want to come here to live and work should be able to without having to become full-time forever residents. They should have portable residencies. Like we do in the European Union.
Think globally, act locally is great for recycling your egg cartons, but sometimes you need to think locally and act globally.
I’m going to bed now – I’m very tired.
Friday, May 19, 2006
E-26. I think. Nope. It's E-25
Energy is the new politics.
It’s very cold here in Canada. And we’re running out of oil. And we’re cutting down all the trees. So we need more energy.
But it’s okay, because we’re the people who carved a country out of this land.
So we’ll figure it out. Eventually. Or the Americans will pay us to do it.
I’m watching Kojak. The new series. It’s class.
The women in it all are a bit stupid.
All the ads here are about cars. Or losing weight. Or getting your teeth whitened. Or buying furniture on credit.
Or signing up for charity events.
What amazes me is there are a whole lot of people here who are on television here all the time, and I have no idea where they drink.
But they must drink somewhere.
Everybody does.
Anyway, Kojak hates white men. But he always falls for their helpless wives.
Just a little.
And he wears a hat.
I bet half the province is watching this muck.
Somebody said to me today, why is it that all these people bust a gut to get something out, and then it’s not on?
And I said excuse me?
Because I was really shocked. That she could think that. That politics was on anyone’s agenda on the Friday evening of the May Bank Holiday.
Why do I always have to work bank holidays?
We’re dealing with a big murder tonight on Kojak.
Ten thousand dollars.
You could get two people shot with that on the streets of Dublin.
Now they’re advertising going to the optician regularly.
I cannot figure out the advertising demographic of this province.
Gardening store.
Tuesday on Breakfast television. This one is on a lot.
Now there’s some tv movie about a mother’s fear.
I think I’m on the wrong channel.
The Japanese have it I think.
It’s just all a big wrestling match.
But they made an art of it.
Kojak’s telling the crazy woman that if she believes in God it’ll be alright. So she puts her weapon down. And then she gets shot.
Oops.
There are so many wrongs.
But Kojak has the answer.
The two top stories on the news tonight are about school bullying. The police are arresting loads of kids.
I hope it’s picked up.
It’s very cold here in Canada. And we’re running out of oil. And we’re cutting down all the trees. So we need more energy.
But it’s okay, because we’re the people who carved a country out of this land.
So we’ll figure it out. Eventually. Or the Americans will pay us to do it.
I’m watching Kojak. The new series. It’s class.
The women in it all are a bit stupid.
All the ads here are about cars. Or losing weight. Or getting your teeth whitened. Or buying furniture on credit.
Or signing up for charity events.
What amazes me is there are a whole lot of people here who are on television here all the time, and I have no idea where they drink.
But they must drink somewhere.
Everybody does.
Anyway, Kojak hates white men. But he always falls for their helpless wives.
Just a little.
And he wears a hat.
I bet half the province is watching this muck.
Somebody said to me today, why is it that all these people bust a gut to get something out, and then it’s not on?
And I said excuse me?
Because I was really shocked. That she could think that. That politics was on anyone’s agenda on the Friday evening of the May Bank Holiday.
Why do I always have to work bank holidays?
We’re dealing with a big murder tonight on Kojak.
Ten thousand dollars.
You could get two people shot with that on the streets of Dublin.
Now they’re advertising going to the optician regularly.
I cannot figure out the advertising demographic of this province.
Gardening store.
Tuesday on Breakfast television. This one is on a lot.
Now there’s some tv movie about a mother’s fear.
I think I’m on the wrong channel.
The Japanese have it I think.
It’s just all a big wrestling match.
But they made an art of it.
Kojak’s telling the crazy woman that if she believes in God it’ll be alright. So she puts her weapon down. And then she gets shot.
Oops.
There are so many wrongs.
But Kojak has the answer.
The two top stories on the news tonight are about school bullying. The police are arresting loads of kids.
I hope it’s picked up.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
E-26. Amazing what a little shouting can do. Or not.
I have learned that sometimes, if you shout at the universe, it gives a little.
Sometimes it just craps on you some more of course, but this time, the universe heard my shout of anguish and responded.
I got my work permit today.
Himself got a little give from the universe too. Due to my shouting last night of course.
So that's two things that gave a little today.
If only the same approach worked with campaign managers.
Sometimes it just craps on you some more of course, but this time, the universe heard my shout of anguish and responded.
I got my work permit today.
Himself got a little give from the universe too. Due to my shouting last night of course.
So that's two things that gave a little today.
If only the same approach worked with campaign managers.
E-27
If something in my life doesn’t give soon, I am going to be stretched apart.
Nova Scotia, Ireland, Alberta, family, partner, partner’s divorce, partner’s job, my job, my visa, house, apartment, election, visits, car, bills, mortgage, rent, the ability to have enough time off to cook a meal without having to deal with phone calls, texts, messages, neighbours, room mates, people wanting to pick up signs, people wanting to drop off signs, people wanting to go out, people wanting to stay in. The ability to sleep one night straight through.
Being expected to drive around this city using Map Quest. And catch the Rod in his Winnebago.
And instead of a cherry on top they gave me a Blackberry today.
There is a circle of hell, no a RIM of a circle of hell, set aside for the makers of and the addicts to, the Crackberry.
Mine’s going in the harbour on June 14th. I don’t care how much it costs to do it.
Himself is bearing the brunt of it of course.
Why do we do that?
I went to the bank today to wire money home and they asked me whether I knew how to do it.
No, dear, that’s YOUR job.
We found the manual eventually.
And I read the small print out to her.
And we did the wire transfer. I can’t wait to see where the money ends up.
Nova Scotia, Ireland, Alberta, family, partner, partner’s divorce, partner’s job, my job, my visa, house, apartment, election, visits, car, bills, mortgage, rent, the ability to have enough time off to cook a meal without having to deal with phone calls, texts, messages, neighbours, room mates, people wanting to pick up signs, people wanting to drop off signs, people wanting to go out, people wanting to stay in. The ability to sleep one night straight through.
Being expected to drive around this city using Map Quest. And catch the Rod in his Winnebago.
And instead of a cherry on top they gave me a Blackberry today.
There is a circle of hell, no a RIM of a circle of hell, set aside for the makers of and the addicts to, the Crackberry.
Mine’s going in the harbour on June 14th. I don’t care how much it costs to do it.
Himself is bearing the brunt of it of course.
Why do we do that?
I went to the bank today to wire money home and they asked me whether I knew how to do it.
No, dear, that’s YOUR job.
We found the manual eventually.
And I read the small print out to her.
And we did the wire transfer. I can’t wait to see where the money ends up.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
E-31
So why am I doing this?
I'm not sure. I'm very busy.
Maybe I'm just keeping busy.
I don't know.
I'm too busy to think about it.
Which is good.
If a little stressfull.
Story of my. Fucking. Life.
I'm actually getting used to it at this stage.
You rage against it in your twenties, don't you.
Your being.
I wonder why we do that?
Then once you get busy, you start to see it in perspective.
That it's innate. And not necessarily bad.
You just have to learn to manage it.
And then you get really busy and stop caring.
Whether it's kids, or work, or someone else, or maybe just yourself (and some people do make a lot of money just thinking about themselves all day).
You just start trying to get some downtime.
I could go on. But I hope you get my drift.
Anyway, I met Aaron at the convention. He was upset because nobody wanted to vote for his motion to nationalise the power grid. Which is full of expensive belching smoke stacks. And crappy supply. That charges aul' ones through the nose. But he was also pissed off because he had to go and sell his labour in Banff for the summer.
I thought he was joking when he said that. I'd love to sell my labour in Banff for the summer. But then I thought about it. He'll be in some hotel, with some crappy Albertan manager shouting at him. For minimum wage. For six months.
I was so close to voting for his motion I had to remove myself from the convention and go home to bed.
It had been a rough night anyway the night before.
The magii had had a party. Filled the back of William's pick up with beer. For the troops. And held a frat party in the university residence.
It was great fun.
I think that's why I'm doing it. They're such lovely people.
And they are really smart.
But they know how to enjoy themselves. They know how to get on with each other.
I am learning a lot.
I'm not sure. I'm very busy.
Maybe I'm just keeping busy.
I don't know.
I'm too busy to think about it.
Which is good.
If a little stressfull.
Story of my. Fucking. Life.
I'm actually getting used to it at this stage.
You rage against it in your twenties, don't you.
Your being.
I wonder why we do that?
Then once you get busy, you start to see it in perspective.
That it's innate. And not necessarily bad.
You just have to learn to manage it.
And then you get really busy and stop caring.
Whether it's kids, or work, or someone else, or maybe just yourself (and some people do make a lot of money just thinking about themselves all day).
You just start trying to get some downtime.
I could go on. But I hope you get my drift.
Anyway, I met Aaron at the convention. He was upset because nobody wanted to vote for his motion to nationalise the power grid. Which is full of expensive belching smoke stacks. And crappy supply. That charges aul' ones through the nose. But he was also pissed off because he had to go and sell his labour in Banff for the summer.
I thought he was joking when he said that. I'd love to sell my labour in Banff for the summer. But then I thought about it. He'll be in some hotel, with some crappy Albertan manager shouting at him. For minimum wage. For six months.
I was so close to voting for his motion I had to remove myself from the convention and go home to bed.
It had been a rough night anyway the night before.
The magii had had a party. Filled the back of William's pick up with beer. For the troops. And held a frat party in the university residence.
It was great fun.
I think that's why I'm doing it. They're such lovely people.
And they are really smart.
But they know how to enjoy themselves. They know how to get on with each other.
I am learning a lot.
Monday, May 08, 2006
A complete failure to zine works out as an opportunity to blog
I hadn’t planned on doing a zine this time. Too much work, not enough music. None in fact. I didn’t even make the Junos. Just watched a bit of the awards ceremony on tv. Had the weekend of personal life hell instead, while the two wristbands sat in an envelope calling to me.
No, I was just going to pay the Crumpster the money I owe him through my shiny new ‘just put some money in from your Canadian chequing account’ Paypal account, sit back and wait for the envelope, and read someone else’s article first for a change (am I the only self-obsessed Franker’s who does that? Or even the only Franker’s).
But there was a strong sense of ‘the zine must go on’, so I thought I should contribute.
Frank’s guilt. As if I don’t have enough guilt in my life.
Then I thought about all the Mailcomms that would get lost in time forever if I missed a beat, so I hauled myself out of my pre-election lethargy and went to a gig the other night. To have something to write about. D’ysee?
And it wasna’ bad either, cap’n.
But of course work got in the way and I never finished it, so now it can double as the blog post I don’t have time to write.
Also, I finally figured Nova Scotia out that night. As I was sitting watching the band thinking about them all. The Nova Scotians I know I mean.
I know lots of them. I just don't blog about them much.
It’s tribal here. Everyone’s in bands. Of about a hundred.
And there are shifting alliances, but they’re all built on sand. Or rock. Wet, slippery, sharp rock.
And you have to find one. And force it to let you in. Undergo some strange rite of initiation that they don’t explain to you.
It’s extremely irritating most of the time, because I want to join all the tribes. But they keep trying to get me to pick one.
I do hate making decisions.
I have learned that about myself this year.
Anyway, the music I was going to tell you about.
The Windom Earle All-Stars Volume One: A Series of Minor Tragedies. Featuring the Jeff Coll Five, Operation Impact and Windom Earle.
They’re from PEI. That’s Prince Edward Island. Home of Anne of Green Gables. Potato capital of Canada. Great beaches. It’s like being in Brittas Bay in 1952 going on holidays in PEI.
Six of them are in the Jeff Coll Five. Seven of them are in Operation Impact. And three of them are in Windom Earle. Altogether there are twelve of them. It appeared to me that they all spent most of their time on stage during the gig.
They all look about nineteen, but that’s probably just my oldarse inability to age people younger than me kicking in. The lead singer is a wriggly mental stage spider. He has a male co-singer who dances behind him laughing. It’s like watching angry Paul Watts sharing the lead vocals with Dermot and a punked up nineteen year old Jimmy Cake reunion, complete with Lisa in a pink dress, playing drums at the front of the stage.
They’re class.
I bought the album. This album, and The Woods are the only albums I bought since the last Franks. Anyways, A Serious of Minor Personal Tragedies has thirteen tracks, recorded in random bedrooms, cabins, attics and living rooms by Stephen McLeod between 2003 and 2005. As far as I can make out, Stephen is the co-singer. They have a website of course, with most of the tracks on it. www.windomearle.com/music.html. That will save me burning it for anyone.
Touched by a Transvestite is good. Boppy. And Emily’s Song.
According to a zine interview on the site, Beck is their main influence. I couldn’t hear it particularly. I heard a lot of the early Depeche Mode sound; and Daftpunk of course. It’s all about Daftpunk these days, isn’t it?
Back to me
I love writing my Franks. I always make an event of it. Just have a beer. Or tea. Or Tropicana Jungle Mix. Whatever I feel like on the night. Or day. Sometimes I wrote it on a Sunday. When it’s quiet. When the only sound in the house was Bruce going about his gut-bursting with pent up fury laden Sunday afternoon routine.
It was very complex. And completely irrelevant. Even he knew it. That’s why he was so angry, but he didn’t feel any responsibility to change it.
But he’s gone now, so the Sundays are lovely and quiet. Lovely. Particularly for zine writing. Except now I have to go canvassing every Sunday.
Election guilt. As if I don’t have enough guilt in my life.
No, I was just going to pay the Crumpster the money I owe him through my shiny new ‘just put some money in from your Canadian chequing account’ Paypal account, sit back and wait for the envelope, and read someone else’s article first for a change (am I the only self-obsessed Franker’s who does that? Or even the only Franker’s).
But there was a strong sense of ‘the zine must go on’, so I thought I should contribute.
Frank’s guilt. As if I don’t have enough guilt in my life.
Then I thought about all the Mailcomms that would get lost in time forever if I missed a beat, so I hauled myself out of my pre-election lethargy and went to a gig the other night. To have something to write about. D’ysee?
And it wasna’ bad either, cap’n.
But of course work got in the way and I never finished it, so now it can double as the blog post I don’t have time to write.
Also, I finally figured Nova Scotia out that night. As I was sitting watching the band thinking about them all. The Nova Scotians I know I mean.
I know lots of them. I just don't blog about them much.
It’s tribal here. Everyone’s in bands. Of about a hundred.
And there are shifting alliances, but they’re all built on sand. Or rock. Wet, slippery, sharp rock.
And you have to find one. And force it to let you in. Undergo some strange rite of initiation that they don’t explain to you.
It’s extremely irritating most of the time, because I want to join all the tribes. But they keep trying to get me to pick one.
I do hate making decisions.
I have learned that about myself this year.
Anyway, the music I was going to tell you about.
The Windom Earle All-Stars Volume One: A Series of Minor Tragedies. Featuring the Jeff Coll Five, Operation Impact and Windom Earle.
They’re from PEI. That’s Prince Edward Island. Home of Anne of Green Gables. Potato capital of Canada. Great beaches. It’s like being in Brittas Bay in 1952 going on holidays in PEI.
Six of them are in the Jeff Coll Five. Seven of them are in Operation Impact. And three of them are in Windom Earle. Altogether there are twelve of them. It appeared to me that they all spent most of their time on stage during the gig.
They all look about nineteen, but that’s probably just my oldarse inability to age people younger than me kicking in. The lead singer is a wriggly mental stage spider. He has a male co-singer who dances behind him laughing. It’s like watching angry Paul Watts sharing the lead vocals with Dermot and a punked up nineteen year old Jimmy Cake reunion, complete with Lisa in a pink dress, playing drums at the front of the stage.
They’re class.
I bought the album. This album, and The Woods are the only albums I bought since the last Franks. Anyways, A Serious of Minor Personal Tragedies has thirteen tracks, recorded in random bedrooms, cabins, attics and living rooms by Stephen McLeod between 2003 and 2005. As far as I can make out, Stephen is the co-singer. They have a website of course, with most of the tracks on it. www.windomearle.com/music.html. That will save me burning it for anyone.
Touched by a Transvestite is good. Boppy. And Emily’s Song.
According to a zine interview on the site, Beck is their main influence. I couldn’t hear it particularly. I heard a lot of the early Depeche Mode sound; and Daftpunk of course. It’s all about Daftpunk these days, isn’t it?
Back to me
I love writing my Franks. I always make an event of it. Just have a beer. Or tea. Or Tropicana Jungle Mix. Whatever I feel like on the night. Or day. Sometimes I wrote it on a Sunday. When it’s quiet. When the only sound in the house was Bruce going about his gut-bursting with pent up fury laden Sunday afternoon routine.
It was very complex. And completely irrelevant. Even he knew it. That’s why he was so angry, but he didn’t feel any responsibility to change it.
But he’s gone now, so the Sundays are lovely and quiet. Lovely. Particularly for zine writing. Except now I have to go canvassing every Sunday.
Election guilt. As if I don’t have enough guilt in my life.
Monday, May 01, 2006
Lou Dobbs' bull and a baby cow
Monday evening. May Day. Commie-day, according to Lou Dobbs on CNN tonight. I tuned in for a minute to see how big the immigrant marches were in the States, as I had missed Balanced News on CBC and Reasonably Balanced News on Global Maritime.
Boy, is Lou pissed. All the other networks are referring to these people as immigrants.
THEY ARE ILLEGAL ALIENS, Lou informed me.
He had a couple of Democrat Congressmen on who had sponsored a resolution that would give these people an opportunity to be recognised by the country they are holding together with their labour.
Taking jobs away from American workers, grumbled Lou.
Remind you of anywhere?
They probably all get free washing machines from the welfare officer too.
Or maybe not. Maybe they’ll all be over to Ireland when they hear about the free washing machines.
The Congressmen were playing it pretty cleverly. For Democrats. Let’s lock the gates now, because the Republicans forgot to do it after 9/11. But when we do that, we’d better keep these people in. Because the Republicans couldn't evacuate New Orleans so we can't trust them to deport 12 million people.
Pretty good I thought. Balanced argument. Building a coalition of the needy and the virtuous and the scratch their arse and belch into their beer can brigade.
Then he had some neo-Con Hispanic woman on who was only delighted to be captured pissing on her own people by the meejia.
Then he had some footage of the Minute Men building a fence in South California somewhere.
Hundreds of them!
Give Lou his due, even he recognises the folly of that particular stunt.
Only 1,599 miles to go, he said wryly. Well, as wryly as you can do when you're botoxed to the hairline.
Which is probably wrong. What's the length of the southern border of the USA?
Up here in nice reasonable Canada you have nice reasonable CBC and slightly less reasonable Global, but at least Global still understands the concept of balanced news coverage. So you are lulled into a false sense of security. ‘Just because you celebrate May Day doesn’t mean you’re a Trot’ kind of security.
And then you switch on CNN for a minute.
And remember that you're a commie. In Lou's eyes anyways.
I had an argument with Himself about CNN once. I came home from work and caught him watching it.
“You’re not to watch that shite if you’re going to be with me!” Grabbed remote, switched tv off, and sat on remote to drive home the point.
“I just want to see the news, for chrissakes.” Of course he’s far too polite to push my ass off the remote, so he sat there waiting to be educated. Like the immaculate boyfriend he is.
“That’s not news. That’s right wing rhetoric dressed up as news.”
He knows enough now to know that when I say right wing, I really mean special ops battalion of the devil.
And that’s bad in anyone’s books.
We’re having an argument by text at the moment. Although Himself is backing off a bit now, because he has to go to sleep. It’s half past midnight in Ireland, eight thirty pm in Halifax and five thirty in Grassland, and he has to go to sleep for a bit because he’s on nights this week and has to go driving in the dark.
Which I don’t like of course. Because I will worry until he texts me that he’s home. Which won’t be until four pm Halifax time tomorrow. Or eight pm in Ireland. So he’ll be back when Eastenders finishes.
We don’t communicate when he’s in the truck. It nearly broke us the last time. Signal in, signal out, kshsasfasdhfaldf…, cut off.
It all started when I called him as I was starting dinner. To tell him what I was going to eat and to make sure he had bought vegetables this week. And to remind him he has to give up smoking because I am not going through all of this crap now just to have him die on me in a couple of years.
I was in Pete’s Fruitique yesterday, which is the best food store in the world, and they had veal escallopes so of course I couldn’t resist.
“Veal? What’s that?”
Not many people eat veal here. Nova Scotia is not noted for its production. Or for lamb for that matter.
“Baby cow.”
“WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?”
I moved the conversation on swiftly, sensing a weak spot in my case as role model for all right-on, leftie things in life.
But he was not to be turned. Himself is a hunter of course, so he just picked a good spot and waited. Silently, patiently, in the long grass of Grassland until I was perched in front of tv with yummy veal escallopes, tortilla patata and fresh tomato salad watching CNN – it’s okay if you shout at Lou – with Melanie, who was hiding her eyes behind her hands in horror at the nasty Amerkaans. She’s very French, is Melanie. And she's not well at the moment. Had to go to the emergency room last night.
Then he struck.
“Shame on you for eating that baby cow. My heart is broken.”
I am not for turning either, of course.
“Belch. Slurp.”
“STOP THAT! Oh, that poor baby.”
“At least I didn’t boil it alive in a pot after capturing it in a watery trap.”
I didn’t even mention the countless baby ground fish he probably murdered over the years. Or the defenceless deer he stalked and shot.
Texting is quite limiting when you're a pedant.
“Lobsters don’t have brains.”
“Yes they do.”
“Well, just little ones.”
And so on and so on.
And so life goes on. As it always does.
Eventually, I capitulated. Agreed I wouldn't eat them anymore.
The thing I love about Himself is that when, on the rare occasion that I allow him to win an argument (and he should win this one as he is right about the baby cows, although they are VERY tasty), he doesn't rub my nose in it.
He gives it a little rub instead.
"It's up to you. I don't think it's right tho'. But I still love you."
Phew! :-)
"Go to sleep."
"What are you doing?"
"Blogging."
"What about?"
"Baby cows, you and CNN."
"Oh no..."
"It'll be grand. Go to sleep."
"Don't be too hard on me, baby."
"Sweet dreams."
Boy, is Lou pissed. All the other networks are referring to these people as immigrants.
THEY ARE ILLEGAL ALIENS, Lou informed me.
He had a couple of Democrat Congressmen on who had sponsored a resolution that would give these people an opportunity to be recognised by the country they are holding together with their labour.
Taking jobs away from American workers, grumbled Lou.
Remind you of anywhere?
They probably all get free washing machines from the welfare officer too.
Or maybe not. Maybe they’ll all be over to Ireland when they hear about the free washing machines.
The Congressmen were playing it pretty cleverly. For Democrats. Let’s lock the gates now, because the Republicans forgot to do it after 9/11. But when we do that, we’d better keep these people in. Because the Republicans couldn't evacuate New Orleans so we can't trust them to deport 12 million people.
Pretty good I thought. Balanced argument. Building a coalition of the needy and the virtuous and the scratch their arse and belch into their beer can brigade.
Then he had some neo-Con Hispanic woman on who was only delighted to be captured pissing on her own people by the meejia.
Then he had some footage of the Minute Men building a fence in South California somewhere.
Hundreds of them!
Give Lou his due, even he recognises the folly of that particular stunt.
Only 1,599 miles to go, he said wryly. Well, as wryly as you can do when you're botoxed to the hairline.
Which is probably wrong. What's the length of the southern border of the USA?
Up here in nice reasonable Canada you have nice reasonable CBC and slightly less reasonable Global, but at least Global still understands the concept of balanced news coverage. So you are lulled into a false sense of security. ‘Just because you celebrate May Day doesn’t mean you’re a Trot’ kind of security.
And then you switch on CNN for a minute.
And remember that you're a commie. In Lou's eyes anyways.
I had an argument with Himself about CNN once. I came home from work and caught him watching it.
“You’re not to watch that shite if you’re going to be with me!” Grabbed remote, switched tv off, and sat on remote to drive home the point.
“I just want to see the news, for chrissakes.” Of course he’s far too polite to push my ass off the remote, so he sat there waiting to be educated. Like the immaculate boyfriend he is.
“That’s not news. That’s right wing rhetoric dressed up as news.”
He knows enough now to know that when I say right wing, I really mean special ops battalion of the devil.
And that’s bad in anyone’s books.
We’re having an argument by text at the moment. Although Himself is backing off a bit now, because he has to go to sleep. It’s half past midnight in Ireland, eight thirty pm in Halifax and five thirty in Grassland, and he has to go to sleep for a bit because he’s on nights this week and has to go driving in the dark.
Which I don’t like of course. Because I will worry until he texts me that he’s home. Which won’t be until four pm Halifax time tomorrow. Or eight pm in Ireland. So he’ll be back when Eastenders finishes.
We don’t communicate when he’s in the truck. It nearly broke us the last time. Signal in, signal out, kshsasfasdhfaldf…, cut off.
It all started when I called him as I was starting dinner. To tell him what I was going to eat and to make sure he had bought vegetables this week. And to remind him he has to give up smoking because I am not going through all of this crap now just to have him die on me in a couple of years.
I was in Pete’s Fruitique yesterday, which is the best food store in the world, and they had veal escallopes so of course I couldn’t resist.
“Veal? What’s that?”
Not many people eat veal here. Nova Scotia is not noted for its production. Or for lamb for that matter.
“Baby cow.”
“WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?”
I moved the conversation on swiftly, sensing a weak spot in my case as role model for all right-on, leftie things in life.
But he was not to be turned. Himself is a hunter of course, so he just picked a good spot and waited. Silently, patiently, in the long grass of Grassland until I was perched in front of tv with yummy veal escallopes, tortilla patata and fresh tomato salad watching CNN – it’s okay if you shout at Lou – with Melanie, who was hiding her eyes behind her hands in horror at the nasty Amerkaans. She’s very French, is Melanie. And she's not well at the moment. Had to go to the emergency room last night.
Then he struck.
“Shame on you for eating that baby cow. My heart is broken.”
I am not for turning either, of course.
“Belch. Slurp.”
“STOP THAT! Oh, that poor baby.”
“At least I didn’t boil it alive in a pot after capturing it in a watery trap.”
I didn’t even mention the countless baby ground fish he probably murdered over the years. Or the defenceless deer he stalked and shot.
Texting is quite limiting when you're a pedant.
“Lobsters don’t have brains.”
“Yes they do.”
“Well, just little ones.”
And so on and so on.
And so life goes on. As it always does.
Eventually, I capitulated. Agreed I wouldn't eat them anymore.
The thing I love about Himself is that when, on the rare occasion that I allow him to win an argument (and he should win this one as he is right about the baby cows, although they are VERY tasty), he doesn't rub my nose in it.
He gives it a little rub instead.
"It's up to you. I don't think it's right tho'. But I still love you."
Phew! :-)
"Go to sleep."
"What are you doing?"
"Blogging."
"What about?"
"Baby cows, you and CNN."
"Oh no..."
"It'll be grand. Go to sleep."
"Don't be too hard on me, baby."
"Sweet dreams."
Thursday, April 27, 2006
When is a frame an elephant?
My last post was a long journey into 'what is framing if it's not about putting in windows?' territory and I spent a couple of hours last night thinking about what 'framing' means in the political sense. Then I told Hotspurr the goddess of spin this morning that I had figured out framing and she handed me a post-it note saying that there was a book on elephants, which is actually about framing, which is on the must-read list of the moment.
How prescient of me, I thought.
Like love, politics is all about geography and timing.
Anyways, here's an article, from PublicEye newsletter of Fall 2005, about George Lakoff and his elephants, which suggests to me I won't agree with the book.
I need to think about the elephants a bit more. Also, having the misfortune to go to university in Ireland at the time when structuralism and deconstructionism were on the rampage probably has something to do with why I have problems with framing. Framing is an acceptance of joined-up thinking, whereas structuralism and deconstructionism is a denial of it.
I suppose I'll have to figure out where Noam sits on all of this...
You know, I can't help thinking that all this focus on the way we speak to each other is a waste of time, and we should focus more on our biological interfaces.
That'll get loads of kudos when I say that at a meeting...
Thinking about Elephants
Toward a Dialogue with George Lakoff
By William Gamson and Charlotte Ryan
Since last November's election, George Lakoff's book, Don't Think of an Elephant!, has deservedly captured the imagination of mainstream Democrats and of many progressives as well. He offers us the promise that we can achieve our political vision if only we spent a little more time "framing" our messages to appeal to mainstream America.
For a large number of Americans, he argues, the Right creates a personal connection to policies such as tax cuts for the wealthy and the idea of small government by communicating values — values like personal responsibility and the importance of a strong "traditional" family rather than big government to solve most social problems.
But we shouldn't get so excited about Lakoff 's contribution that we overlook some deafening silences or, to switch metaphors in midstream, some glaring blind spots in his way of framing American politics.
Lakoff is a cognitive psychologist but he weaves together insights shared by the sociologists, political scientists, and communications specialists who have been analyzing "framing contests" for the past 30 years. On the following points, he speaks for a broad interdisciplinary consensus:
Facts never speak for themselves. They take on their meaning by being embedded in frames, themes which organize thoughts, rendering some facts as relevant and significant and others as irrelevant and trivial. Framing matters and the contest is lost at the outset if one allows one's adversaries to define the terms of the debate. To be self-conscious about framing strategy is not being manipulative. It gives coherent meaning to what is happening in the world. One can either do it unconsciously, or with deliberation and conscious thought.
A frame is a thought organizer. Like a picture frame, it puts a rim around some part of the world, highlighting certain events and facts as important and rendering others invisible. Like a building frame, it holds things together but is covered by insulation and walls. It provides coherence to an array of symbols, images, and arguments, linking them through an underlying organizing idea that suggests what is essential — what consequences and values are at stake. We do not see the frame directly, but infer its presence by its characteristic expressions and language.
The idea helps us understand why changing our political situation does not rest on just the media presenting the facts better or people paying better attention. Some progressives threw up their hands in dismay and frustration when polls showed that most Bush voters believed that there was a connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The "facts" were clear that no connection had been found. If these voters didn't know this it was because either the media had failed in its responsibility to inform them, or they were too lazy and inattentive to take it in.
But suppose one frames the world as a dangerous place in which the forces of evil — a hydra-headed monster labeled "terrorism" — confront the forces of good. This frame depicts Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda as two heads of the same monster. In this frame, whether or not there were actual meetings by agents or other forms of communication between them is nit picking and irrelevant.
People carry around multiple frames in their heads. We don't simply have one way of framing an issue or an event. Lakoff emphasizes two meta-frames or cultural themes operating in the United States, embodied in two competing family metaphors: the Strict Father vs. the Nurturant Parent. He sees these meta-frames as underlying, respectively, conservative and liberal thought more generally. But Lakoff is wise enough to recognize that we don't carry around just one of these in our heads but both of them. One may be much more easily triggered and habitually used but the other is also part of our cultural heritage and can be triggered and used as well, given the appropriate cues.
In a framing contest, such as between liberals supporting gay civil unions and conservatives opposing gay marriage, a successful framing strategy involves the ability to enter into the worldview of one's adversaries. Lakoff does not demonize conservatives but makes a successful effort to enter into their way of thinking. In doing so, he illustrates a useful rule of thumb: To reframe a message effectively, you should be able to describe a frame that you disagree with so that its advocates would say, "Yes, this is what I believe."
The Problem with Strict Fathers and Nurturant Parents
As critics have pointed out, part of Lakoff's appeal is the promise of a silver bullet through which liberals and progressives can rebuild their majority support if only they will follow the formula. Progressive values such as fairness, inclusiveness, empathy, and community have broad cultural appeal, Lakoff reminds us. Reframing political debate to focus on those values, then, is the roadmap to regaining power.
Well, yes and no. The family metaphor seems to work better as a metaframe for conservative thinkers than it does for progressives. But even here, there are fissures between conservatives who find it resonant and those who fear Big Brother rather than embracing Strict Father when thinking about the role of government. Some libertarian conservatives make common cause with liberals who don't like the government telling them what they can read or buy. It isn't very clear how the Strict Father model articulates with a free market meta-frame that underlies conservative support for the privatization of Social Security, for example. Strict fathers don't have invisible hands.
Furthermore, the nurturant parent embodied in the New Deal — America's soft version of the European style welfare state dating to the 1930s that brought us Social Security and federal labor regulation — resonates differently between those who call themselves liberals versus those who call themselves progressives. The nurturant parent metaphor doesn't really have a lot of resonance for people who see themselves on a quest for social justice. Nor is mutuality — a progressive goal or value — quite the same as nurturance. Locking arms and singing "We shall overcome" is about self-help and interdependence, about brotherhood and sisterhood, not parents.
Family metaphors are not the most likely frames for most people to use on foreign policy issues. Lakoff has little to say about another resonant meta-frame: The world is a dangerous place. Much has been written about the cultural roots of such a frame in supporting the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. One can substitute "terrorism" for "communism" and the same underlying frame remains serviceable. The superhero who rescues the innocents from unprovoked attacks by evil forces in children's cartoons isn't exactly a strict father or nurturant parent but a benevolent outsider who protects the whole family from outside threats. What to do about Osama and Saddam is not really about tough-love versus cocounseling.
What Lakoff Obscures
Like any frame, Lakoff's framing of contemporary American politics highlights some things and obscures others. Lakoff directs our attention to the message but he shifts attention away from the groups, political parties, governments and other carriers of those messages, and the complicated, uneven playing field on which they compete. Social movements and the advocacy groups they spawn successfully challenge official or dominant frames frequently. They compete on a playing field in which inequalities in power and resources play a major role in determining whether they succeed. Nevertheless, some movements were dramatically successful against long odds in reframing the terms of political debate and it behooves those engaged in reframing efforts to analyze their experience.
In failing to embed framing guides in this broader movement-building context, Lakoff asks us to ignore not only the elephant in the room but also the moles, ferrets, chipmunks, occasional black panthers, raging bulls and wild boars, and the more domesticated donkeys and carrier pigeons. There is a whole menagerie out there that Lakoff is not thinking about. And it is this multi-faceted complexity that the Christian Right has, at times, effectively traversed.
To succeed, challengers need to integrate their framing strategies with broader movement- building strategies. This means building and sustaining the carriers of these frames in various ways — for example, by helping groups figure out how to gain access where blocked, and how to strengthen their ability to collaborate better with groups sharing similar goals. Framing contests are about a lot more than staying on message.
There is an irony here because Lakoff, to his credit, has been spending a lot of his time over the past several years talking to many of the "carriers," convincing the political groups of the importance of framing. The danger here is that the focus on message, divorced from movement-building, reduces framing strategy to a matter of pitching metaphors for electoral campaigns and policy debates, or perhaps contracting with think tanks like the Lakoff's own Rockridge Institute to find the right hot buttons.
By focusing entirely on the content of the message, while ignoring the frame carriers and the playing field, Lakoff falls into the pitfalls of the social marketing model. Without a strategy to build a base or constituency, and without democratic media reform, framing can become simply a more sophisticated but still ungrounded variation on the belief that you just need to communicate the right ideas – i.e. "the truth will set you free."
To counter the assumption that the frame will set us free, framing strategies must not just address the content of the message or the style of debate but attend to base building and challenge the contours of the non-level playing field in which the contest is carried on.
The one intermediary that Lakoff recognizes is the think-tank that helps its political allies to shape their message through its clever marketing skills. He rightly appreciates the skill of conservative social marketers ensconced in their wellfunded think tanks like the Heritage Foundation or American Enterprise Institute. But he has nothing to say about the rise of a relevant social movement, the Christian Right, in the late 1970s. The Christian Right's infrastructure supported conservative frames in ways that went far beyond finding better ways of marketing their message. Political scientist Duane Oldfield describes how evangelicals built movement- oriented broadcast media and active local congregations to grow in political significance. By the late 1980s, the influence of the movement was directed through the Republican Party.
Christian Right organizations did a lot of movement-building work to further the success of their preferred frame but often remained behind the scenes. On the abortion issue, for example, they rarely speak to the media directly but support broader coalitions such as the National Right to Life Committee as spokespersons for their movement's frame.
People-driven framing
Lakoff's narrowness leads him to such astounding claims as the one he makes in his introduction to Don't Think of an Elephant!: "There is only one progressive think tank engaged in a major reframing exercise: the Rockridge Institute." Perhaps it is tunnel vision stemming from Lakoff's roots in cognitive psychology that blinds him to the civil rights movement's "major reframing" of Black American experience, the feminist movement's "major reframing" of women's experience, as well as the major reframing of gay, lesbian and transgendered experience, the reframing of labor (social unionism) and the major reframing of nuclear power.
The list of successful reframing efforts would be incomplete without mention of the Black feminist movement, that reframed the feminist reframing, and the environmental justice movement that reframed environmental organizing. In other words, not only are broad-based social movements critical to reframing efforts, but such movements ensure that reframing remains an active process of engagement with shifting political realities.
Nor does Lakoff acknowledge the rise of a media reform movement, whose participants engage in a variety of media critique, alternative and oppositional media, and media reform efforts. While we strongly agree with Lakoff that progressive framing efforts have lacked adequate resources, hundreds of organizations operating at the national, regional and local level have included reframing in their efforts to build progressive movements.
The central lessons to be learned from Lakoff's omission is that building an effective framing strategy is not merely about more effective marketing expressed through catchy symbols that tap an emotional hot button and trigger the desired response. The problem isn't that it doesn't work — in the short run, it may — but that its singular focus on finesse in individual framing undermines the goal of increasing citizens' sense that they can collectively change things. By treating potential participants as individuals whose citizenship involves voting and perhaps conveying their personal opinion to key decision-makers, citizens as collective actors are moved off of the screen.
In contrast, a participatory approach to promoting progressive frames looks at the failings of mass media with an eye on supporting a group's strength in building longterm, on-going relationships with journalists. Building these working relationships are themselves opportunities for framing contests that, when successful, further the prominence of one's preferred frame in the competitive media field.
An essential guide for progressives must address these issues as well as how framing strategies can draw out the latent sense of agency that people already carry around with them. In sum, a participatory communication model involves developing an ongoing capability of people to act collectively in framing contests. One doesn't transform people who feel individually powerless into a group with a sense of collective efficacy by pushing hot buttons. Indeed, one doesn't transform people at all. People transform themselves through movement building — the work of reflection, critique, dialog, relation building and infrastructure building that synergistically constitute a "major reframing effort."
Conclusion
(warning! serious metaphor alert! - Queenie)
Framing matters but it is not the only thing that matters. There is a danger of "quick fix" politics — the sexy frame as the new hot button. Just as conservatives worked slowly and patiently for three decades, progressives need to start small and build big, to win back our base of support. Framing work is critical to this process, but framing work itself must be framed in the context of movement building.
Integrating framing and other forms of movement building is necessary if the frame carriers are going to be able to compete successfully against the carriers of official frames with lots of resources and organization behind them. This involves an explicit recognition of power inequalities and how to challenge them and a recognition of citizens as potential collective actors, not just individual ones. Think tanks that want to help progressives are an important component of creating a supportive infrastructure but they will fail if they adopt a social marketing model that ignores the nature of the playing field and focuses only on the message.
There is a story circulating on the Internet, attributed to Jim France of the Pavilion Hotel Group in Bangkok. Elephant rides were one of the main attractions at a resort hotel in Phuket. About twenty minutes before the first wave of the tsunami hit, the nine elephants became extremely agitated and unruly. They broke out of their confinement, climbed a nearby hill, and started bellowing. Many people followed them up the hill before the waves hit.
After the waves had subsided, the elephants went down the hill as a group and started picking up children with their trunks and running them back up the hill. After the children were taken care of, the elephants started helping the adults. According to the account, they rescued 42 people. They wouldn't let their handlers mount them until the job was done.
To make the metaphor fit our message, let's add a detail that didn't actually happen. Let's imagine that in carrying out their rescue mission, the elephants confronted a group of government soldiers assembled to enforce a law against elephants acting as a pack. And imagine further that these nine elephants just ran right by the soldiers, brushing them aside to complete their mission.
Now there are some elephants to think about.
William A. Gamson is a Professor of Sociology at Boston College, where is codirects the Media Research and Action Project (MRAP) with Charlotte Ryan. He is the author of many books and articles on political discourse and social movements, including Talking Politics and is a past president of the American Sociological Association. Charlotte Ryan is the author of Prime Time Activism: Media Strategies for Grass Roots Organizing and an associate research professor in sociology at Boston College.
This essay is the product of a collaborative process involving the MRAP (Movement/ Media Research and Action Project) seminar including Matt Williams, Jeff Langstraat, Vered Malka, Michelle Gawerc, Johanna Pabst, and Jesse Kirdahy-Scalia.
How prescient of me, I thought.
Like love, politics is all about geography and timing.
Anyways, here's an article, from PublicEye newsletter of Fall 2005, about George Lakoff and his elephants, which suggests to me I won't agree with the book.
I need to think about the elephants a bit more. Also, having the misfortune to go to university in Ireland at the time when structuralism and deconstructionism were on the rampage probably has something to do with why I have problems with framing. Framing is an acceptance of joined-up thinking, whereas structuralism and deconstructionism is a denial of it.
I suppose I'll have to figure out where Noam sits on all of this...
You know, I can't help thinking that all this focus on the way we speak to each other is a waste of time, and we should focus more on our biological interfaces.
That'll get loads of kudos when I say that at a meeting...
Thinking about Elephants
Toward a Dialogue with George Lakoff
By William Gamson and Charlotte Ryan
Since last November's election, George Lakoff's book, Don't Think of an Elephant!, has deservedly captured the imagination of mainstream Democrats and of many progressives as well. He offers us the promise that we can achieve our political vision if only we spent a little more time "framing" our messages to appeal to mainstream America.
For a large number of Americans, he argues, the Right creates a personal connection to policies such as tax cuts for the wealthy and the idea of small government by communicating values — values like personal responsibility and the importance of a strong "traditional" family rather than big government to solve most social problems.
But we shouldn't get so excited about Lakoff 's contribution that we overlook some deafening silences or, to switch metaphors in midstream, some glaring blind spots in his way of framing American politics.
Lakoff is a cognitive psychologist but he weaves together insights shared by the sociologists, political scientists, and communications specialists who have been analyzing "framing contests" for the past 30 years. On the following points, he speaks for a broad interdisciplinary consensus:
Facts never speak for themselves. They take on their meaning by being embedded in frames, themes which organize thoughts, rendering some facts as relevant and significant and others as irrelevant and trivial. Framing matters and the contest is lost at the outset if one allows one's adversaries to define the terms of the debate. To be self-conscious about framing strategy is not being manipulative. It gives coherent meaning to what is happening in the world. One can either do it unconsciously, or with deliberation and conscious thought.
A frame is a thought organizer. Like a picture frame, it puts a rim around some part of the world, highlighting certain events and facts as important and rendering others invisible. Like a building frame, it holds things together but is covered by insulation and walls. It provides coherence to an array of symbols, images, and arguments, linking them through an underlying organizing idea that suggests what is essential — what consequences and values are at stake. We do not see the frame directly, but infer its presence by its characteristic expressions and language.
The idea helps us understand why changing our political situation does not rest on just the media presenting the facts better or people paying better attention. Some progressives threw up their hands in dismay and frustration when polls showed that most Bush voters believed that there was a connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The "facts" were clear that no connection had been found. If these voters didn't know this it was because either the media had failed in its responsibility to inform them, or they were too lazy and inattentive to take it in.
But suppose one frames the world as a dangerous place in which the forces of evil — a hydra-headed monster labeled "terrorism" — confront the forces of good. This frame depicts Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda as two heads of the same monster. In this frame, whether or not there were actual meetings by agents or other forms of communication between them is nit picking and irrelevant.
People carry around multiple frames in their heads. We don't simply have one way of framing an issue or an event. Lakoff emphasizes two meta-frames or cultural themes operating in the United States, embodied in two competing family metaphors: the Strict Father vs. the Nurturant Parent. He sees these meta-frames as underlying, respectively, conservative and liberal thought more generally. But Lakoff is wise enough to recognize that we don't carry around just one of these in our heads but both of them. One may be much more easily triggered and habitually used but the other is also part of our cultural heritage and can be triggered and used as well, given the appropriate cues.
In a framing contest, such as between liberals supporting gay civil unions and conservatives opposing gay marriage, a successful framing strategy involves the ability to enter into the worldview of one's adversaries. Lakoff does not demonize conservatives but makes a successful effort to enter into their way of thinking. In doing so, he illustrates a useful rule of thumb: To reframe a message effectively, you should be able to describe a frame that you disagree with so that its advocates would say, "Yes, this is what I believe."
The Problem with Strict Fathers and Nurturant Parents
As critics have pointed out, part of Lakoff's appeal is the promise of a silver bullet through which liberals and progressives can rebuild their majority support if only they will follow the formula. Progressive values such as fairness, inclusiveness, empathy, and community have broad cultural appeal, Lakoff reminds us. Reframing political debate to focus on those values, then, is the roadmap to regaining power.
Well, yes and no. The family metaphor seems to work better as a metaframe for conservative thinkers than it does for progressives. But even here, there are fissures between conservatives who find it resonant and those who fear Big Brother rather than embracing Strict Father when thinking about the role of government. Some libertarian conservatives make common cause with liberals who don't like the government telling them what they can read or buy. It isn't very clear how the Strict Father model articulates with a free market meta-frame that underlies conservative support for the privatization of Social Security, for example. Strict fathers don't have invisible hands.
Furthermore, the nurturant parent embodied in the New Deal — America's soft version of the European style welfare state dating to the 1930s that brought us Social Security and federal labor regulation — resonates differently between those who call themselves liberals versus those who call themselves progressives. The nurturant parent metaphor doesn't really have a lot of resonance for people who see themselves on a quest for social justice. Nor is mutuality — a progressive goal or value — quite the same as nurturance. Locking arms and singing "We shall overcome" is about self-help and interdependence, about brotherhood and sisterhood, not parents.
Family metaphors are not the most likely frames for most people to use on foreign policy issues. Lakoff has little to say about another resonant meta-frame: The world is a dangerous place. Much has been written about the cultural roots of such a frame in supporting the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. One can substitute "terrorism" for "communism" and the same underlying frame remains serviceable. The superhero who rescues the innocents from unprovoked attacks by evil forces in children's cartoons isn't exactly a strict father or nurturant parent but a benevolent outsider who protects the whole family from outside threats. What to do about Osama and Saddam is not really about tough-love versus cocounseling.
What Lakoff Obscures
Like any frame, Lakoff's framing of contemporary American politics highlights some things and obscures others. Lakoff directs our attention to the message but he shifts attention away from the groups, political parties, governments and other carriers of those messages, and the complicated, uneven playing field on which they compete. Social movements and the advocacy groups they spawn successfully challenge official or dominant frames frequently. They compete on a playing field in which inequalities in power and resources play a major role in determining whether they succeed. Nevertheless, some movements were dramatically successful against long odds in reframing the terms of political debate and it behooves those engaged in reframing efforts to analyze their experience.
In failing to embed framing guides in this broader movement-building context, Lakoff asks us to ignore not only the elephant in the room but also the moles, ferrets, chipmunks, occasional black panthers, raging bulls and wild boars, and the more domesticated donkeys and carrier pigeons. There is a whole menagerie out there that Lakoff is not thinking about. And it is this multi-faceted complexity that the Christian Right has, at times, effectively traversed.
To succeed, challengers need to integrate their framing strategies with broader movement- building strategies. This means building and sustaining the carriers of these frames in various ways — for example, by helping groups figure out how to gain access where blocked, and how to strengthen their ability to collaborate better with groups sharing similar goals. Framing contests are about a lot more than staying on message.
There is an irony here because Lakoff, to his credit, has been spending a lot of his time over the past several years talking to many of the "carriers," convincing the political groups of the importance of framing. The danger here is that the focus on message, divorced from movement-building, reduces framing strategy to a matter of pitching metaphors for electoral campaigns and policy debates, or perhaps contracting with think tanks like the Lakoff's own Rockridge Institute to find the right hot buttons.
By focusing entirely on the content of the message, while ignoring the frame carriers and the playing field, Lakoff falls into the pitfalls of the social marketing model. Without a strategy to build a base or constituency, and without democratic media reform, framing can become simply a more sophisticated but still ungrounded variation on the belief that you just need to communicate the right ideas – i.e. "the truth will set you free."
To counter the assumption that the frame will set us free, framing strategies must not just address the content of the message or the style of debate but attend to base building and challenge the contours of the non-level playing field in which the contest is carried on.
The one intermediary that Lakoff recognizes is the think-tank that helps its political allies to shape their message through its clever marketing skills. He rightly appreciates the skill of conservative social marketers ensconced in their wellfunded think tanks like the Heritage Foundation or American Enterprise Institute. But he has nothing to say about the rise of a relevant social movement, the Christian Right, in the late 1970s. The Christian Right's infrastructure supported conservative frames in ways that went far beyond finding better ways of marketing their message. Political scientist Duane Oldfield describes how evangelicals built movement- oriented broadcast media and active local congregations to grow in political significance. By the late 1980s, the influence of the movement was directed through the Republican Party.
Christian Right organizations did a lot of movement-building work to further the success of their preferred frame but often remained behind the scenes. On the abortion issue, for example, they rarely speak to the media directly but support broader coalitions such as the National Right to Life Committee as spokespersons for their movement's frame.
People-driven framing
Lakoff's narrowness leads him to such astounding claims as the one he makes in his introduction to Don't Think of an Elephant!: "There is only one progressive think tank engaged in a major reframing exercise: the Rockridge Institute." Perhaps it is tunnel vision stemming from Lakoff's roots in cognitive psychology that blinds him to the civil rights movement's "major reframing" of Black American experience, the feminist movement's "major reframing" of women's experience, as well as the major reframing of gay, lesbian and transgendered experience, the reframing of labor (social unionism) and the major reframing of nuclear power.
The list of successful reframing efforts would be incomplete without mention of the Black feminist movement, that reframed the feminist reframing, and the environmental justice movement that reframed environmental organizing. In other words, not only are broad-based social movements critical to reframing efforts, but such movements ensure that reframing remains an active process of engagement with shifting political realities.
Nor does Lakoff acknowledge the rise of a media reform movement, whose participants engage in a variety of media critique, alternative and oppositional media, and media reform efforts. While we strongly agree with Lakoff that progressive framing efforts have lacked adequate resources, hundreds of organizations operating at the national, regional and local level have included reframing in their efforts to build progressive movements.
The central lessons to be learned from Lakoff's omission is that building an effective framing strategy is not merely about more effective marketing expressed through catchy symbols that tap an emotional hot button and trigger the desired response. The problem isn't that it doesn't work — in the short run, it may — but that its singular focus on finesse in individual framing undermines the goal of increasing citizens' sense that they can collectively change things. By treating potential participants as individuals whose citizenship involves voting and perhaps conveying their personal opinion to key decision-makers, citizens as collective actors are moved off of the screen.
In contrast, a participatory approach to promoting progressive frames looks at the failings of mass media with an eye on supporting a group's strength in building longterm, on-going relationships with journalists. Building these working relationships are themselves opportunities for framing contests that, when successful, further the prominence of one's preferred frame in the competitive media field.
An essential guide for progressives must address these issues as well as how framing strategies can draw out the latent sense of agency that people already carry around with them. In sum, a participatory communication model involves developing an ongoing capability of people to act collectively in framing contests. One doesn't transform people who feel individually powerless into a group with a sense of collective efficacy by pushing hot buttons. Indeed, one doesn't transform people at all. People transform themselves through movement building — the work of reflection, critique, dialog, relation building and infrastructure building that synergistically constitute a "major reframing effort."
Conclusion
(warning! serious metaphor alert! - Queenie)
Framing matters but it is not the only thing that matters. There is a danger of "quick fix" politics — the sexy frame as the new hot button. Just as conservatives worked slowly and patiently for three decades, progressives need to start small and build big, to win back our base of support. Framing work is critical to this process, but framing work itself must be framed in the context of movement building.
Integrating framing and other forms of movement building is necessary if the frame carriers are going to be able to compete successfully against the carriers of official frames with lots of resources and organization behind them. This involves an explicit recognition of power inequalities and how to challenge them and a recognition of citizens as potential collective actors, not just individual ones. Think tanks that want to help progressives are an important component of creating a supportive infrastructure but they will fail if they adopt a social marketing model that ignores the nature of the playing field and focuses only on the message.
There is a story circulating on the Internet, attributed to Jim France of the Pavilion Hotel Group in Bangkok. Elephant rides were one of the main attractions at a resort hotel in Phuket. About twenty minutes before the first wave of the tsunami hit, the nine elephants became extremely agitated and unruly. They broke out of their confinement, climbed a nearby hill, and started bellowing. Many people followed them up the hill before the waves hit.
After the waves had subsided, the elephants went down the hill as a group and started picking up children with their trunks and running them back up the hill. After the children were taken care of, the elephants started helping the adults. According to the account, they rescued 42 people. They wouldn't let their handlers mount them until the job was done.
To make the metaphor fit our message, let's add a detail that didn't actually happen. Let's imagine that in carrying out their rescue mission, the elephants confronted a group of government soldiers assembled to enforce a law against elephants acting as a pack. And imagine further that these nine elephants just ran right by the soldiers, brushing them aside to complete their mission.
Now there are some elephants to think about.
William A. Gamson is a Professor of Sociology at Boston College, where is codirects the Media Research and Action Project (MRAP) with Charlotte Ryan. He is the author of many books and articles on political discourse and social movements, including Talking Politics and is a past president of the American Sociological Association. Charlotte Ryan is the author of Prime Time Activism: Media Strategies for Grass Roots Organizing and an associate research professor in sociology at Boston College.
This essay is the product of a collaborative process involving the MRAP (Movement/ Media Research and Action Project) seminar including Matt Williams, Jeff Langstraat, Vered Malka, Michelle Gawerc, Johanna Pabst, and Jesse Kirdahy-Scalia.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
What the hell is framing about, if it's not about putting in windows?
Here in political science major-land, where Queenie is currently living and working, it’s all about framing. Queenie had heard of framing before. It was one of the things that people used to have meetings about when she was younger, back across the ocean in intuitive politics-land, where she used to live and work.
As far as I can recall, political debate would be largely based on ‘stuff I heard from my constituents’ or ‘shenanigans that the other lot got caught doing’ terms, until such time as an election loomed. Then, after a bit of fund-raising and strong-arming of the labour movement in return for three pages of the election platform, large sums of money would be handed over to people who had formerly worked for the party, but had gone on to complete a DCU Masters in media or politics of some sort. Armed with this Masters, and the je ne sais quoi of having been outside politics for a while, these people would talk at length about ‘framing’ the debate. Everyone would nod intelligently, think and talk a lot about framing, and vast sums of money would be spent on said framing of message.
Everyone did it. The people that did it best won the election. They were generally the people with enough money to get the lads over from the States, where you can do a whoppingly expensive BA, MA and PhD from Stamford in framing.
That was the accepted wisdom.
I never let on I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. I can be terribly literal-minded sometimes, so I used to just try and see everyone’s policies in terms of window frames.
Ours were always plain, white sash windows with no doo-dahs and no anti-burgler devices.
A certain type of person goes for that kind of frame, but most people like a bit of decoration I found.
Here, you don’t get a job in politics unless you’ve written a thesis on framing. Or you’re Queenie. Or your mam was a big head in the party. Or you’re in the labour movement. Or whatever.
Anyways, the antecedents of the framers don’t matter. An election is looming.
So I’d better get my toolkit together.
I assume the other lot are at it too. They’re stealing our frame, as far as I know. And I suspect they’re redecorating it in greenbacks. Eighty four million of them in the last seven weeks. And a smell of a tax cut. To make it more palatable.
That's a pretty effective way of doing it, if I remember rightly.
That’s another blog post – the art of waving a tax cut in front of a hungry, gullible audience. Right-wing parties are great at it. Left wing parties get accused of immaturity when they try it. Why is that?
But back to my original question. What the hell is framing about when it’s not about putting in windows?
I went searching. This is from some US college Democrat site:
As any high school debater knows, the proposition of a debate is framed as an attack upon the status quo: “Resolved, that the blah blah should yadda yadda the zamma zamma.
This proposition advocates a change in the status quo—the current state of affairs, the way things are. The burden of proof is upon the affirmative who argues for this change. In the stock issues case, the affirmative asserts the need for a change, presents a plan for a change, and establishes the benefits of the change produced by that plan. And the affirmative’s responsibility is to define the terms of the proposition—which also is its privilege, as it can frame the definitions as it wishes.
The negative is charged with defending the status quo from the affirmative’s attack. And other than in exceptional cases, the negative is obligated to accept the affirmative’s definitions.
Those are the rules of the game—at least in “real” debate.
Okay now Queenie knows how to do the actual framing, which is what she does for a living anyway:
Identify problem, (excoriate government), outline solution (cost it, which is more than they ever do), cast dispersions on government for not thinking of it first, persuade people it’s doable.
That’s the arguing. Queenie can do that. Apart from the persuading. That can be tricky.
But what’s the frame they’re talking about like I’m supposed to know?
Back to Basics
Is that a frame?
Merriam-Webster Online definition:
To frame: to construct by fitting and uniting the parts of the skeleton of (a structure)2 a : PLAN, CONTRIVE <framed a new method of achieving their purpose> b : SHAPE, CONSTRUCT c : to give expression to : FORMULATE d : to draw up (as a document)3 a : to devise falsely (as a criminal charge) b : to contrive the evidence against (an innocent person) so that a verdict of guilty is assured c : FIX 7b4 : to fit or adjust especially to something or for an end : ARRANGE
So it could be to plan, to contrive, to shape or construct, to formulate or to arrange (I’m going to assume it’s not fix). Okay, now we’re getting places.
Let’s have a look at an example.
Here’s another use of the word, this time from one of those dreadfully dreary American political blogs:
As a result, 'impeach the President' could very well be the frame that engulfs both the White House and the American public in the week to come.
A frame that engulfs.
Wow.
A frame that’s a noun.
That’s no use. Yet.
Let’s find another example.
Here’s one - a speech made by Holley Ulbrich, from South Caroline, about framing the property tax debate. She says:
It’s all about framing…(yes, we knew that Holley). Yes we need (to know the arguments and the figures, yadda yadda). But more than that, we need to acknowledge that beyond the reasoned debate there are emotions and values and ways of looking at the world.
Oookaaaay…. Queenie can grasp that. It’s called other people’s points of view. All part of democracy.
Holley continues:
Unless we can refocus that framework (of policy makers), we aren’t going to have any impact on public policy.
I’m paraphrasing Holley here because I’m working off a pdf file.
Holley continues some more:
Framing is grounded in values.
I didn’t know that. But when you think about it, other people’s point of view is grounded in their values. So yeah, I can go with that.
The second essential part of the framing challenge is to define the problem in such a way that you generate recognition, empathy and concern among voters.
I wonder is this in any way related to the time-honoured political tactic of scaring the fuck out of the poor bastards? As in the British Tories and crime/ immigrants/ trade unions.
Possibly it’s a framing style. Gothic framing possibly, with writhing serpents devouring hapless sinners on the latticework.
Holley goes on to frame her issue over about five pages. She lost me after page one, but I get the sense that she’s anti-business property tax. She continues her lesson eventually, though:
Before we can get our legislators to sing to our tune, however, we need to listen in on the other song.
The other song being the opposition. She goes on to excoriate the opposition as a bunch of red-neck libertarian free-loaders, who attack any attempt by ‘big government’ to collect revenue, before saying:
Once you look through that frame, the problem definition and their policy recommendations make sense.
Well of course, Holley, go to the top of the class. If you put yourself in someone’s shoes and look through their eyes, things always make sense.
So if we go back to Marriam-Webster, framing in the political sense is ‘shaping, constructing’, and to a lesser extent, ‘arranging’.
Okay, I have a handle on it now.
Now that I have a handle on it, no small achievement for literal-girl, here’s another question. How do you find your audience, and put yourself in their shoes (other than in the time-consuming manner of ‘listening to your constituents’), in order to frame the debate in a way that should get them to recognise, empathise and show concern about the issue?
I mean, you can’t go look at everyone else’s windows and build a matching set now can you?
And how do you get people who have been taught since birth to be individuals to join with you in a massive ‘framing’ love in?
I went back to Holley with bated breath.
Holley doesn’t get that far.
Damn damn, I was getting places.
She does make an interesting comment about values, though. She says that there are six values that come up over and over and over again in polling (which is of course the answer to the first of my questions). They are:
Freedom, honesty, fairness/ justice, loyalty/ community, compassion, and tolerance.
That’s what people say when asked.
When asked.
Nobody asks you what you’re voting for, though. At least not in the ballot box.
You’re all alone in there.
Thinking about what kind of windows you’d like to put in your dream home.
So, to get them to have a big framing love in, you gotta give them a crack at their dream home.
That would be pretty pricey wouldn't it.
yeah.
As far as I can recall, political debate would be largely based on ‘stuff I heard from my constituents’ or ‘shenanigans that the other lot got caught doing’ terms, until such time as an election loomed. Then, after a bit of fund-raising and strong-arming of the labour movement in return for three pages of the election platform, large sums of money would be handed over to people who had formerly worked for the party, but had gone on to complete a DCU Masters in media or politics of some sort. Armed with this Masters, and the je ne sais quoi of having been outside politics for a while, these people would talk at length about ‘framing’ the debate. Everyone would nod intelligently, think and talk a lot about framing, and vast sums of money would be spent on said framing of message.
Everyone did it. The people that did it best won the election. They were generally the people with enough money to get the lads over from the States, where you can do a whoppingly expensive BA, MA and PhD from Stamford in framing.
That was the accepted wisdom.
I never let on I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. I can be terribly literal-minded sometimes, so I used to just try and see everyone’s policies in terms of window frames.
Ours were always plain, white sash windows with no doo-dahs and no anti-burgler devices.
A certain type of person goes for that kind of frame, but most people like a bit of decoration I found.
Here, you don’t get a job in politics unless you’ve written a thesis on framing. Or you’re Queenie. Or your mam was a big head in the party. Or you’re in the labour movement. Or whatever.
Anyways, the antecedents of the framers don’t matter. An election is looming.
So I’d better get my toolkit together.
I assume the other lot are at it too. They’re stealing our frame, as far as I know. And I suspect they’re redecorating it in greenbacks. Eighty four million of them in the last seven weeks. And a smell of a tax cut. To make it more palatable.
That's a pretty effective way of doing it, if I remember rightly.
That’s another blog post – the art of waving a tax cut in front of a hungry, gullible audience. Right-wing parties are great at it. Left wing parties get accused of immaturity when they try it. Why is that?
But back to my original question. What the hell is framing about when it’s not about putting in windows?
I went searching. This is from some US college Democrat site:
As any high school debater knows, the proposition of a debate is framed as an attack upon the status quo: “Resolved, that the blah blah should yadda yadda the zamma zamma.
This proposition advocates a change in the status quo—the current state of affairs, the way things are. The burden of proof is upon the affirmative who argues for this change. In the stock issues case, the affirmative asserts the need for a change, presents a plan for a change, and establishes the benefits of the change produced by that plan. And the affirmative’s responsibility is to define the terms of the proposition—which also is its privilege, as it can frame the definitions as it wishes.
The negative is charged with defending the status quo from the affirmative’s attack. And other than in exceptional cases, the negative is obligated to accept the affirmative’s definitions.
Those are the rules of the game—at least in “real” debate.
Okay now Queenie knows how to do the actual framing, which is what she does for a living anyway:
Identify problem, (excoriate government), outline solution (cost it, which is more than they ever do), cast dispersions on government for not thinking of it first, persuade people it’s doable.
That’s the arguing. Queenie can do that. Apart from the persuading. That can be tricky.
But what’s the frame they’re talking about like I’m supposed to know?
Back to Basics
Is that a frame?
Merriam-Webster Online definition:
To frame: to construct by fitting and uniting the parts of the skeleton of (a structure)2 a : PLAN, CONTRIVE <framed a new method of achieving their purpose> b : SHAPE, CONSTRUCT c : to give expression to : FORMULATE d : to draw up (as a document)3 a : to devise falsely (as a criminal charge) b : to contrive the evidence against (an innocent person) so that a verdict of guilty is assured c : FIX 7b4 : to fit or adjust especially to something or for an end : ARRANGE
So it could be to plan, to contrive, to shape or construct, to formulate or to arrange (I’m going to assume it’s not fix). Okay, now we’re getting places.
Let’s have a look at an example.
Here’s another use of the word, this time from one of those dreadfully dreary American political blogs:
As a result, 'impeach the President' could very well be the frame that engulfs both the White House and the American public in the week to come.
A frame that engulfs.
Wow.
A frame that’s a noun.
That’s no use. Yet.
Let’s find another example.
Here’s one - a speech made by Holley Ulbrich, from South Caroline, about framing the property tax debate. She says:
It’s all about framing…(yes, we knew that Holley). Yes we need (to know the arguments and the figures, yadda yadda). But more than that, we need to acknowledge that beyond the reasoned debate there are emotions and values and ways of looking at the world.
Oookaaaay…. Queenie can grasp that. It’s called other people’s points of view. All part of democracy.
Holley continues:
Unless we can refocus that framework (of policy makers), we aren’t going to have any impact on public policy.
I’m paraphrasing Holley here because I’m working off a pdf file.
Holley continues some more:
Framing is grounded in values.
I didn’t know that. But when you think about it, other people’s point of view is grounded in their values. So yeah, I can go with that.
The second essential part of the framing challenge is to define the problem in such a way that you generate recognition, empathy and concern among voters.
I wonder is this in any way related to the time-honoured political tactic of scaring the fuck out of the poor bastards? As in the British Tories and crime/ immigrants/ trade unions.
Possibly it’s a framing style. Gothic framing possibly, with writhing serpents devouring hapless sinners on the latticework.
Holley goes on to frame her issue over about five pages. She lost me after page one, but I get the sense that she’s anti-business property tax. She continues her lesson eventually, though:
Before we can get our legislators to sing to our tune, however, we need to listen in on the other song.
The other song being the opposition. She goes on to excoriate the opposition as a bunch of red-neck libertarian free-loaders, who attack any attempt by ‘big government’ to collect revenue, before saying:
Once you look through that frame, the problem definition and their policy recommendations make sense.
Well of course, Holley, go to the top of the class. If you put yourself in someone’s shoes and look through their eyes, things always make sense.
So if we go back to Marriam-Webster, framing in the political sense is ‘shaping, constructing’, and to a lesser extent, ‘arranging’.
Okay, I have a handle on it now.
Now that I have a handle on it, no small achievement for literal-girl, here’s another question. How do you find your audience, and put yourself in their shoes (other than in the time-consuming manner of ‘listening to your constituents’), in order to frame the debate in a way that should get them to recognise, empathise and show concern about the issue?
I mean, you can’t go look at everyone else’s windows and build a matching set now can you?
And how do you get people who have been taught since birth to be individuals to join with you in a massive ‘framing’ love in?
I went back to Holley with bated breath.
Holley doesn’t get that far.
Damn damn, I was getting places.
She does make an interesting comment about values, though. She says that there are six values that come up over and over and over again in polling (which is of course the answer to the first of my questions). They are:
Freedom, honesty, fairness/ justice, loyalty/ community, compassion, and tolerance.
That’s what people say when asked.
When asked.
Nobody asks you what you’re voting for, though. At least not in the ballot box.
You’re all alone in there.
Thinking about what kind of windows you’d like to put in your dream home.
So, to get them to have a big framing love in, you gotta give them a crack at their dream home.
That would be pretty pricey wouldn't it.
yeah.
The small beauties of site meters
I love my site meter. Not because it tells me how many people visit my blog, but because it tells me why. And from where.
Tonight I got hits from Little Rock, Arkansas, and Sunnyvale, California, as well as Dublin, Winnipeg and Nova Scotia.
I get a lot of hits from Sunnyvale. Don’t know why. Don’t know anyone there.
I keep track of people who are out of contact – our man in Belgium who left with a back pack and through the site meter became our man in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and is now our man in New Zealand. Soon to be our man in New York and then our man in Halifax.
People in Nova Scotia. People in Ireland.
And some of the searches are so strange.
Today, someone Yahooed ‘crabulate’ and my blog was the only site that came up. So someone else on the planet likes the sound of that word and thinks it should be a real word.
Today, someone else searched for ‘prices liquor store Digby Nova Scotia’ and my blog came up. Before that of the liquor store.
Score.
I get some great comments too. Recently, Jeff Finlay commented on my use of Fergus Finlay in a simile (more vindicated than Albert Reynolds, more right than Fergus Finlay), whilst admitting that he hadn’t the faintest idea what my post was about. Or telling me why he was googling Fergus.
The woman who owns my favourite shoe shop in Ireland read my electronic paeon to her stock when she googled her shop's name, and used the comment box to ask whether she could quote me in her advertisements.
I said yes. I'm sure I'll get discount some day.
And then there are the regular commenters, and the regular readers who don’t know the regular commenters, but feel like they do after a year of reading their comments.
It’s all bringing us electronic elders closer together.
Tonight I got hits from Little Rock, Arkansas, and Sunnyvale, California, as well as Dublin, Winnipeg and Nova Scotia.
I get a lot of hits from Sunnyvale. Don’t know why. Don’t know anyone there.
I keep track of people who are out of contact – our man in Belgium who left with a back pack and through the site meter became our man in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and is now our man in New Zealand. Soon to be our man in New York and then our man in Halifax.
People in Nova Scotia. People in Ireland.
And some of the searches are so strange.
Today, someone Yahooed ‘crabulate’ and my blog was the only site that came up. So someone else on the planet likes the sound of that word and thinks it should be a real word.
Today, someone else searched for ‘prices liquor store Digby Nova Scotia’ and my blog came up. Before that of the liquor store.
Score.
I get some great comments too. Recently, Jeff Finlay commented on my use of Fergus Finlay in a simile (more vindicated than Albert Reynolds, more right than Fergus Finlay), whilst admitting that he hadn’t the faintest idea what my post was about. Or telling me why he was googling Fergus.
The woman who owns my favourite shoe shop in Ireland read my electronic paeon to her stock when she googled her shop's name, and used the comment box to ask whether she could quote me in her advertisements.
I said yes. I'm sure I'll get discount some day.
And then there are the regular commenters, and the regular readers who don’t know the regular commenters, but feel like they do after a year of reading their comments.
It’s all bringing us electronic elders closer together.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Another meme from Myles' blog
Another meme borrowed from Myles’ blog. Go to Wikipedia, type in your birthday, not including the year, and check out what happened on that day, who was born and what holidays fall on it. Pick three of each.
Cool.
Events
Holidays and observances
Cool.
Events
- 1099 - First Crusade: 15,000 starving Christian soldiers march in religious procession around Jerusalem as its Muslim defenders mock them.
- 1892 - St. John's, Newfoundland was devastated in the Great Fire of 1892.
- 1947 - Reports are broadcast that a UFO has crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico.
- 1838 - Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, German inventor (d. 1917)
- 1919 - Walter Scheel, German politician
- 1958 - Kevin Bacon, American actor
Holidays and observances
The Queen's Birthday
I read somewhere the other day that they did experiments on fish one time, where they got the fish drunk, and then taught them how to swim through a maze. The fish could never remember how to do it again when they were sober. Anytime they were taken out for experimentation purposes, however, they could always perform.
I thought that was hilarious.
I use commas too much. I need to figure commas out sometime.
I wonder did Declan Lynch put that in his book about how we are all immature. And that’s why we drink.
The fish thing, I mean.
I’m listening to John Connolly’s Compilation ©
I’m not going to type the playlist out again.
I feel like I’m in Ireland.
In a certain sense. I can feel its presence again. That’s really important to me, but it irritates the shit out of me at the same time.
I saw Cecilia Ahern’s book in the airport the other day. I pointed it out to Himself. And said she was the daughter of the Irish Prime Minister. And then we turned away to go to the gate but just as we did a woman who had been listening to us stepped over and took the book up. Turned it over and looked at the photograph. And then she looked at me.
They’re very suspicious over here. They don’t like change. And now they have to make a decision. It should be interesting.
I only used one comma in all that. I think it works.
The Compilation © is very slow. And quiet. I would never choose this kind of music but I always enjoy it when it is handed to me.
The fish are very active again all of a sudden. I wonder why. They have a really short biorhythm. It happens several times a day as far as I can make out. That’s probably why they don’t get bored.
You can tell I’m really busy these days.
The scary thing is, I feel really busy. I don’t think I could ever ramp back up to Queenie pre-Canada speed. And I don’t want to. I just worry that some day I might want to and then it will be too late.
I think I might be immature. I should give up whatever it is I’m addicted to and write a book about it, shouldn’t I.
Nah.
The journey is too important to stop for that long.
Besides, I still don’t know what it is.
I just went back and redid the commas and I think it works now.
Anyways, maybe it’s not about me. Maybe it’s about someone else.
But everyone always says that is wrong.
I don’t know. It is. But why should I be expected to cure myself. By myself. Why do some people have to travel alone? And why do some people have to travel with someone, or anyone, or everyone? Why do they get to be cured by society?
I bet that’s what they ask. Those kids like Joey that we leave behind in our scramble for whatever it is we think will get us on tv. Or the radio. Or in a book. Or in a newspaper.
Blog. Podcast. My Place.
It’s fucking relentless.
I’m sitting in a room in Canada. Getting ready for work in the morning. And I’m listening to a Podcast from the Guardian in London. The original of which I downloaded in work once and brought home.
And now the fucking thing is sending me weekly instalments.
HOW THE FUCK DOES IT DO THAT?
THIS IS STARTING TO GET SCARY NOW.
And these guys, who work in the same company as my brother, are sitting around talking about Tony Prince of Darkness O’Reilly and Denis Fucking Twat O’Brien, who are apparently doing a typical Irish feud stunt, to get in the fucking papers, which they own, for Chrissakes, and the paper they’re fighting over is the Independent, which nobody buys anymore because it’s full of boring Trots,
SO WHO GIVES A SHIT?
The Guardian evidently.
Otherwise it wouldn’t be sending me owls about it.
Newspapers are dying. They’re closing down the pulp mills here, because they still make newsprint when they should be making digital photo paper.
I am devastated. They’re starting to cut back on energy, and they’re starting by taking away all the biodegradable things. So all that will be left is the stuff from China.
Why are we doing this? Why? If someone could give me a good enough assurance that they had a plan for it, maybe I could stop thinking about it. But nobody can. It’s too big for one person or one company to handle. Or even one country.
It’s landmass against landmass now dudes, and I’m on a big island. Well, the biggest island in the world when the polar icecaps melt.
And we’ll be in charge of the northern border.
It will be elemental.
It will be cold.
We will get video podcasts from Hollywood, where it is always warm, and people are always happy. Because we are helping them to survive.
Fuck them. I want newspapers.
And I have all the trees.
We’ll be fighting over trees eventually, I suppose. And we’ll all have to wear gas masks.
This is what I think about when I am alone by the way.
It’s scary isn’t it.
What will Ireland be doing?
Surviving of course. Bleeding some colonial power dry no doubt, the only question is which one.
It’s so different over here. There’s a real sense of duty with regard to the rest of the world. Which the government manipulates in order to be the yankee slut. Which annoys the crap out of the average Canadian. And there's lots of them dying out in Afghanistan. They get very little coverage in Ireland or the UK. And yet we all celebrated the Queen’s birthday over the last two days. A Nova Scotian couple was invited over to the party and all the ceremonies were on the news.
They said that she had made a bold statement about the environment recently. I thought that was very interesting. Apparently, she took Tony Blair aside at one of their meetings, so the courtiers wouldn’t leak it to the press, and told him to be careful of George Bush.
I’d love to have seen his face when she did that.
I wonder how I found out.
I should post this.
I thought that was hilarious.
I use commas too much. I need to figure commas out sometime.
I wonder did Declan Lynch put that in his book about how we are all immature. And that’s why we drink.
The fish thing, I mean.
I’m listening to John Connolly’s Compilation ©
I’m not going to type the playlist out again.
I feel like I’m in Ireland.
In a certain sense. I can feel its presence again. That’s really important to me, but it irritates the shit out of me at the same time.
I saw Cecilia Ahern’s book in the airport the other day. I pointed it out to Himself. And said she was the daughter of the Irish Prime Minister. And then we turned away to go to the gate but just as we did a woman who had been listening to us stepped over and took the book up. Turned it over and looked at the photograph. And then she looked at me.
They’re very suspicious over here. They don’t like change. And now they have to make a decision. It should be interesting.
I only used one comma in all that. I think it works.
The Compilation © is very slow. And quiet. I would never choose this kind of music but I always enjoy it when it is handed to me.
The fish are very active again all of a sudden. I wonder why. They have a really short biorhythm. It happens several times a day as far as I can make out. That’s probably why they don’t get bored.
You can tell I’m really busy these days.
The scary thing is, I feel really busy. I don’t think I could ever ramp back up to Queenie pre-Canada speed. And I don’t want to. I just worry that some day I might want to and then it will be too late.
I think I might be immature. I should give up whatever it is I’m addicted to and write a book about it, shouldn’t I.
Nah.
The journey is too important to stop for that long.
Besides, I still don’t know what it is.
I just went back and redid the commas and I think it works now.
Anyways, maybe it’s not about me. Maybe it’s about someone else.
But everyone always says that is wrong.
I don’t know. It is. But why should I be expected to cure myself. By myself. Why do some people have to travel alone? And why do some people have to travel with someone, or anyone, or everyone? Why do they get to be cured by society?
I bet that’s what they ask. Those kids like Joey that we leave behind in our scramble for whatever it is we think will get us on tv. Or the radio. Or in a book. Or in a newspaper.
Blog. Podcast. My Place.
It’s fucking relentless.
I’m sitting in a room in Canada. Getting ready for work in the morning. And I’m listening to a Podcast from the Guardian in London. The original of which I downloaded in work once and brought home.
And now the fucking thing is sending me weekly instalments.
HOW THE FUCK DOES IT DO THAT?
THIS IS STARTING TO GET SCARY NOW.
And these guys, who work in the same company as my brother, are sitting around talking about Tony Prince of Darkness O’Reilly and Denis Fucking Twat O’Brien, who are apparently doing a typical Irish feud stunt, to get in the fucking papers, which they own, for Chrissakes, and the paper they’re fighting over is the Independent, which nobody buys anymore because it’s full of boring Trots,
SO WHO GIVES A SHIT?
The Guardian evidently.
Otherwise it wouldn’t be sending me owls about it.
Newspapers are dying. They’re closing down the pulp mills here, because they still make newsprint when they should be making digital photo paper.
I am devastated. They’re starting to cut back on energy, and they’re starting by taking away all the biodegradable things. So all that will be left is the stuff from China.
Why are we doing this? Why? If someone could give me a good enough assurance that they had a plan for it, maybe I could stop thinking about it. But nobody can. It’s too big for one person or one company to handle. Or even one country.
It’s landmass against landmass now dudes, and I’m on a big island. Well, the biggest island in the world when the polar icecaps melt.
And we’ll be in charge of the northern border.
It will be elemental.
It will be cold.
We will get video podcasts from Hollywood, where it is always warm, and people are always happy. Because we are helping them to survive.
Fuck them. I want newspapers.
And I have all the trees.
We’ll be fighting over trees eventually, I suppose. And we’ll all have to wear gas masks.
This is what I think about when I am alone by the way.
It’s scary isn’t it.
What will Ireland be doing?
Surviving of course. Bleeding some colonial power dry no doubt, the only question is which one.
It’s so different over here. There’s a real sense of duty with regard to the rest of the world. Which the government manipulates in order to be the yankee slut. Which annoys the crap out of the average Canadian. And there's lots of them dying out in Afghanistan. They get very little coverage in Ireland or the UK. And yet we all celebrated the Queen’s birthday over the last two days. A Nova Scotian couple was invited over to the party and all the ceremonies were on the news.
They said that she had made a bold statement about the environment recently. I thought that was very interesting. Apparently, she took Tony Blair aside at one of their meetings, so the courtiers wouldn’t leak it to the press, and told him to be careful of George Bush.
I’d love to have seen his face when she did that.
I wonder how I found out.
I should post this.
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