Ephemera

If you like 1920s and 30s poster and advertising art, you'll like this site of travel posters. I especially liked the Austrian ones, nostalgia is a weakness of mine. Poster and advertising art of the 1950s recalled that earlier period, so much of it will look familar to anyone growing up some 50 years ago.

I collect ephemera myself, mostly railway related. I resize the posters and print them out for gluing to my model (HO and O) buildings.

I was browsing around looking for icons, and found Pixelgirl (google it). Very nice icons, suitable for children and kittens. I downloaded a few for Marie's laptop, since I don't like the bland icons offered by MS. They also have icons for the Mac, in fact some are available only in that format.

Then I looked at a few links on Pixelgirl's page, and found this: also very nice. Interesting photos etc. Liu is a designer. Go have a look, and see if you share my taste in photography.

http://www.cmliu.com/

Snowstorm

     When I drove to Elliot lake about noon today, the roads were dry. When I left E.L. about 2.5 hours later, fine snow was blowing down from the sky and sticking to the asphalt. I kept the speed at 80kph or less. The car held the road well, the winter tires (or tyres) made the difference. The snow muted the colours, reducing even bright reds and greens to softer earth tones, and shifting the dull blues and browns that we Canadians love for our cars into mildly tinted greys.
     Highway 17 showed some bare asphalt, and I could push the car to 90 occasionally. The snow swirled up from the wind of other cars' passing, the oncoming traffics trailed a haze of white dust behind it. I passed no cars between the turnoff and Blind River, and no cars passed me. Eastbound traffic came in short bunches, less than usual: the gathering storm, moving in from the southwest, must have convinced many casual travellers to stay home. The forecast this morning told of 15 to 30cm of snow, and much wind, with freezing rain in the south. Marie just talked to Cassandra, RoRo's flight landed an hour late, and Cassandra said she'd advised RoRo not to drive in from the airport. Bria said they couldn't stand up on the sidewalk. Jon said he wanted to walk to NoFrills for coffee, but decide he could do without it.
     And that's the weather report for this evening.

Turtles

 

Just caught a glimpse of sea turtles as I clicked back to TVO and turned off the TV. I love the way they move through the water, flying in slow motion, their flippers such inadequate wings in air but perfect for water. They are among the oldest species on Earth, hardly changed in tens of millions of years. As they move past the camera, their indifferent gaze reminds us that what we call life is as remote and inhuman a phenomenon as the stars and galaxies. We live, but the life we think we live is an illusion, a play of shadows cast on the screen of consciousness, observed by an observer who cannot observe itself. The body continues to do what it does, and we notice almost none of its functions; yet we flatter ourselves into believing that what we can know of it and the world in which it moves is all the reality there is. We identify our experience with reality. I think the divine injunction against idolatry warns us against just this misidentification.

The turtles don't, apparently, suffer from mind; self sufficient and focussed on the operations of survival, they fly through the oceans and demonstrate grace.

All Creatures Great and Small (book review)

All Creatures Great and Small

I've had enough of politics for a while. Watched the debate last night -- Steve Paikin is an excellent moderator, and kept the debate going smoothly. He really likes politics, and politicians, too, a rare sentiment these days.

I've just finished reading the first Herriot omnibus, a very pleasant book. I didn't read his books when they first came out, but I watched the TV series several times. It reran for years on PBS. So while reading the book, I saw the characters as portrayed on TV, which both helped and hindered, as some of the descriptions were at odds with the appearance of the actors. Never mind, it was a pleasant read, a series of anecdotes that add up to a portrait of the writer and his clients.

Herriot can be sentimental, he's at his best in straightforward story telling. He has a talent for the illuminating detail or remark. His courtship of Helen Alderson was expanded for the series; perhaps Herriot advised on some of the details of what he merely refers to: the long walks they took, the times Helen came along on his rounds, and so on. Herriot doesn' t pretend to be better than he is. He has a temper and self doubts. He doesn't let us in on his innermost thoughts very often, and when he does, we get a fair amount of his feelings for the Dales and their inhabitants. As I've said, these tend towards the sentimental, but his delight in the landscape, the people, and his profession is genuine, as is his regret for the passing of some of the old ways, tempered by his recognition of the value of much of the new. The book isn't exactly a page turner, but its anecdotal structure and plain style (leavened with a dry and pleasant wit) makes it a good bedtime book, one that one may put down and take up again without losing one's place. I will never read it again, but I will give it to someone who can appreciate its plain virtues and pleasures.

Politics: Accountability

     Listened to Rex Murphy's Cross-Canada Checkup on CBC today [January 6, 2008]. The usual mix of rant, hope, trust, cynicism, and naive expectation that if only some pet reform were instituted, all would be well with the world. Well, at least with Canadian politics. Herewith some random comments.

"Accountability"
     A caller from Alberta wanted politicians who represent us to be prosecuted if they make a promise that they don't keep, on the grounds that such a promise is a lie. The man has obviously never been elected to any office in any organisation. The first thing you learn when you are elected is that the largest part of the job is compromise. Usually, you simply can't do what you want to do, or what you said you would do when you want to do it, as there are always people who don't want you to do it.
     Besides, how can you tell whether a politician lied? There are still people here in Ontario that claim that Harris did what he promised. Yes he did - but he very carefully changed certain key definitions before he did it. In my eyes, that amounts to a lie.
     For example, Harris promised to "increase classroom spending." Then he redefined classroom spending very narrowly, so that it amounted to about 50% of the total expenditure on schools, and increased that by 10%. However, he reduced spending in other areas, so that the net result was a decrease in overall spending of about 10%. But he kept his promise! I had predicted exactly this result when my senior high school class asked what would happen now that Mr Harris was Premier. I said: "Mr Harris will keep his promises, but he will first redefine terms so that there will be no actual increase in spending, and there might well be a decrease overall." What's more, Harris increased the provincial debt, a little fact that the NDP haters gloss over or even ascribe to the NDP (I'm sure not intentionally, it's just a slip of the mind. :-))
     The issue of recall is even thornier. Why should a majority of disgruntled voters have the right to recall an MP? [There are always disgruntled voters.] What about the minority of disgruntled voters bwho want to keep him or her in office? What's their recourse? Why should they be deprived of what they consider a reasonable voice in Parliament?
     IMO many voters think that once a person is elected, that person is accountable directly to them. They forget the thousands of other voters, most of whom will disagree on at least one major issue, and many minor ones. They also forget that the MP is accountable to all the people, not just those who voted for him or her.

"MPs represent us, and must do what we, their constituents, want."
     There are several problems with this attitude, the most obvious being that an MP represents not only those who voted for him or her, but also those who didn't. Whose views should prevail? Especially when you consider that most MPs [in Canada] are elected with considerably less than half the total vote, and often with only about a quarter of the eligible vote.
     There is also the subtle difference between representing someone as a negotiator (the US model of legislators) and representing someone as an advocate (our model, also called "responsible government.") A negotiator tries to get what the client wants. An advocate tries to get what's best for the client, whether the client wants it or not, or even knows what it is. The fact is, we have to trust our MPs to do their best for us and the country as a whole. If you have a concern, write. MPs do pay attention to what their constituents put on the record.

"Proportional Representation"
     It might or might not work. My problem is, that there are several systems. Would we have proportional representation nationally, or by Province? If the former, how would the parties ensure that the regions would be well represented? I foresee bitter fights within parties. If Provincially, we might get bitter fights within each province.
     And at what threshold of the popular vote would a party be entitled to a seat?1%? 5%? 3%? 10%? We have over 300MPs, so the threshold matters a lot. 1% of the House is 3 MPs, which could be a significant number when cobbling up a coalition.
     Some suggest that some mix of regional or local representation and national vote should be used. That would result in effectively two elections: one for the leadership and one for the local MP. But we tend to value our local MPs more highly than our national leadership (Illogical, yes, but there it is.)
     Many advocates for PR point to the many democracies that use it. The argument that "Everybody else does it" has never been a good one, as every parent knows. So I'm surprised that apparently sensible people use it. [Besides, there are major differences in the "proportional representation" systems. Moreover, every election system will disgruntle some voters.]

"Why don't the candidates discuss issue X?"
     Because the party's polling has indicated that other issues matter more to more voters.

 Update 2021-09-23: We've just gone through another Federal election, but there was no change. There were a few flips from one party to another, but overall the numbers are almost exactly the same. I fixed a couple of typos, added clarifications, and inserted clip art.

 

Terry Fox

Sitting in the waiting room at the Health Center the other day, waiting for blood to be sucked from my arm for a PSA test, I saw Terry Fox's picture on the cover of Maclean's Magazine. I remembered the time I saw Terry run.

I was on the way to the Sudbury airport to catch a flight to Toronto in order to attend a meeting that at the time seemed important, but whose purpose I have long since forgotten. The bypass had not yet been built so I was driving through a light rain along the old two-lane road. Near Lively, the traffic slowed down. I saw flashing police lights ahead and thought, O damn, an accident, that'll make me miss my flight. And braked to a stop.

Then I noticed that the police car was approaching me, its red and blue lights reflected in the water lying on the pavement. Behind it I saw Terry Fox, I knew immediately who he was, even though his van was some 50 yards behind him. He shifted his weight onto his good leg, made a skipping hop, threw his prosthesis in front of him, and used it as a pivot to bring his good leg over to the front again. His good leg hit the pavement, and he raised himself again in that skipping motion to lift the prosthesis off the ground and bring it to the front again.

Step, skip, swing, step, skip, swing, he came towards me, step skip swing. I began to imagine how many times he must have done that since he'd left the East Coast, thousands of times, tens of thousands of times, and wondered how his leg stump could stand the pounding, how the heel of his good foot could tolerate the repeated thump into the asphalt, how his back could take that twist and lift needed for each step.

My line of traffic began to move again, and I briefly saw Terry's face as he step-skipped past me. A couple weeks or so later we heard that that he had to stop near Thunder Bay because the cancer had come back. I thought, He knew it even then, in Sudbury, that was not just physical pain that marked his face, it was fear that he might not finish his run. I knew then that I had seen courage in his face.

Before I saw Terry, I'd dismissed his run as mere publicity hunting. When I saw him I began to see that Terry knew he wouldn't make his mark as the rest of us have done, in our work, our families, our communities. He would never succeed at any career, he would never be proud of his children, he would not earn the respect of neighbours and friends, because he wouldn't live long enough.

He could have waited for death, worked with the doctors to delay it for as long as possible, no one would have faulted him for doing that. But he felt the need to do something worthwhile. What could he do? He had no skills, no special talents, no training or education. He had only his body and his determination. So he did the only thing he could do: he used his body, he used himself, to draw attention, to enlist the rest of us in the struggle to understand the disease that was killing him, and would kill many others, and continues to kill.

Terry used himself up in doing this. He died doing this.

Every time we drive west through Thunder Bay, we stop at the monument beside the highway, and I remember. We stopped there again this past summer. I sat and looked up at his face, a face that I remembered from a brief glimpse in the rain, and I noticed that people spoke softly as they read the inscription and gazed at the statue of Terry Fox.