Got a bit of a shock in the last day or so.
Details here: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2010/02/20/telefilm-rules-change.html
Personal opinion time.
I've said it elsewhere, so I may as well say it here: Michel Roy committed an act of rudeness and contempt by wanting this rules change at all, never mind saying so publicly. One of the main points of Telefilm Canada - from where this Canadian sits, at least - is to build up and promote the homegrown talent base for a domestic motion picture industry. That talent base includes the actors, and it occurs to me that we've built it up considerable in spite of past mistakes.
Now, Mr. Roy's proposing to set that talent base aside for supporting roles only?
No, thank you, sir. If we're funding made-in-Canada movies, then we want Canadian talent for lead actors.
(Mind you, I'll certainly make allowances for US actors deciding to make permanent, full-time homes here, particularly the ones who find our films more interesting to work on than anything they've done back in the States. I've heard of a few of those hanging around, and am glad of such company!)
Showing posts with label opinions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label opinions. Show all posts
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Transit, Ages, the City and the Future
Seems a generic title, and it is. I grant you that right now. But there’s a point to the mundanity which we’ll get to right now: I spent this particular morning at Ottawa City Hall, watching the presentations to and deliberations of the city’s Transit Planning Committee.
At issue this particular morning was the matter of a new policy begun this budgetary year at OC Transpo with the result being that if you want a student-priced bus pass, you’d better be age 27 or under or you might as well forget it.
Yes, I know: students don’t always start post-secondary education at 18, and they don’t always finish with a degree or diploma or certificate in hand before they hit 27.
Well, there were fifteen presentations from assorted interest groups and individual citizens at this meeting on that particular subject. To the last man and woman, with their own specific concerns in play, they all had variants of the same reply to this policy: you forget it. We can’t afford this. The city can’t afford this. The country and the planet cannot afford this.
For assorted reasons - budgetary for the individual students and their families, legal and budgetary(for different reasons) for the city, environmental(and possibly other aspects as well) for the nation and planet - they were all of them absolutely right to say this to City Hall in my eyes.
To their credit, with some caveats to varying degrees, the city transit committee agreed with that logic and they’ll be passing along that recommendation to the full city council. Which is where the crunch comes in. The transit committee is made up presently of eight of some thirty-plus councillors from across the city. The student pass recommendation needs at least another ten councillors onside, preferably from the core, suburban and rural wards.
Yes, there are at least these three factions in play within the full council. It’s a legacy of the shotgun marriage of a merger of cities, towns and a couple of villages that the Ontario legislature pushed through back in the days of Mike Harris and his “Common Sense Revolution”. As a result of that, we have what we now call the City of Ottawa. More on that era of the province’s history has been said by smarter people than myself, so I’m not going into that digression right this moment.
Back on point: the idea that an age-based rule on who qualifies as a student, rather than the definition being rooted in whether or not you’re taking classes full-time, strikes me as nonsensical on its face. I’ve been to community college twice so far, and may yet do so for a third, “hat trick” diploma. In both instances, I attended classes alongside fellow students who would be characterized as “mature” to varying degrees. Certainly, several in each of those two batches of fellow students were over 27.
How many would the disqualification for student pricing on bus passes have made the difference between affording their studies or ploughing onward in some other, possibly more desperate direction for their lives? I heard a figure of somewhere between $200 to $500 over an entire year being bandied about at a couple of points. One month’s groceries or car insurance premiums, it was said.
Another aspect of grabbing one form of cost savings at the expense of some nastier bills being payable down the road: it was mentioned in one of the presentations that the mayor of Saskatoon recently said that making bus passes more affordable for their local student population made a considerable dent in their annual road and highway maintenance expenses.
And as for pollution issues...well, let’s leave that to your imaginations. They’re certainly at least as well informed as my own on the subject by now. Asthma incidence, global climate derangement and so on?
Right.
It was suggested that other cities across Canada are doing this kind of age-based definition of “student” for public transit purposes. If we’re the National Capital here - last we checked, Ottawa still holds that title - then it falls to us as a city to set a better example than everyone else on the map. If we fail in that, then we’d better call the PMO and ask for that referendum on transferring the title and its responsibilities, privileges and landmarks.
Over to you.
 |
| From Photos |
At issue this particular morning was the matter of a new policy begun this budgetary year at OC Transpo with the result being that if you want a student-priced bus pass, you’d better be age 27 or under or you might as well forget it.
 |
| From Photos |
Yes, I know: students don’t always start post-secondary education at 18, and they don’t always finish with a degree or diploma or certificate in hand before they hit 27.
Well, there were fifteen presentations from assorted interest groups and individual citizens at this meeting on that particular subject. To the last man and woman, with their own specific concerns in play, they all had variants of the same reply to this policy: you forget it. We can’t afford this. The city can’t afford this. The country and the planet cannot afford this.
For assorted reasons - budgetary for the individual students and their families, legal and budgetary(for different reasons) for the city, environmental(and possibly other aspects as well) for the nation and planet - they were all of them absolutely right to say this to City Hall in my eyes.
To their credit, with some caveats to varying degrees, the city transit committee agreed with that logic and they’ll be passing along that recommendation to the full city council. Which is where the crunch comes in. The transit committee is made up presently of eight of some thirty-plus councillors from across the city. The student pass recommendation needs at least another ten councillors onside, preferably from the core, suburban and rural wards.
 |
| From Photos |
Yes, there are at least these three factions in play within the full council. It’s a legacy of the shotgun marriage of a merger of cities, towns and a couple of villages that the Ontario legislature pushed through back in the days of Mike Harris and his “Common Sense Revolution”. As a result of that, we have what we now call the City of Ottawa. More on that era of the province’s history has been said by smarter people than myself, so I’m not going into that digression right this moment.
Back on point: the idea that an age-based rule on who qualifies as a student, rather than the definition being rooted in whether or not you’re taking classes full-time, strikes me as nonsensical on its face. I’ve been to community college twice so far, and may yet do so for a third, “hat trick” diploma. In both instances, I attended classes alongside fellow students who would be characterized as “mature” to varying degrees. Certainly, several in each of those two batches of fellow students were over 27.
How many would the disqualification for student pricing on bus passes have made the difference between affording their studies or ploughing onward in some other, possibly more desperate direction for their lives? I heard a figure of somewhere between $200 to $500 over an entire year being bandied about at a couple of points. One month’s groceries or car insurance premiums, it was said.
Another aspect of grabbing one form of cost savings at the expense of some nastier bills being payable down the road: it was mentioned in one of the presentations that the mayor of Saskatoon recently said that making bus passes more affordable for their local student population made a considerable dent in their annual road and highway maintenance expenses.
And as for pollution issues...well, let’s leave that to your imaginations. They’re certainly at least as well informed as my own on the subject by now. Asthma incidence, global climate derangement and so on?
Right.
It was suggested that other cities across Canada are doing this kind of age-based definition of “student” for public transit purposes. If we’re the National Capital here - last we checked, Ottawa still holds that title - then it falls to us as a city to set a better example than everyone else on the map. If we fail in that, then we’d better call the PMO and ask for that referendum on transferring the title and its responsibilities, privileges and landmarks.
Over to you.
Monday, July 06, 2009
VIA Rail: One Passenger's Fantasy Map
I had some ideas on what the route map for VIA Rail ought to look like ten years from now. Granted that in several respects - costing out the details surely being among them - it is indeed a fantasy. Nonetheless, the choices made sense to me as I drew them up.
So, for your amusement at the publicbroadcasting.ca blog...
Opinions, anyone?
So, for your amusement at the publicbroadcasting.ca blog...
Opinions, anyone?
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Trudeau Stories: An Open Letter to the Author-Performer
Brooke,
I went to see your show at the National Arts Centre tonight while it was in town as part of the Magnetic North Festival. Wanted very much to stick around for the Q & A session afterwards, but misunderstood what time it was by the time the show itself ended. Thus, my hasty - and stupidly premature - retreat from the room and the Centre. I could rationalize it by way of my side trip into the nearest Running Room for yet another pair of socks, but that just smells...like socks.
Wet socks.
So. Your show. A piece of your life, as you lived it and remembered it. A piece of the life of someone else dearer to many people than some would care to admit, or in some instances, care to tolerate admissions from others. A man who became a friend to you.
A piece of both lives that you cared and worked to share with us.
I won't speak to the technical details of the craft. Others better suited to that have already done this, I'm sure, and some of the people who read this aside from you and I will no doubt link to it in their replies in due course.
For myself, I'll stick to the response of the heart. I laughed straight into asthma attacks, a peril I'll gladly keep facing if it keeps me sane to do so. I teared up more than once, including right at the start with that photo. If you apologize for those moments, ever, I will not forgive you. Not on this side of the grave, anyway.
I think you found the best use I've heard of a Vince Guaraldi Trio recording outside of the Charlie Brown specials to date.
You made me wish I'd been able to count Pierre Trudeau as a friend of my own.
For that, I thank you.
You've reminded us of why, as is said by others, "he haunts us still" and why that haunting can and should be a blessing.
For that also, thank you.
Be well. Prosper if you can.
Note to everyone else reading this: If you're wondering what I'm talking about, take a gander over here.
This was originally posted on my own weblog, On the DEWLine.
I went to see your show at the National Arts Centre tonight while it was in town as part of the Magnetic North Festival. Wanted very much to stick around for the Q & A session afterwards, but misunderstood what time it was by the time the show itself ended. Thus, my hasty - and stupidly premature - retreat from the room and the Centre. I could rationalize it by way of my side trip into the nearest Running Room for yet another pair of socks, but that just smells...like socks.
Wet socks.
So. Your show. A piece of your life, as you lived it and remembered it. A piece of the life of someone else dearer to many people than some would care to admit, or in some instances, care to tolerate admissions from others. A man who became a friend to you.
A piece of both lives that you cared and worked to share with us.
I won't speak to the technical details of the craft. Others better suited to that have already done this, I'm sure, and some of the people who read this aside from you and I will no doubt link to it in their replies in due course.
For myself, I'll stick to the response of the heart. I laughed straight into asthma attacks, a peril I'll gladly keep facing if it keeps me sane to do so. I teared up more than once, including right at the start with that photo. If you apologize for those moments, ever, I will not forgive you. Not on this side of the grave, anyway.
I think you found the best use I've heard of a Vince Guaraldi Trio recording outside of the Charlie Brown specials to date.
You made me wish I'd been able to count Pierre Trudeau as a friend of my own.
For that, I thank you.
You've reminded us of why, as is said by others, "he haunts us still" and why that haunting can and should be a blessing.
For that also, thank you.
Be well. Prosper if you can.
Note to everyone else reading this: If you're wondering what I'm talking about, take a gander over here.
This was originally posted on my own weblog, On the DEWLine.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Movie Debate - An Open Thread
Since we're on the subject of CanCon movies at the moment, here's hoping you'll forgive a bit of nosiness by way of this question:
What's your current Favourite Canadian Movie? Any particular reason(s)? Got more than one?
What's your current Favourite Canadian Movie? Any particular reason(s)? Got more than one?
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Some random notes: Politics to Comics to Movies
I note an opinion piece in yesterday's Toronto Star by James Travers on the present state of our democracy. I have some concerns of my own about some of the issues Travers raises, and it makes me happy to note the elements of constructive-minded hope he included in that article. If there's anything we need right now, it's hope and useful advice.
On what may be a related note, you might want to look at some thoughts of one of our saner and more attentive neighbours in the States, science fiction author David Brin. Whether or not, it's part of a shared problem is something worth a bit of debate.
Moving on to less worrisome issues...
Believe it or not, someone's trying to keep track of comics/manga/BD/graphic novel sales in Canada, of Canadian-produced work. The latest instance of that can be found care of the Sequential Blog. You might find something worth reading therein.
Closing out: congratulations to all the nominees and winners at the Genie Awards last night! You people sweated the sweats of the damned and the blessed alike to get that far, never mind whether or not you got the statuary, and you deserve a lot more than you're getting!
On what may be a related note, you might want to look at some thoughts of one of our saner and more attentive neighbours in the States, science fiction author David Brin. Whether or not, it's part of a shared problem is something worth a bit of debate.
Moving on to less worrisome issues...
Believe it or not, someone's trying to keep track of comics/manga/BD/graphic novel sales in Canada, of Canadian-produced work. The latest instance of that can be found care of the Sequential Blog. You might find something worth reading therein.
Closing out: congratulations to all the nominees and winners at the Genie Awards last night! You people sweated the sweats of the damned and the blessed alike to get that far, never mind whether or not you got the statuary, and you deserve a lot more than you're getting!
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Some rambling on space exploration
Something else to thank Doug Drexler's blogging in recent weeks for here.
By way of introduction: Drexler's been an award-winning makeup artist, scenic artist and now CGI designer/animator - please forgive me for not getting the titles precisely, Doug? - on shows from Star Trek: All the Modern TV Series from Next Generation to Enterprise through to the current edition of Battlestar Galactica and, soon enough, Caprica as well if I remember a'right.
(Galactica, to my mind constitutes one of those happy accidents of "hands across the border" work. But I digress...)
Anyway, he got this note from Mike Okuda passing along excerpts from a speech from Jeff Hanley, manager of Project Constellation at NASA. And that thread on the Drex Files that followed from that posting, along with a linkage to a JFK speech of no small note and import, got me thinking about space exploration. What it means to me personally. What it means to people in a lot of different places.
Including Canada.
We don't idolize our men and women of the Right Stuff up here as has been done south of the border. At least not yet. I'd love to see a docudrama on Marc Garneau and/or Roberta Bondar one of these years, and see it well done. No idea if it's ever going to happen, given the state of our industry, although I'm sure the likes of Denis McGrath, Alex Epstein, Will Dixon, and others across the membership of the Writers Guild of Canada would jump at the chance to script that sucker were it offered to any of them.
Those stories, when they get told - are another kind of economic spinoff of the exploration that NASA - and our own Canadian Space Agency, as well - are doing. They force the people who work in the cultural industries to try to achieve things that so rarely get done in the real world as it is today.
More to the point...this exploration is worth doing, and worth doing to the best of our respective abilities is beyond doubt for this Canadian. What frustrates me - as I suspect it does many people elsewhere in more than a few nations - is that so many still have the doubts.
In my less charitable moments, I tend to call them another word: fears. Fear of change, and the consequences that it brings.
Given the state of the planetary economy right now, I can see how a lot of us can - do - rationalize the fears. Justify them. Use them to argue for an end to change. Or at least for a slowing down of it to a pace they can more easily match. I've been catching myself preparing similar arguments about some of the things now in place in my current day-job.
No, I won't be sharing the details of that particular issue. They don't really matter all that much, and they add little more than another chunk of noise at a time when we really need more and clearer signal.
We need to do more of that trailblazing that Hanley spoke of, and Kennedy before him, and Roddenberry and his colleagues and heirs in between and since. We need to do this both in concert with our neighbours near and far across this world, and we need to do it on our own as well.
This exploration can and must be done alongside everything else we need to do right now to remedy our economic and ecological woes...and maybe a few of our cultural woes as well.
By way of introduction: Drexler's been an award-winning makeup artist, scenic artist and now CGI designer/animator - please forgive me for not getting the titles precisely, Doug? - on shows from Star Trek: All the Modern TV Series from Next Generation to Enterprise through to the current edition of Battlestar Galactica and, soon enough, Caprica as well if I remember a'right.
(Galactica, to my mind constitutes one of those happy accidents of "hands across the border" work. But I digress...)
Anyway, he got this note from Mike Okuda passing along excerpts from a speech from Jeff Hanley, manager of Project Constellation at NASA. And that thread on the Drex Files that followed from that posting, along with a linkage to a JFK speech of no small note and import, got me thinking about space exploration. What it means to me personally. What it means to people in a lot of different places.
Including Canada.
We don't idolize our men and women of the Right Stuff up here as has been done south of the border. At least not yet. I'd love to see a docudrama on Marc Garneau and/or Roberta Bondar one of these years, and see it well done. No idea if it's ever going to happen, given the state of our industry, although I'm sure the likes of Denis McGrath, Alex Epstein, Will Dixon, and others across the membership of the Writers Guild of Canada would jump at the chance to script that sucker were it offered to any of them.
Those stories, when they get told - are another kind of economic spinoff of the exploration that NASA - and our own Canadian Space Agency, as well - are doing. They force the people who work in the cultural industries to try to achieve things that so rarely get done in the real world as it is today.
More to the point...this exploration is worth doing, and worth doing to the best of our respective abilities is beyond doubt for this Canadian. What frustrates me - as I suspect it does many people elsewhere in more than a few nations - is that so many still have the doubts.
In my less charitable moments, I tend to call them another word: fears. Fear of change, and the consequences that it brings.
Given the state of the planetary economy right now, I can see how a lot of us can - do - rationalize the fears. Justify them. Use them to argue for an end to change. Or at least for a slowing down of it to a pace they can more easily match. I've been catching myself preparing similar arguments about some of the things now in place in my current day-job.
No, I won't be sharing the details of that particular issue. They don't really matter all that much, and they add little more than another chunk of noise at a time when we really need more and clearer signal.
We need to do more of that trailblazing that Hanley spoke of, and Kennedy before him, and Roddenberry and his colleagues and heirs in between and since. We need to do this both in concert with our neighbours near and far across this world, and we need to do it on our own as well.
This exploration can and must be done alongside everything else we need to do right now to remedy our economic and ecological woes...and maybe a few of our cultural woes as well.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Ottawa Transit: Subways Ahead?
Some of you will already be aware of the troubles we've faced in Ottawa in the course of expanding OC Transpo's light rail component. We've had at least one proposal get right up to the point of putting shovels in the ground...and then we got a sort of whiplash thanks to the election of Larry O'Brien. That's a long story I will not go into here.
Last night, we started what may finally be a good next step.
There was an open house at City Hall. Detailed was the proposal for a subway/light rail corridor running from Tunney's Pasture through the downtown core, the University of Ottawa Campus, the local VIA Rail station and St. Laurent Mall out to Gloucester Centre Mall out on the edge of the Greenbelt in the eastern end.
It was certainly well-attended. Alex Cullen was there for City Council, as was Marianne Wilkinson. Enough people to fill the public galleries in the Council Chambers, an
d if they'd had room for more, I suspect there would have been more.As to the project...well, it makes sense. They're trying to sort through several different options for different parts of the corridor. What combination would work the best? That was part of the point of the displays, the Power Point show, and so forth.
The corridor itself makes a certain amount of sense in general terms. I'm not entirely sure that it will defuse the current "bottleneck effect" we've been seeing for years in the central east-west corridor through Centretown on its own. The idea that a subway running under it will reduce the need for buses or anything else in a mass transit vein?
I just don't know.
At least there's lot of people from one end of town to the other paying attention.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Comics and Canada: the Gene Day Award
Some among you already know about the Joe Shuster Awards, our own counterparts to the like of the Harveys and Eisners south of the border.
They've added a new category: the Gene Day Award for Canadian Self-Publishing.
I refer you to the Shuster Awards' own page on the subject in the second link above.
What do I think?
I think this is another good step in building a home-grown comics sector in Canada's entertainment industry. I want to see us get to the point where everyone with talent and ambition to do so can make a decent living in the field. It can only help the country for that to happen.
They've added a new category: the Gene Day Award for Canadian Self-Publishing.
I refer you to the Shuster Awards' own page on the subject in the second link above.
What do I think?
I think this is another good step in building a home-grown comics sector in Canada's entertainment industry. I want to see us get to the point where everyone with talent and ambition to do so can make a decent living in the field. It can only help the country for that to happen.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Small Press at Risk - Quill & Quire via Robert J. Sawyer
Rob's one of our best-known SF writers, right up there with Gibson, Robinson, Hopkinson. He's got Hugos, Nebulas, Auroras(our homegrown version of the first two awards) to his name. One of his novels, FlashForward, is being converted into a long-term US-produced TV series as I type this.
Anyway, he's spotted something in Quill & Quire, one of our main lit-magazines, that has him...concerned...about small press operations across the country. Here's his posting on the subject:
http://sfwriter.com/2009/02/there-goes-canadian-small-press.html
Go take a look.
As for my POV?
Looks like the attempts at fiscal containment(starvation?) of homegrown cultural industries are still in play. As if that were still in doubt.
Anyway, he's spotted something in Quill & Quire, one of our main lit-magazines, that has him...concerned...about small press operations across the country. Here's his posting on the subject:
http://sfwriter.com/2009/02/there-goes-canadian-small-press.html
Go take a look.
As for my POV?
Looks like the attempts at fiscal containment(starvation?) of homegrown cultural industries are still in play. As if that were still in doubt.
Monday, February 09, 2009
An end to transit strife...
...is devoutly appreciated. The deal hasn't been worked out yet, but at least the arbitration process is now underway and transit service here in Ottawa is now on its way to being restored. I had the pleasure of riding one of the first buses of the morning in my neighbourhood, and of photographing it upon its arrival at my chosen pickup stop.
Anyone who's endured either a strike or a lockout hitting their public transit system will at least partly understand the joy - yes, joy! - of seeing that first bus of the day.
That said...
As others have noticed, the price tag of this particular war of nerves is going to be with us who live here - and those of us who will be living here in the months and years ahead - for quite some time. Transit improvements that we were expecting in due course, already long-delayed, will have excuses found for further delays in getting the work done.
I am not happy with that thought. I'll be interested to see how it works out, and one of my neighbours has spoken of the idea of transit passengers forming a union of their own recently in response to the last two months' pains.
I'll be interested to see the consequences of that idea.
Anyone who's endured either a strike or a lockout hitting their public transit system will at least partly understand the joy - yes, joy! - of seeing that first bus of the day.
That said...
As others have noticed, the price tag of this particular war of nerves is going to be with us who live here - and those of us who will be living here in the months and years ahead - for quite some time. Transit improvements that we were expecting in due course, already long-delayed, will have excuses found for further delays in getting the work done.
I am not happy with that thought. I'll be interested to see how it works out, and one of my neighbours has spoken of the idea of transit passengers forming a union of their own recently in response to the last two months' pains.
I'll be interested to see the consequences of that idea.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Transit in Ottawa: One More Rant
Okay, it's been over 40 days now since the transit strike began. As people can and will tell you at the drop of a hat, it's been getting increasingly cranky around certain segments of the urban portions of the Ottawa Valley of late.
I'm one of those cranky people. I still have problems with getting around town between the lack of transit and the weather. The latter, yes, you have to expect as part of the cost of living in Ottawa, or indeed anywhere else in Canada. I'm not going to vent about everything I have no control over here. There are other places for venting about the weather anyway.
To Ottawa City Hall and ATU 279, I say this again: please cut a deal and get it over with. Leave each other with some dignity after this is over.
To the rest of us: Let's leave'em with their dignity. Please.
I'm one of those cranky people. I still have problems with getting around town between the lack of transit and the weather. The latter, yes, you have to expect as part of the cost of living in Ottawa, or indeed anywhere else in Canada. I'm not going to vent about everything I have no control over here. There are other places for venting about the weather anyway.
To Ottawa City Hall and ATU 279, I say this again: please cut a deal and get it over with. Leave each other with some dignity after this is over.
To the rest of us: Let's leave'em with their dignity. Please.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Climate, Transit and Ticking Clocks
First off, how about that snowstorm? And the transit strike starting the very next day? I can't help but wonder if maybe After listening to Gwynne Dyer last night at St. Brigid's Centre for the Arts before heading out into the Bad Weather before the Labour Storm hasn't soured me a little on having sympathy for both sides of this.
Because there's a third side involved here, and that's the side keeping this planet as liveable for ourselves as possible for as long as possible. And hopefully keeping ourselves sane while we're working on all the crap we've gotten ourselves into as a species. That latest book of his, Climate Wars is a bit of an eye-opener. Or "re-opener". Or maybe I should rip off Mr. Dyer's editor at Embassy and use the same label he did: "shit disturber".
Why not? It works, impolite as it is. And my discomfort with the phrase matters not a whit nor a damn.
I am beginning to think that this particular labour battle is a waste of time for both City Hall and the Amalgamated Transit Union's Ottawa local. Both camps are missing the point I referred to last paragraph, that point about the third side. We've got a ticking clock here, and one we can possibly still have some small hope of stopping before it reaches "midnight": a 2-degree rise in worldwide temperatures due to carbon particulate pollution. Whether or not we'll be able to cheat that clock, and Mr. Dyer suggested ways and means of doing that with an eye towards using that extra time to actually solve this problem and maybe another one coming on its own anyway no matter how much ecological harm we do over the next century...well, we don't know for sure yet.
But the sooner we get this transit labour dispute settled, that'll be one less fight we need to have and one more bit of climate derangement solving done.
Cut a deal, people.
Sidebar: If you want to hear what Dyer actually said, go here. It'll have links to all the needed files.
Confession: This was originally posted over at my LJ Blog.
Because there's a third side involved here, and that's the side keeping this planet as liveable for ourselves as possible for as long as possible. And hopefully keeping ourselves sane while we're working on all the crap we've gotten ourselves into as a species. That latest book of his, Climate Wars is a bit of an eye-opener. Or "re-opener". Or maybe I should rip off Mr. Dyer's editor at Embassy and use the same label he did: "shit disturber".
Why not? It works, impolite as it is. And my discomfort with the phrase matters not a whit nor a damn.
I am beginning to think that this particular labour battle is a waste of time for both City Hall and the Amalgamated Transit Union's Ottawa local. Both camps are missing the point I referred to last paragraph, that point about the third side. We've got a ticking clock here, and one we can possibly still have some small hope of stopping before it reaches "midnight": a 2-degree rise in worldwide temperatures due to carbon particulate pollution. Whether or not we'll be able to cheat that clock, and Mr. Dyer suggested ways and means of doing that with an eye towards using that extra time to actually solve this problem and maybe another one coming on its own anyway no matter how much ecological harm we do over the next century...well, we don't know for sure yet.
But the sooner we get this transit labour dispute settled, that'll be one less fight we need to have and one more bit of climate derangement solving done.
Cut a deal, people.
Sidebar: If you want to hear what Dyer actually said, go here. It'll have links to all the needed files.
Confession: This was originally posted over at my LJ Blog.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Arts and the City (of Ottawa)
There ought to be a movie poster to go with a title like that.
Someday for that, if I can line up the right models to pose for the shoot. (Yes, this is a call for volunteers.)
Meantime...
There was a meeting at the SAW Gallery two nights ago, this past Wednesday. It was announced on Facebook, a couple of days prior, as a follow-up on the gathering at City Hall on Monday.
(You may never have heard of SAW, so: it's located off of Waller near Daly, behind and under the Arts Court complex next to the Rideau Centre in the Byward Market section of downtown Ottawa. It all used to be the city's main court house. Vancouverites reading this are pre-emptively excused from charges of wrongful accusation if they suspect that Arts Court was based on something that Vancouver did first, as I also suspect it was based on their Art Gallery idea.)
The meeting was a skull session, strategies and tactics for meeting the challenge of a staff budget proposal making the rounds at City Hall with an eye on FY 2009 to contain tax increases by slashing the arts/heritage/cultural support budget very nearly to nothing. Festivals, local museums, art shows and schools...yep, the full range.
It lasted about 90 minutes. Short, lively, and well-attended. You will likely see some of the ideas discussed put into motion between now and December 1st, where City Council will be receiving submissions from the public on why the proposed cuts are either a good or a bad idea.
For myself...well, I've already admitted my biases, else this bit of opinionation wouldn't be posted here. The line item covering the city's support of arts/heritage/culture events and institutions, and grants for specific artists as well, barely makes for what I've heard cited as 0.2 % of the city's budget overall at present.
You've already heard the "One dollar in, twenty-one dollars repaid to the city" line.
I'm wondering if we can't boil it down more simply: let's not let the kids here grow up thinking this is a boring town. Or that it ought to be boring.
Because it doesn't have to be boring. Just happily exhausting.
Someday for that, if I can line up the right models to pose for the shoot. (Yes, this is a call for volunteers.)
Meantime...
 |
| From Dwight's photos |
There was a meeting at the SAW Gallery two nights ago, this past Wednesday. It was announced on Facebook, a couple of days prior, as a follow-up on the gathering at City Hall on Monday.
(You may never have heard of SAW, so: it's located off of Waller near Daly, behind and under the Arts Court complex next to the Rideau Centre in the Byward Market section of downtown Ottawa. It all used to be the city's main court house. Vancouverites reading this are pre-emptively excused from charges of wrongful accusation if they suspect that Arts Court was based on something that Vancouver did first, as I also suspect it was based on their Art Gallery idea.)
 |
| From Dwight's photos |
The meeting was a skull session, strategies and tactics for meeting the challenge of a staff budget proposal making the rounds at City Hall with an eye on FY 2009 to contain tax increases by slashing the arts/heritage/cultural support budget very nearly to nothing. Festivals, local museums, art shows and schools...yep, the full range.
It lasted about 90 minutes. Short, lively, and well-attended. You will likely see some of the ideas discussed put into motion between now and December 1st, where City Council will be receiving submissions from the public on why the proposed cuts are either a good or a bad idea.
For myself...well, I've already admitted my biases, else this bit of opinionation wouldn't be posted here. The line item covering the city's support of arts/heritage/culture events and institutions, and grants for specific artists as well, barely makes for what I've heard cited as 0.2 % of the city's budget overall at present.
You've already heard the "One dollar in, twenty-one dollars repaid to the city" line.
 |
| From Dwight's photos |
I'm wondering if we can't boil it down more simply: let's not let the kids here grow up thinking this is a boring town. Or that it ought to be boring.
Because it doesn't have to be boring. Just happily exhausting.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Thoughts on a Movie Theatre Close to Home
I originally wrote this up as a letter to the editor - and the responsible reporter - on the subject of some changes in the works for movie theatres here in my neighbourhood of Orleans. I would strongly suggest that you read that article, linked in the first paragraph...
Reactions? IS my idea completely out to lunch?
After reading the front-page article of the new edition regarding
Empire Theatres' plans for the Orleans region, I'm concerned about the future of the existing Orleans Town Cinema near Place d'Orleans.
I'm worried that it won't be permitted a future.
This would be a shame, given the opportunity to address a need - or
at least a good-sized want - for a decent repertory cinema complex
in the East End. Second-run films, art films of unusual subject matter
or length, first-run Canadian films that would otherwise not get any
chance at all outside of the First Weekend Club, all of these would be
available to Orleans audiences if the right financial supporters
were to step forward now to take the Orleans Town Cinema off of
Empire's hands.
It may be a pipe dream, but the Bytowne and Mayfair alone surely can't serve
the entire repertory market of the Ottawa region.
Reactions? IS my idea completely out to lunch?
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
One opinion on health care
In case anyone's wondering, this is strictly my own point of view here. It's quite possibly ill-informed, but it's all mine. And it's a bit of a rant. But since I once hailed from Tommy Douglas' neck of the prairies, the rant would perhaps be inevitable.
You can also blame it on reading reports like this one over the last few days.
I think that Drs. Brian Day and Robert Ouellet, the outgoing and incoming presidents of the Canadian Medical Association respectively, are wrong when it comes to the public-private argument over health care in Canada. There are real problems with their thinking.
Start with this: the idea proposed by Dr. Day that opponents of private-run health care in Canada "need a reality check" is itself in need of such.
If you're alive, you need health care services. This is not a negotiable item. No matter how careful you are, with your diet, with exercise, with risky (or "risky") behaviour on other fronts, something's going to happen to you sooner or later to medically complicate your life. And you're going to need help with it. The idea of having to either pay out of pocket up front everytime this happens, or working out a payment schedule or, in the extreme, flat out begging...should be offensive on principle to anyone with a brain.
(And yes, I'm leaving out optional items like cosmetic surgery to "enhance" specific regions of the anatomy. Unless you've been disfigured by accidents, genetic or otherwise, you're out of luck with me.)
As some of the people who posted responses to that CBC article I linked to above noted, the health care systems as we've known and built up over the decades since Douglas got the ball rolling in Saskatchewan has been shortchanged. Part of it was well-meaning, some of it was accidents of timing, some of it was deliberate attempts to roll back the societal clock.
Yes, there is only one group of people paying the bills for the system at the end of the day: us. All of us. It's going to be that way, no matter what we do about the situation. Do we really want to drive the cost of the system up even quicker than we already know it will, by way of creeping re-privatisation or parallel public-and-private(or some other label for it as yet unknown)?
I don't think so.
I can't afford it.
I don't think any of us can.
You can also blame it on reading reports like this one over the last few days.
I think that Drs. Brian Day and Robert Ouellet, the outgoing and incoming presidents of the Canadian Medical Association respectively, are wrong when it comes to the public-private argument over health care in Canada. There are real problems with their thinking.
Start with this: the idea proposed by Dr. Day that opponents of private-run health care in Canada "need a reality check" is itself in need of such.
If you're alive, you need health care services. This is not a negotiable item. No matter how careful you are, with your diet, with exercise, with risky (or "risky") behaviour on other fronts, something's going to happen to you sooner or later to medically complicate your life. And you're going to need help with it. The idea of having to either pay out of pocket up front everytime this happens, or working out a payment schedule or, in the extreme, flat out begging...should be offensive on principle to anyone with a brain.
(And yes, I'm leaving out optional items like cosmetic surgery to "enhance" specific regions of the anatomy. Unless you've been disfigured by accidents, genetic or otherwise, you're out of luck with me.)
As some of the people who posted responses to that CBC article I linked to above noted, the health care systems as we've known and built up over the decades since Douglas got the ball rolling in Saskatchewan has been shortchanged. Part of it was well-meaning, some of it was accidents of timing, some of it was deliberate attempts to roll back the societal clock.
Yes, there is only one group of people paying the bills for the system at the end of the day: us. All of us. It's going to be that way, no matter what we do about the situation. Do we really want to drive the cost of the system up even quicker than we already know it will, by way of creeping re-privatisation or parallel public-and-private(or some other label for it as yet unknown)?
I don't think so.
I can't afford it.
I don't think any of us can.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
The Hockey Night Theme Music: A Dissenting Opinion
This is just one of many opinions already voiced in disagreement with Justin - and many others for as many reasons, not all of which agree with his own thinking - on this subject.
I spoke of this earlier at one of my own blogs, before the word got out about CTV's efforts. Then, as now, I find the current state of affairs with regards to the Hockey Night in Canada theme music unacceptable. My reasons are largely not grounded in much logic of any kind. Certainly they're not grounded well in good business practice, past student of business administration that I've been.
My opinions of the three key parties in this...I don't know quite what to call it without jumping head-first into name-calling here...are just as ill-grounded in reason. CTV, CBC Sports, even Dolores Claman and her representatives...I am tempted to find fault with them all. Even knowing the pressures involved - or some of them - I am tempted. The logic for casting that kind of blame on each of them in turn would be easy to find.
Too easy.
But that would net me nothing I want. And what I want, with no more reason than selfish nostalgia, patriotic sentiments, whatever you like to call it, is to see that music restored to what my entire life from childhood onward tells me is its proper place: at the opening of HNiC.
It's reason enough.
I don't know how to act on it yet. But I hope to find the best way to that end.
I spoke of this earlier at one of my own blogs, before the word got out about CTV's efforts. Then, as now, I find the current state of affairs with regards to the Hockey Night in Canada theme music unacceptable. My reasons are largely not grounded in much logic of any kind. Certainly they're not grounded well in good business practice, past student of business administration that I've been.
My opinions of the three key parties in this...I don't know quite what to call it without jumping head-first into name-calling here...are just as ill-grounded in reason. CTV, CBC Sports, even Dolores Claman and her representatives...I am tempted to find fault with them all. Even knowing the pressures involved - or some of them - I am tempted. The logic for casting that kind of blame on each of them in turn would be easy to find.
Too easy.
But that would net me nothing I want. And what I want, with no more reason than selfish nostalgia, patriotic sentiments, whatever you like to call it, is to see that music restored to what my entire life from childhood onward tells me is its proper place: at the opening of HNiC.
It's reason enough.
I don't know how to act on it yet. But I hope to find the best way to that end.
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