Mary Soderstrom's Blog, page 97

Saturday Photo: Phantom Doves

Tbere are times when chance tells you more than you expect.  This was a busy weekend with the gang coming over on Saturday to decorate the tree, make pickled herring, make music and general have a good time.

Before they came, I put a decoration on the front door.  It was simple, just a couple of branches and some of our old, but favorite tree ornaments.  One of them is the dove that my sister sent as the Christmas card from her, her husband and her daughter Kris years and years ago.  I've always liked it, and place it somewhere in the house during the holiday season.

Laurie died 10 years ago suddenly just a few days after her 56th birthday.  I've been thinking of her a lot lately, since Elin had a chance to catch up with Kris when she was on the West Coast last month.  How very sad that Laurie didn't live to see her grandchildren.  What I'd give to be able to sit down with her and discuss how marvelous they are.

So I suppose that was on my mind when I put the dove on the branch and hung it on the door, and maybe even why I decided to take a picture of the decoration.  It was snowing and the camera apparently thought it was too dark, because subsequent snaps all tripped the flash.  This first one, though, shows the dove flying bravely, and in these sad days I'd like to think it's a hint at what we ought to be doing.

The question is: hint from whom?  Our better nature, if nothing else.

Good News on a Day That Is Full of Not So Good

I've always loved Oreos and thought that prophets of doom weren't looking in the right places.  Why do we need to invent the devil when we've got ourselves?  Why worry about the end of the world, as predicted by the Mayan calendar when we're raising the temperature so steadily?

But now it seems that the whole business is a marketing gimmick.  Or at least, the Mayan calendar looks an awful lot like an Oream cream sandwich. 

Maybe we should eat it, the way that serpent eats it tail, which is supposed to represent eternity....

Christmas is Coming, Herring Are Bought

Sophie wants to make sil, Swedish pickled herring, this Christmas so on Tuesday she, I and Thomas went to the Poissonerie Jean-Talon to buy salt herring. 

On Saturday the gang is coming over to decorate the tree, and she and I will do the honours in the fish.  It take a good week before the herring have pickled enough, so you have to begin early...

But that's part of the fun of Christmas, isn'it it?  All the anticipation and preparation...

Two of My Favourite Things: Recycling and Music

A perfectly wonderful video about music produced on instruments made from recycled materials by kids in a slum. A little like steel drum bands, but with a real classical bent.

Another Giant Falls: Oscar Niemeyer

This is a little bit late, but it took me a while to come to grips with Niemeyer. Still not sure about what he means in terms of urban planning, but he certainly was an original

When "Cheap Asian Labour" Isn't Enough--Robots Work for Even Less

Some big North American outfits are moving production back to this continent for various reasons.  Among them is the perceived need to shorten the supply line, but also because it's no longer as cheap in China, for example, as wages rise.

My reaction when I heard this was: hey, that's good.  Why shouldn't everyone have better wages, and if the Chinese have reached that point, more power to them.  Some of us remember when "Made in Japan" was synomous with "cheap." That hasn't been the case for decades, thanks to the intelligent way the Japanese managed their post-WW II recovery.

But it turns out that the story is much more comples because, in large part, of increasing robotization of manufacturing, according to The New York Times.  On Friday Catherine Rampell had a very intersting analysis of the situation. Relatively cheap energy costs in North America are part of the story, and so is the decreasing gap in wages. 

"Inflation-adjusted average wages in China, for example, more than tripled over the decade from 2000 to 2010, according to a report released Friday by the International Labor Organization," , she reports. On the other hand, "in the developed world, wages are just barely higher than they were in 2000. In the United States, other studies have shown that median household income is lower today than it was in 2000."

Yet the coup de grâce may well be coming from robots doing the work--and making the machines that make the machines that do the work.  As Paul Krugman says:  "...the most valuable piece of a computer, the motherboard, is basically made by robots, so cheap Asian labor is no longer a reason to produce them abroad." That's not an isolated case: "...similar stories are playing out in many fields, including services like translation and legal research. What’s striking about their examples is that many of the jobs being displaced are high-skill and high-wage; the downside of technology isn’t limited to menial workers."


This is not something new unders that sun. In 1817 the  economist David Ricardo  wrote that "the new, capital-intensive technologies of the Industrial Revolution could actually make workers worse off, at least for a while — which modern scholarship suggests may indeed have happened for several decades."

And that might well be what is happening here.  Be warned.  



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Saturday Photo: What Do You do When There's No Snow?

Skate, of course.  They've put up the boards in the outdoor rinks in the parks near us, but we're not ready for skating yet. But you can skate elsewhere.  The outdoor rink in Old Montreal opened a week ago, for example.

I took this pictures sometime ago in Toronto, which I find very gray in the winter.  Sure, it's warmer than Montreal, and their Bixi bikes are available all year round whereas our season ends November 15, but the lack of snow makes things pretty grim, I think.

Neverthless, a lone skater was out at 7:30 a.m. that Saturday morning, making lovely, solitary circles on the ice.

NPD Outremont Annual General Meeting Saturday

The NDP Outremont riding association will hold its Annual General Meeting beginning at 2 p.m. Saturday, December 8, in the café/bar La Grande Gueule, 5615 A, Côte-des -Neiges Road. (Metro Côte-des-Neiges, 165 Bus.) The entrance is by the door at 5611 Côte-des-Neiges.

The executive committee for 2013 will be elected at the meeting, and members of the current executive will present their reports. Coffee, soft drinks and tea will be served, and members can order beer and wine.

The posts to be filled include

Statutory positions:
President
Associate President
Treasurer
Secretary
Vice President for Organization
Vice President for Communications (
At least three women must be elected to these posts.)

2. Representatives to NDP Quebec Section commissions on cultural communities, women, youth and LGBTT. A person responsible for environmental issues is included in this group.

3. In addition, NDP Outremont welcomes persons who would like to work on specific issues as ad hoc members of the executive. 

Anniversay of the Poly Massacre: Not a Time to Think about Weakening Gun Control

"A monument was built to the young women not far from the site of the massacre, just off the university campus. ... There are benches around the edge the park, and a path down the middle with  several granite  blocks—waist high and not immediately identifiable as sculptures or tombstones—on either side of the path.  Arcing away from each granite block is a low curve of stone with what might be letters engraved on it.  A bronze plaque with a date—1964-1989 for example—is set in the earth at each place.  The last date is always 1989, but what is on the  granite varies.  It took Frances two visits before she deciphered the meaning. Each block is sliced in such a way that the shadow of a letter can be seen: A, or M or B....  Then as you stare, the pattern of dark and light, high and low, can be seen as letters, spelling out the name of one of the girls.  There and not there. In the earth, but not."

Take Five for Dave: Tribute to a Great Musican

This just in: Dave Brubeck dies at 91; This is a great version of the classic "Take Five" from a Montreal appearance four years ago when he was still going strong.