Jim Poling Sr.'s Blog, page 33
August 30, 2017
A Glamping We Will Go
My first thought was that it was a ludicrous notion.
Then I said to myself: “Get cool. Explore a new trend.”
And that’s how I got to go glamping.
Glamping is a growing new trend. The word, a combination of glamorous and camping, did not exist officially before 2006.
Traditional camping to most of us is pitching a tent or building a lean-to in the woods, preferably by a lake. You light a campfire, heat a can of pork and beans over it, wash your dishes in the lake and roll out a sleeping bag for the night.
Glamping is the same idea, except someone does the work for you. The glamour comes with meals that go beyond pork and beans, and luxury tents, sleeping cots and pillows instead of your rolled up blue jeans.
You pay for the luxury of course. And that is why I thought glamping was a silly idea. Why pay for an outdoor experience that you can create yourself at little or no cost?
My glamping trip gave me some insights. First, there are people who have never experienced outdoor camping. Glamping gives them the enjoyable experience without the travails that come with being inexperienced.
There also is the issue of time. Some folks want to experience Algonquin Park, but have limited time. It takes huge amounts of time to get and organize a canoe and accessories, tent, cooking and sleeping gear and food. On a glamping trip you simply arrive carrying your toothbrush.
The world-wide trend toward glamping has been attributed partially to the financial recession of the past decade. Vacation budgets have shrunk.
Also, terrorism has caused many vacationers to avoid urban vacations. Plus, growing concerns about climate change have created more interest in the outdoors and the desire to understand it better.
There are no reliable statistics on the growth of glamping. However, Google Trends reports searches for the term glamping have increased from almost nothing to millions.
The trend began in the United Kingdom where it remains extremely popular. North America and Australia are the two areas where glamping is really catching on.
Styles of glamping vary widely, from the basic Algonquin Park canoe and tent experience to stays in tree houses, tipis, gypsy wagons and log cabins offering luxury service and gourmet dining. One glamping site in Enniscrone, Ireland offers accommodation in a retired Boeing 767 or converted railway cars.
My glamping was with Algonquin Adventure Tours. The two-day trip began at Canoe Lake with a six-hour paddle around the lake. We visited some ruins of the former town of Mowat, watched painted turtles soaking up sun and paddled Whiskey Jack Bay in hopes of seeing a feeding moose.
In late afternoon we went to the campsite at Mew Lake Provincial Park where spacious tents had rug on the ground and comfortable cots. Our guide cooked a dinner of spaghetti with beef stew and cabbage salad served in a dining tent with plastic plates and utensils. The next morning he did blueberry pancakes with maple syrup and coffee.
After breakfast there was a three-hour bike ride along the old rail bed and it included a bit of nature study.
The cost was $300 per person. Included in that is the park entry and campsite fees.
The best part of the trip was the glampers themselves. They were intelligent and interesting folks who took to the experience with a positive attitude. One family from Portugal – mom, dad and eight-year-old boy – had never been in a canoe before.
There was an evening campfire of course at which we shared some of our thoughts and experiences.
All said, my glamping experience was good. It was not outrageously expensive for anyone who didn’t have time to field a traditional camping trip, or anyone with no camping experience.
The experience could have been tweaked to add more glamour with upgraded meals and better thought out canoe and bike outings with more context and history of the area. Little things that would send the glampers away saying “Wow that was great” instead of “Yeah, that was OK.”
Toasted marshmallows and S’mores were a campfire hit. Nice, but my preferred campfire treat is an Irish whiskey and a Cuban cigar.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
Then I said to myself: “Get cool. Explore a new trend.”
And that’s how I got to go glamping.
Glamping is a growing new trend. The word, a combination of glamorous and camping, did not exist officially before 2006.
Traditional camping to most of us is pitching a tent or building a lean-to in the woods, preferably by a lake. You light a campfire, heat a can of pork and beans over it, wash your dishes in the lake and roll out a sleeping bag for the night.
Glamping is the same idea, except someone does the work for you. The glamour comes with meals that go beyond pork and beans, and luxury tents, sleeping cots and pillows instead of your rolled up blue jeans.
You pay for the luxury of course. And that is why I thought glamping was a silly idea. Why pay for an outdoor experience that you can create yourself at little or no cost?
My glamping trip gave me some insights. First, there are people who have never experienced outdoor camping. Glamping gives them the enjoyable experience without the travails that come with being inexperienced.
There also is the issue of time. Some folks want to experience Algonquin Park, but have limited time. It takes huge amounts of time to get and organize a canoe and accessories, tent, cooking and sleeping gear and food. On a glamping trip you simply arrive carrying your toothbrush.
The world-wide trend toward glamping has been attributed partially to the financial recession of the past decade. Vacation budgets have shrunk.
Also, terrorism has caused many vacationers to avoid urban vacations. Plus, growing concerns about climate change have created more interest in the outdoors and the desire to understand it better.
There are no reliable statistics on the growth of glamping. However, Google Trends reports searches for the term glamping have increased from almost nothing to millions.
The trend began in the United Kingdom where it remains extremely popular. North America and Australia are the two areas where glamping is really catching on.
Styles of glamping vary widely, from the basic Algonquin Park canoe and tent experience to stays in tree houses, tipis, gypsy wagons and log cabins offering luxury service and gourmet dining. One glamping site in Enniscrone, Ireland offers accommodation in a retired Boeing 767 or converted railway cars.
My glamping was with Algonquin Adventure Tours. The two-day trip began at Canoe Lake with a six-hour paddle around the lake. We visited some ruins of the former town of Mowat, watched painted turtles soaking up sun and paddled Whiskey Jack Bay in hopes of seeing a feeding moose.
In late afternoon we went to the campsite at Mew Lake Provincial Park where spacious tents had rug on the ground and comfortable cots. Our guide cooked a dinner of spaghetti with beef stew and cabbage salad served in a dining tent with plastic plates and utensils. The next morning he did blueberry pancakes with maple syrup and coffee.
After breakfast there was a three-hour bike ride along the old rail bed and it included a bit of nature study.
The cost was $300 per person. Included in that is the park entry and campsite fees.
The best part of the trip was the glampers themselves. They were intelligent and interesting folks who took to the experience with a positive attitude. One family from Portugal – mom, dad and eight-year-old boy – had never been in a canoe before.
There was an evening campfire of course at which we shared some of our thoughts and experiences.
All said, my glamping experience was good. It was not outrageously expensive for anyone who didn’t have time to field a traditional camping trip, or anyone with no camping experience.
The experience could have been tweaked to add more glamour with upgraded meals and better thought out canoe and bike outings with more context and history of the area. Little things that would send the glampers away saying “Wow that was great” instead of “Yeah, that was OK.”
Toasted marshmallows and S’mores were a campfire hit. Nice, but my preferred campfire treat is an Irish whiskey and a Cuban cigar.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
August 17, 2017
A Debate Too Shallow
It is disheartening how we Canadians manage to turn interesting and important debates into spiteful squabbles. We toss emotion and hard core bias onto the path toward the clarity needed for understanding.
The latest example is the foggy but vicious debate over ‘cultural appropriation.’
Cultural appropriation has been a vigorously debated issue worldwide for decades. It erupted again in Canada earlier this year in the writing community and cost some people their jobs.
Cultural appropriation can be defined as using another culture’s intellectual property, knowledge, expressions or artifacts for your own purposes.
One side of the debate argues that it is wrong for a writer to write about experiences from another culture. The argument is that minority cultures should speak for themselves and not be seen through the eyes of a majority culture.
The opposite view is that writers should be free to write whatever they like, and that writing about different cultures can build knowledge and understanding of a minority.
This past spring Write magazine, the publication of the Writers’ Union of Canada, published an editorial defending cultural appropriation. It said there is nothing wrong with writers incorporating myths, oral histories, sacred practices and so forth from other cultures. The editorial also suggested an ‘Appropriation Prize’ for the best book by an author writing about people very different from herself or himself.
Controversy exploded on social media. The backlash, likely intensified by the suggestion of an Appropriation Prize, forced the Write editor to resign. The editor of The Walrus magazine also was forced out because he tweeted his support for the Write article. The managing editor of CBC’s The National news program was reassigned for sending a supporting tweet.
What should have been an intelligent debate was turned obtuse by runaway political correctness. Outrage took the place of clear-headed thinking.
Thoughtful discussion could have shown how cultural appropriation can indeed be racist and hurtful, but how it also can help us to understand and accept other cultures.
Back in the 1950s white radio stations refused to play what they considered ‘race music.’ This was the rock n’ roll music of black artists such as Chuck Berry. When that music was appropriated by white guys like Bill Haley and Elvis Presley it became sensationally popular.
Certainly those white folks benefitted financially and otherwise by appropriating the music of black people. However, that music helped to build understanding and acceptance of black culture.
A current Canadian example is found in the controversy surrounding Joseph Boyden, author of best sellers Three Day Road, Through Black Spruce and The Orenda.Boyden is an excellent writer who has achieved much success. However, there has been criticism that his success results from cultural appropriation – taking Indigenous stories and experiences for his own gain.
Much of his success came from using Indigenous history and stories. One side of the debate says this is wrong because he is a white guy writing about native people from a white perspective. The other view is: so what, he is helping to bridge the gap between the Indigenous community and the rest of Canadians.
Complicating this is Boyden’s claim to be an Indigenous person. He has won aboriginal writing prizes, and received other benefits based on his claim of Indigenous heritage.He has no conclusive proof, however, that he has any Indigenous blood. Critics say that therefore he is simply a wannabe Indigenous who has received money and other rewards that should have gone to genuine Indigenous writers.
The Boyden case gives us one fairly easily reached conclusion about cultural appropriation: If you can’t conclusively prove you are part of a cultural group you shouldn’t promote your writing or art by saying or pretending you are.
Meanwhile, the latest general debate over cultural appropriation has been far too quick and shallow. It deserves deeper, more reasoned debate and discussion of important questions.
For instance, should minority cultures be walled off to ensure people from other cultures can’t get in? And, does walling off a culture in the name of protecting it actually lead to denial of equal rights, universal values and equal opportunities?I, for one, would like to hear a broader, more reasoned discussion before coming to any conclusions.
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Read From Shaman’s Rock: www.mindentimes.ca/columns
The latest example is the foggy but vicious debate over ‘cultural appropriation.’
Cultural appropriation has been a vigorously debated issue worldwide for decades. It erupted again in Canada earlier this year in the writing community and cost some people their jobs.
Cultural appropriation can be defined as using another culture’s intellectual property, knowledge, expressions or artifacts for your own purposes.
One side of the debate argues that it is wrong for a writer to write about experiences from another culture. The argument is that minority cultures should speak for themselves and not be seen through the eyes of a majority culture.
The opposite view is that writers should be free to write whatever they like, and that writing about different cultures can build knowledge and understanding of a minority.
This past spring Write magazine, the publication of the Writers’ Union of Canada, published an editorial defending cultural appropriation. It said there is nothing wrong with writers incorporating myths, oral histories, sacred practices and so forth from other cultures. The editorial also suggested an ‘Appropriation Prize’ for the best book by an author writing about people very different from herself or himself.
Controversy exploded on social media. The backlash, likely intensified by the suggestion of an Appropriation Prize, forced the Write editor to resign. The editor of The Walrus magazine also was forced out because he tweeted his support for the Write article. The managing editor of CBC’s The National news program was reassigned for sending a supporting tweet.
What should have been an intelligent debate was turned obtuse by runaway political correctness. Outrage took the place of clear-headed thinking.
Thoughtful discussion could have shown how cultural appropriation can indeed be racist and hurtful, but how it also can help us to understand and accept other cultures.
Back in the 1950s white radio stations refused to play what they considered ‘race music.’ This was the rock n’ roll music of black artists such as Chuck Berry. When that music was appropriated by white guys like Bill Haley and Elvis Presley it became sensationally popular.
Certainly those white folks benefitted financially and otherwise by appropriating the music of black people. However, that music helped to build understanding and acceptance of black culture.
A current Canadian example is found in the controversy surrounding Joseph Boyden, author of best sellers Three Day Road, Through Black Spruce and The Orenda.Boyden is an excellent writer who has achieved much success. However, there has been criticism that his success results from cultural appropriation – taking Indigenous stories and experiences for his own gain.
Much of his success came from using Indigenous history and stories. One side of the debate says this is wrong because he is a white guy writing about native people from a white perspective. The other view is: so what, he is helping to bridge the gap between the Indigenous community and the rest of Canadians.
Complicating this is Boyden’s claim to be an Indigenous person. He has won aboriginal writing prizes, and received other benefits based on his claim of Indigenous heritage.He has no conclusive proof, however, that he has any Indigenous blood. Critics say that therefore he is simply a wannabe Indigenous who has received money and other rewards that should have gone to genuine Indigenous writers.
The Boyden case gives us one fairly easily reached conclusion about cultural appropriation: If you can’t conclusively prove you are part of a cultural group you shouldn’t promote your writing or art by saying or pretending you are.
Meanwhile, the latest general debate over cultural appropriation has been far too quick and shallow. It deserves deeper, more reasoned debate and discussion of important questions.
For instance, should minority cultures be walled off to ensure people from other cultures can’t get in? And, does walling off a culture in the name of protecting it actually lead to denial of equal rights, universal values and equal opportunities?I, for one, would like to hear a broader, more reasoned discussion before coming to any conclusions.
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Read From Shaman’s Rock: www.mindentimes.ca/columns
August 10, 2017
Personalities Versus The News
The era of the personality cult finally appears to be ended at CBC’s The National.
The daily 10 p.m. news program will replace, as expected, the saintly but boring Peter Mansbridge with four anchors. The hope is that the change brings a much overdue freshness to the failing newscast.
The Mansbridge personality cult ended earlier this summer with the man’s retirement as chief news anchor after 29 years. During those three decades The National’s credibility, and its audience, sank steadily.
The National viewership over the last year averaged 866,000 compared with 1.3 million for the CTV National News.
Alternating four anchors carries risks, but risks are needed for The National to have any hope of regaining its former stature. The National has been with us in one form or another since the early 1950s.
The chosen four all carry journalistic credentials, which in recent years CBC has considered less important than high profile personalities. Mansbridge had no serious journalistic qualifications while other stars such as Amanda Lang, Rex Murphy, Jian Ghomeshi and Evan Solomon, got themselves into pickles by forgetting that straight, unbiased reporting takes precedence over being seen as a star.
Both Adrienne Arsenault, the CBC’s senior correspondent, and Rosemary Barton, host of Power and Politics, have excellent journalistic credentials. Ian Hanomansing, often seen anchoring on CBC, and Andrew Chang, a CBC Vancouver local news anchor, have journalistic experience but are viewed more as presenters.
Chang will anchor from Vancouver, Barton from Ottawa and Arsenault and Hanomansing from Toronto. The CBC brass says the anchors will take turns reporting from the field.
CBC news chief Jennifer McGuire says The National will have more digital focus, whatever that means, plus more original journalism, insight and analysis. The Toronto journalistic literati chimes in with other thoughts on what is needed: background, context, investigative reporting.
Those are all clichés and weary buzzwords that the journalism elite have been using for years.
The National, and most other news outfits, need a new journalism that tells people more besides something has happened. People know something happened immediately after it happens. They get it from hundreds of news sources: Twitter, Facebook, other Internet sources, radio, television, newspapers, word of mouth.
They need to know how what happened connects with their lives and what it says about the society in which they are living.
An important need for The National, and much of Canadian journalism in general, is diversity. Not diversity in such things as colour, nationality and sex. We are a reasonably advanced and tolerant society moving forward in understanding diversity in race and sexual orientation. What we are lacking is knowledge and understanding related to our geographic diversity.
Our national news media is not reporting enough on how people in the regions are living their lives. What are their successes, aspirations, troubles and fears? What are their stories and how do they relate to our overall society?
News media spending cutbacks have created huge black news holes across Canada. Knowledge and understanding of other regions are sinking like houses consumed by a Florida sinkhole.
Local news operations, notably the weekly newspapers, are covering their communities but national outfits such as news services, TV and radio networks and the larger dailies have cut back cross-country coverage. Too much news focus today is on the urban areas, particularly Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Montreal. We need to know more about the lives of people in less urban areas such as Nelson, B.C., Biggar, Saskatchewan and Oromocto, New Brunswick.
Diversifying its anchor team is a good first step toward The National returning to prominence. Hopefully the anchors and their news teams will follow the simple rules for news gathering excellence: Be curious and ask simple questions without being obnoxious or putting yourself into the spotlight. Observe and report clearly without bias.
Those are the traits of the best journalists I have encountered. Interestingly, many of those have come from the Atlantic provinces where personality cults appear to be less important. Maritimers and Newfoundlanders have a “down home” way of recognizing a good story and knowing how to tell it.
The National could use a bit of that.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
The daily 10 p.m. news program will replace, as expected, the saintly but boring Peter Mansbridge with four anchors. The hope is that the change brings a much overdue freshness to the failing newscast.
The Mansbridge personality cult ended earlier this summer with the man’s retirement as chief news anchor after 29 years. During those three decades The National’s credibility, and its audience, sank steadily.
The National viewership over the last year averaged 866,000 compared with 1.3 million for the CTV National News.
Alternating four anchors carries risks, but risks are needed for The National to have any hope of regaining its former stature. The National has been with us in one form or another since the early 1950s.
The chosen four all carry journalistic credentials, which in recent years CBC has considered less important than high profile personalities. Mansbridge had no serious journalistic qualifications while other stars such as Amanda Lang, Rex Murphy, Jian Ghomeshi and Evan Solomon, got themselves into pickles by forgetting that straight, unbiased reporting takes precedence over being seen as a star.Both Adrienne Arsenault, the CBC’s senior correspondent, and Rosemary Barton, host of Power and Politics, have excellent journalistic credentials. Ian Hanomansing, often seen anchoring on CBC, and Andrew Chang, a CBC Vancouver local news anchor, have journalistic experience but are viewed more as presenters.
Chang will anchor from Vancouver, Barton from Ottawa and Arsenault and Hanomansing from Toronto. The CBC brass says the anchors will take turns reporting from the field.
CBC news chief Jennifer McGuire says The National will have more digital focus, whatever that means, plus more original journalism, insight and analysis. The Toronto journalistic literati chimes in with other thoughts on what is needed: background, context, investigative reporting.
Those are all clichés and weary buzzwords that the journalism elite have been using for years.
The National, and most other news outfits, need a new journalism that tells people more besides something has happened. People know something happened immediately after it happens. They get it from hundreds of news sources: Twitter, Facebook, other Internet sources, radio, television, newspapers, word of mouth.
They need to know how what happened connects with their lives and what it says about the society in which they are living.
An important need for The National, and much of Canadian journalism in general, is diversity. Not diversity in such things as colour, nationality and sex. We are a reasonably advanced and tolerant society moving forward in understanding diversity in race and sexual orientation. What we are lacking is knowledge and understanding related to our geographic diversity.
Our national news media is not reporting enough on how people in the regions are living their lives. What are their successes, aspirations, troubles and fears? What are their stories and how do they relate to our overall society?
News media spending cutbacks have created huge black news holes across Canada. Knowledge and understanding of other regions are sinking like houses consumed by a Florida sinkhole.
Local news operations, notably the weekly newspapers, are covering their communities but national outfits such as news services, TV and radio networks and the larger dailies have cut back cross-country coverage. Too much news focus today is on the urban areas, particularly Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Montreal. We need to know more about the lives of people in less urban areas such as Nelson, B.C., Biggar, Saskatchewan and Oromocto, New Brunswick.
Diversifying its anchor team is a good first step toward The National returning to prominence. Hopefully the anchors and their news teams will follow the simple rules for news gathering excellence: Be curious and ask simple questions without being obnoxious or putting yourself into the spotlight. Observe and report clearly without bias.
Those are the traits of the best journalists I have encountered. Interestingly, many of those have come from the Atlantic provinces where personality cults appear to be less important. Maritimers and Newfoundlanders have a “down home” way of recognizing a good story and knowing how to tell it.
The National could use a bit of that.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
August 3, 2017
Is Innovation Overrated?
This was to be the summer of innovation at the lake.
Long desired transformations would bring the place into the modern age. Wi-Fi cameras to monitor security and to keep an eye tuned for any damage from the latest storm. Electronic peeks from afar to see the depth of snow gathered on the roof.
Wi-Fi thermostats to turn up the heat so the place is cozy on arrival. And Wi-Fi controls to unlock doors for children et al who forget their cottage keys.
None of that innovation took place. Other things got in the way, like fixing a broken septic pipe, and keeping roof gutters clear and water courses flowing freely in the record rains. And, of course, dealing with downed trees and wave-battered docks.
Instead of a summer of innovating, it was a summer of patching up.
As summer now shifts into autumn, a realization dawns. It is a light-bulb moment being experienced by more and more of North American society: Is modern day innovation overrated? Does it deserve the veneration we pile upon it?
Our society worships innovation and abhors maintenance. We treat innovation as an unquestionably important value like goodness and love.
That despite the fact that a far bigger chunk of our time is spent maintaining and fixing existing things than designing new things. There are studies that show 70 per cent of engineers work on overseeing and maintaining things and not inventing them.
Yet our society honours the inventor-innovators far more than fixer-maintainers. We celebrate Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell and other white-collar wizards as heroes. We pay them the really big bucks, dress them in suits and ties and assign them higher social status. We see them as artists who make our lives more efficient.
Meanwhile, the maintainers – the plumbers, electricians, mechanics and janitors – wear workaday clothes, earn less and generally have less social status. They keep our world humming but we consider their efforts run-of-the-mill work.
We have given innovation a venerable place on the altar of change. Seldom do we question hard an innovation’s real value - who it benefits, exactly how and at what cost?
For instance, studies have shown that the medical community often overestimates the benefits of disease-screening tests while underestimating their potential harm. It is an example of our tendency to put much hope and faith in innovations while not asking enough tough questions.
The world arms race is another example. Innovations in technology have made possible targeted kills instead of massive invasion or widespread bombing. Thousands of lives are saved through pinpoint strikes. Another result, however, is an ever-increasing arms race in which more countries try to develop or obtain more innovative weapons.
A more down home example comes from the American historian Ruth Schwartz Cowan. She has written that in the past couple hundred years technological change has shifted the burden of domestic labour from adult men and children to mothers and wives.
Washing machines and vacuum cleaners, she writes, “which promised to save labour, literally created more work for mother as cleanliness standards rose, leaving women perpetually unable to keep up.”
Politicians contribute much to sustaining the reverence for innovation. It is much easier to lure voters with the shiny and the new rather than the dull and practical. Announcement of a new bridge sells much better than repairing of an old, rusty one.
Also, one way to hold government budgets in check is to follow the ancient saying: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Much of North America’s infrastructure – roads, dams, bridges – is suffering from lack of preventive maintenance. Too much of the maintenance we see now is simply reactive – fixing something already broken.
There is a growing movement saying that society can be much better served by putting more emphasis on preventive maintenance and giving less adulation to innovation.
Innovations at the lake, meanwhile, remain on hold. Maybe it’s better that way. We’ve gone years without the electronic wizardry and perhaps we are better off without it. Besides do we really need something else that needs to be maintained?
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
Long desired transformations would bring the place into the modern age. Wi-Fi cameras to monitor security and to keep an eye tuned for any damage from the latest storm. Electronic peeks from afar to see the depth of snow gathered on the roof.
Wi-Fi thermostats to turn up the heat so the place is cozy on arrival. And Wi-Fi controls to unlock doors for children et al who forget their cottage keys.
None of that innovation took place. Other things got in the way, like fixing a broken septic pipe, and keeping roof gutters clear and water courses flowing freely in the record rains. And, of course, dealing with downed trees and wave-battered docks.
Instead of a summer of innovating, it was a summer of patching up.
As summer now shifts into autumn, a realization dawns. It is a light-bulb moment being experienced by more and more of North American society: Is modern day innovation overrated? Does it deserve the veneration we pile upon it?
Our society worships innovation and abhors maintenance. We treat innovation as an unquestionably important value like goodness and love.
That despite the fact that a far bigger chunk of our time is spent maintaining and fixing existing things than designing new things. There are studies that show 70 per cent of engineers work on overseeing and maintaining things and not inventing them.
Yet our society honours the inventor-innovators far more than fixer-maintainers. We celebrate Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell and other white-collar wizards as heroes. We pay them the really big bucks, dress them in suits and ties and assign them higher social status. We see them as artists who make our lives more efficient.
Meanwhile, the maintainers – the plumbers, electricians, mechanics and janitors – wear workaday clothes, earn less and generally have less social status. They keep our world humming but we consider their efforts run-of-the-mill work.
We have given innovation a venerable place on the altar of change. Seldom do we question hard an innovation’s real value - who it benefits, exactly how and at what cost?
For instance, studies have shown that the medical community often overestimates the benefits of disease-screening tests while underestimating their potential harm. It is an example of our tendency to put much hope and faith in innovations while not asking enough tough questions.
The world arms race is another example. Innovations in technology have made possible targeted kills instead of massive invasion or widespread bombing. Thousands of lives are saved through pinpoint strikes. Another result, however, is an ever-increasing arms race in which more countries try to develop or obtain more innovative weapons.
A more down home example comes from the American historian Ruth Schwartz Cowan. She has written that in the past couple hundred years technological change has shifted the burden of domestic labour from adult men and children to mothers and wives.
Washing machines and vacuum cleaners, she writes, “which promised to save labour, literally created more work for mother as cleanliness standards rose, leaving women perpetually unable to keep up.”
Politicians contribute much to sustaining the reverence for innovation. It is much easier to lure voters with the shiny and the new rather than the dull and practical. Announcement of a new bridge sells much better than repairing of an old, rusty one.
Also, one way to hold government budgets in check is to follow the ancient saying: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Much of North America’s infrastructure – roads, dams, bridges – is suffering from lack of preventive maintenance. Too much of the maintenance we see now is simply reactive – fixing something already broken.
There is a growing movement saying that society can be much better served by putting more emphasis on preventive maintenance and giving less adulation to innovation.
Innovations at the lake, meanwhile, remain on hold. Maybe it’s better that way. We’ve gone years without the electronic wizardry and perhaps we are better off without it. Besides do we really need something else that needs to be maintained?
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
July 20, 2017
Mother Nature Fights Back
‘Don’t mess with Mother Nature’ used to be a cute and humorous expression. Not these says. Too often now we witness how an angry Mother Nature fights back.
Here in Haliburton County extreme rainfalls and damaging winds are becoming more frequent. In the past month a small tornado flattened dozens of trees on my bush lot on Highway 35. Days later another violent storm closed Highway 117 and damaged properties between Baysville and Dorset.
Haliburton rainfall from April 1 to mid-July totalled more than 550 millimetres, just shy of two feet. That is more than double the average for the same period.
Across North America record high temperature days are increasing while the frost-free season is 10 days shorter than it was 100 years ago.
A recent article in New York magazine says there has been a 50-fold increase since 1980 of the number of locations suffering extreme or dangerous heat. The historically warmest summers in Europe have been in the last 15 years.
Daily headlines report environmental disasters created by weather extremes. A piece of Antarctica ice the size of Prince Edward Island breaks away. Wildfires threaten huge parts of the U.S. West. Williams Lake, B.C. is being evacuated because of fires. Last summer it was Fort McMurray, Alberta.
More fires, floods, droughts and tornados prove without question that we have a major climate change problem. Crazy Donnie, the U.S. president, says it’s all a hoax - fake news - but most people just ignore him now.
"We’ve got to move past getting a consensus that the world is warming,” Professor Adam Switzer of the Asian School of the Environment noted recently. “That consensus is done."
Scientists report that between 1880 and 2017 the earth has warmed two degrees Fahrenheit. More warming, many warn, will weaken the world’s ability to support life. Some believe that a mass extinction already has begun.
Earth has had five major mass extinctions in which 50 to 90 per cent of all species were killed off. A review of data from 14 biodiversity research centres predicts that 15 to 37 per cent of all land species could be on their way to extinction by 2050.
Drought, which brings severe food shortages, which in turn bring violent conflicts, now affects 70 million people in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia, says The Famine Early Warning Systems Network.
Ironically, while millions suffer from drought, a major concern is rising water levels. Sea levels have been rising 3.4 millimeters a year since 1993, according to some studies, making for a total rise over 20 years of six to eight centimetres.
The rise is complicating, and might threaten, the lives of millions of people living in low-lying coastal cities. One-third of world major cities are on the coast and an estimated 600 million people live within 10 meters of sea level today.
An immediate concern in all this is how increasingly hotter weather affects how humans treat each other.
Too much heat turns people ugly. Studies have shown there is more violent crime when temperatures reach 35 Celsius than when they are 23C. Posts on social media tend to get nastier as outside temperatures rise.
Canadians probably have more reason to worry about climate change than people in some other parts of the world. Canadian temperatures have been warming at roughly double the global mean rate, according to Environment Canada.
“A two degrees Celsius increase globally means a three to four degrees Celsius increase for Canada,” says an EC website.
Unlike Crazy Donnie, the Canadian federal government is unequivocal about global warming, saying: “Warming over the 20th century is indisputable and largely due to human activities.”
Much of our Canadian concern is over the Arctic. Our Arctic ice has been diminishing over the past three decades, adding significantly to the rise in the world’s oceans.
Permafrost is melting across the Arctic, destabilizing buildings built on stilts sunk five or six metres. Construction crews now drill as deep as 20 metres to get a stable foundation.
There is concern that Arctic melting will accelerate, eliminating more permafrost and creating more serious problems.
Good news: awareness of weather problems is increasing and more people are working to find solutions.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
Here in Haliburton County extreme rainfalls and damaging winds are becoming more frequent. In the past month a small tornado flattened dozens of trees on my bush lot on Highway 35. Days later another violent storm closed Highway 117 and damaged properties between Baysville and Dorset.
Haliburton rainfall from April 1 to mid-July totalled more than 550 millimetres, just shy of two feet. That is more than double the average for the same period.
Across North America record high temperature days are increasing while the frost-free season is 10 days shorter than it was 100 years ago.
A recent article in New York magazine says there has been a 50-fold increase since 1980 of the number of locations suffering extreme or dangerous heat. The historically warmest summers in Europe have been in the last 15 years.
Daily headlines report environmental disasters created by weather extremes. A piece of Antarctica ice the size of Prince Edward Island breaks away. Wildfires threaten huge parts of the U.S. West. Williams Lake, B.C. is being evacuated because of fires. Last summer it was Fort McMurray, Alberta.
More fires, floods, droughts and tornados prove without question that we have a major climate change problem. Crazy Donnie, the U.S. president, says it’s all a hoax - fake news - but most people just ignore him now.
"We’ve got to move past getting a consensus that the world is warming,” Professor Adam Switzer of the Asian School of the Environment noted recently. “That consensus is done."
Scientists report that between 1880 and 2017 the earth has warmed two degrees Fahrenheit. More warming, many warn, will weaken the world’s ability to support life. Some believe that a mass extinction already has begun.
Earth has had five major mass extinctions in which 50 to 90 per cent of all species were killed off. A review of data from 14 biodiversity research centres predicts that 15 to 37 per cent of all land species could be on their way to extinction by 2050.
Drought, which brings severe food shortages, which in turn bring violent conflicts, now affects 70 million people in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia, says The Famine Early Warning Systems Network.
Ironically, while millions suffer from drought, a major concern is rising water levels. Sea levels have been rising 3.4 millimeters a year since 1993, according to some studies, making for a total rise over 20 years of six to eight centimetres.
The rise is complicating, and might threaten, the lives of millions of people living in low-lying coastal cities. One-third of world major cities are on the coast and an estimated 600 million people live within 10 meters of sea level today.
An immediate concern in all this is how increasingly hotter weather affects how humans treat each other.
Too much heat turns people ugly. Studies have shown there is more violent crime when temperatures reach 35 Celsius than when they are 23C. Posts on social media tend to get nastier as outside temperatures rise.
Canadians probably have more reason to worry about climate change than people in some other parts of the world. Canadian temperatures have been warming at roughly double the global mean rate, according to Environment Canada.
“A two degrees Celsius increase globally means a three to four degrees Celsius increase for Canada,” says an EC website.
Unlike Crazy Donnie, the Canadian federal government is unequivocal about global warming, saying: “Warming over the 20th century is indisputable and largely due to human activities.”
Much of our Canadian concern is over the Arctic. Our Arctic ice has been diminishing over the past three decades, adding significantly to the rise in the world’s oceans.
Permafrost is melting across the Arctic, destabilizing buildings built on stilts sunk five or six metres. Construction crews now drill as deep as 20 metres to get a stable foundation.
There is concern that Arctic melting will accelerate, eliminating more permafrost and creating more serious problems.
Good news: awareness of weather problems is increasing and more people are working to find solutions.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
July 13, 2017
'It's Tom Thomson!'
One hundred years ago this week a vacationing Toronto doctor was relaxing at his rented cottage on Algonquin Park’s Canoe Lake . He looked out over the water and noticed an odd piece of flotsam.
The flotsam was hard to distinguish, but a canoe with two paddlers was passing by so he hollered for them to check it out. The paddlers were park guides George Rowe and Larry Dickson, and at first glance the flotsam appeared to be an animal carcass.
As they approached the object, the doctor, G. W. Howland, a neurologist at the University of Toronto, heard one of the guides shout: “It’s the body of a man.”
That was followed quickly by: “It’s Tom Thomson!”
It was July 16, 1917 and the discovery of the body was the beginning of The Great Canadian Mystery.
Tom Thomson was a commercial artist who fell in love with the Algonquin wilderness. He canoed it, fished it and painted it before dying just short of his 40thbirthday. He is Canada’s most famous landscape artist and inspired the Group of Seven movement after his death.
Thomson had gone fishing alone the late morning or early afternoon of July 8. It was the day following a late night drinking party during which Thomson is said to have had a heated argument with Martin Bletcher Jr., a German-American summer resident at the lake. The argument apparently was about the war with Germany.
Thomson was not seen after he left for fishing and the next day his distinctive dove grey canoe was found floating empty in the lake. A land search was begun because Thomson was an expert canoeist and strong swimmer. The theory was the canoe had tipped and he swam to shore, or that he was on shore and the canoe had drifted away.
The guides Rowe and Dickson towed the body to Big Wapomeo Island, left it in the water but tied it to shore. This was a common practice to slow decomposition while a coroner travelled from outside the Park.
By the next day the coroner still had not arrived and the body was rotting in the July sun. It was decided that Dr. Howland would examine the body without waiting longer for the coroner, and write a report so Thomson could be buried.
There was a quickly-arranged funeral attended by Thomson’s friends, park staff, guides and staff and guests at Mowat Lodge, a summer vacation place on the lake. The body was buried in a small cemetery in the woods behind the lake.
The coroner arrived after the funeral, held an inquest and ruled the death an accidental drowning. It was noted that Thomson had a bruise on his left temple and blood in his right ear, indicating he had fallen or been struck before entering the water and drowning.
The Thomson family, when told of the burial, said Tom should be buried at home at Leith near Owen Sound and arranged for an undertaker to go to Canoe Lake, dig up the body and ship it home.
The undertaker arrived at night. There was speculation that he dug a little, tired, then quit and shipped an empty coffin.
In the 1950s some cottagers and their visitors went to the little cemetery and began digging for Thomson’s body to prove it was still there. They exhumed a skull and bones which forensic testing showed belonged to an indigenous man.
To this day arguments continue over how Thomson died and where he is buried. Books have been written, films have been made but all are based on speculation. No one really knows how Thomson died or where he is buried.
The Thomson family always said the coffin that arrived home contained the body of their son and brother. They always refused, and rightly so, to have it exhumed to settle the arguments once and for all.
Meanwhile, there also are theories that Thomson was murdered, perhaps the result of bad blood between he and Bletcher. Or by someone else for other reasons.
My view is in my 2003 book Tom Thomson: The Life and Mysterious Death of the Famous Canadian Painter. An updated version will be released by Formac Publishing this coming fall.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
The flotsam was hard to distinguish, but a canoe with two paddlers was passing by so he hollered for them to check it out. The paddlers were park guides George Rowe and Larry Dickson, and at first glance the flotsam appeared to be an animal carcass.
As they approached the object, the doctor, G. W. Howland, a neurologist at the University of Toronto, heard one of the guides shout: “It’s the body of a man.”
That was followed quickly by: “It’s Tom Thomson!”
It was July 16, 1917 and the discovery of the body was the beginning of The Great Canadian Mystery.
Tom Thomson was a commercial artist who fell in love with the Algonquin wilderness. He canoed it, fished it and painted it before dying just short of his 40thbirthday. He is Canada’s most famous landscape artist and inspired the Group of Seven movement after his death.
Thomson had gone fishing alone the late morning or early afternoon of July 8. It was the day following a late night drinking party during which Thomson is said to have had a heated argument with Martin Bletcher Jr., a German-American summer resident at the lake. The argument apparently was about the war with Germany.
Thomson was not seen after he left for fishing and the next day his distinctive dove grey canoe was found floating empty in the lake. A land search was begun because Thomson was an expert canoeist and strong swimmer. The theory was the canoe had tipped and he swam to shore, or that he was on shore and the canoe had drifted away.
The guides Rowe and Dickson towed the body to Big Wapomeo Island, left it in the water but tied it to shore. This was a common practice to slow decomposition while a coroner travelled from outside the Park.
By the next day the coroner still had not arrived and the body was rotting in the July sun. It was decided that Dr. Howland would examine the body without waiting longer for the coroner, and write a report so Thomson could be buried.
There was a quickly-arranged funeral attended by Thomson’s friends, park staff, guides and staff and guests at Mowat Lodge, a summer vacation place on the lake. The body was buried in a small cemetery in the woods behind the lake.
The coroner arrived after the funeral, held an inquest and ruled the death an accidental drowning. It was noted that Thomson had a bruise on his left temple and blood in his right ear, indicating he had fallen or been struck before entering the water and drowning.
The Thomson family, when told of the burial, said Tom should be buried at home at Leith near Owen Sound and arranged for an undertaker to go to Canoe Lake, dig up the body and ship it home.
The undertaker arrived at night. There was speculation that he dug a little, tired, then quit and shipped an empty coffin.
In the 1950s some cottagers and their visitors went to the little cemetery and began digging for Thomson’s body to prove it was still there. They exhumed a skull and bones which forensic testing showed belonged to an indigenous man.
To this day arguments continue over how Thomson died and where he is buried. Books have been written, films have been made but all are based on speculation. No one really knows how Thomson died or where he is buried.
The Thomson family always said the coffin that arrived home contained the body of their son and brother. They always refused, and rightly so, to have it exhumed to settle the arguments once and for all.
Meanwhile, there also are theories that Thomson was murdered, perhaps the result of bad blood between he and Bletcher. Or by someone else for other reasons.
My view is in my 2003 book Tom Thomson: The Life and Mysterious Death of the Famous Canadian Painter. An updated version will be released by Formac Publishing this coming fall.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
July 12, 2017
The Lab Who Wouldn't Swim
I’ll never forget Canada Day 2017. It was the day Louie learned to swim.
Louie is my 14-month-old great-granddog. He is a chocolate Labrador Retriever, a water dog who feared the water. A Lab afraid of the water?
On his first visit Louie loped down to the dock and stared out over the lake. We figured he was anxious to begin fetching, so someone tossed a tennis ball into the water.
Louie pranced anxiously, peered nervously over the dock edge and waited for the ball to float into his reach. More tosses, same reaction. He quivered with excitement over wanting to fetch, but wanted nothing to do with the water.
We got him to wade up to his knees along the shore. He seemed to like that but whenever the ball was tossed he stretched to get it, but would not swim for it.
At one point he stretched too far and slipped off the rocks. We figured that was it. He was in and had broken the ice, so to speak. However, within seconds his panic became apparent and I wondered if someone would have to dive in to rescue him.
He thrashed his paws and his eyes filled with panic until his feet hit bottom. Wading with him, then swimming to show him how it is done had little effect. Louie was terrified of getting in over his head.
Labs always have been part of life at Shaman’s Rock. Gussie, a neighbour’s Lab, used to come to our deck at 7 a.m. with a ball in his mouth and stare up at my bedroom door until I came down and threw the ball for him.
Moose, an aging chocolate Lab on the other side of our place, still pesters people to toss balls and sticks so he can swim to get them.
Emma, my son’s chocolate Lab, exhausted people until they refused to toss for her. So she would take her ball to the dock, play with it in her paws until it flew off into the lake, then would dive in after it. She spent hours doing that.
So it seemed impossible that we now had a family Lab who was afraid of the water.
Some dogs are not built to swim. Bulldogs and dachshunds, for instance, have short legs that cannot provide the thrust needed for swimming.
Labs, however, have long, strong legs and over decades have been bred to retrieve. Swimming is in their DNA.
Dogs have distinct individual personalities and some develop phobias. Louie is a cautious dog; not one to do anything reckless. It was apparent he was not going to go in water over his head without some training.
My grandson Robert and his partner Laura got Louie a life vest and took him to a doggie pool where they could swim beside him.
When Louie returned to visit on Canada Day weekend the big question was whether he would take to the water. He pranced about the dock, stretching to reach sticks tossed for him but would not jump in after them.
At one point he became so excited about getting the stick that he fell off the dock into the water. He grabbed the stick and sort of swam his way to shore. His strokes still looked a bit panicky but at least he was swimming.
The stick was flipped off the dock again and Louie stretched to get it and fell in. He grabbed it and swam a bit more confidently to shore.
Then someone pitched the stick out 15 feet and Louie actually jumped off the dock, swam to it, then swam back. I swear he was smiling as he swam to shore. Everyone applauded and breathed relief that we had a Lab that could swim after all.
Louie accomplished something that I never could.
Years ago my wife and I joined our twin girls in learn-to-swim classes. The twins and mom graduated and moved through higher levels. I never made it out of baby class.
So when Louie comes to visit again we will go swimming. He will be the one swimming with the tennis ball in his mouth. I’ll be the one floating in the life jacket.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
Louie is my 14-month-old great-granddog. He is a chocolate Labrador Retriever, a water dog who feared the water. A Lab afraid of the water?
On his first visit Louie loped down to the dock and stared out over the lake. We figured he was anxious to begin fetching, so someone tossed a tennis ball into the water.
Louie pranced anxiously, peered nervously over the dock edge and waited for the ball to float into his reach. More tosses, same reaction. He quivered with excitement over wanting to fetch, but wanted nothing to do with the water.
We got him to wade up to his knees along the shore. He seemed to like that but whenever the ball was tossed he stretched to get it, but would not swim for it.
At one point he stretched too far and slipped off the rocks. We figured that was it. He was in and had broken the ice, so to speak. However, within seconds his panic became apparent and I wondered if someone would have to dive in to rescue him.
He thrashed his paws and his eyes filled with panic until his feet hit bottom. Wading with him, then swimming to show him how it is done had little effect. Louie was terrified of getting in over his head.
Labs always have been part of life at Shaman’s Rock. Gussie, a neighbour’s Lab, used to come to our deck at 7 a.m. with a ball in his mouth and stare up at my bedroom door until I came down and threw the ball for him.
Moose, an aging chocolate Lab on the other side of our place, still pesters people to toss balls and sticks so he can swim to get them.
Emma, my son’s chocolate Lab, exhausted people until they refused to toss for her. So she would take her ball to the dock, play with it in her paws until it flew off into the lake, then would dive in after it. She spent hours doing that.
So it seemed impossible that we now had a family Lab who was afraid of the water.
Some dogs are not built to swim. Bulldogs and dachshunds, for instance, have short legs that cannot provide the thrust needed for swimming.
Labs, however, have long, strong legs and over decades have been bred to retrieve. Swimming is in their DNA.
Dogs have distinct individual personalities and some develop phobias. Louie is a cautious dog; not one to do anything reckless. It was apparent he was not going to go in water over his head without some training.
My grandson Robert and his partner Laura got Louie a life vest and took him to a doggie pool where they could swim beside him.
When Louie returned to visit on Canada Day weekend the big question was whether he would take to the water. He pranced about the dock, stretching to reach sticks tossed for him but would not jump in after them.
At one point he became so excited about getting the stick that he fell off the dock into the water. He grabbed the stick and sort of swam his way to shore. His strokes still looked a bit panicky but at least he was swimming.
The stick was flipped off the dock again and Louie stretched to get it and fell in. He grabbed it and swam a bit more confidently to shore.
Then someone pitched the stick out 15 feet and Louie actually jumped off the dock, swam to it, then swam back. I swear he was smiling as he swam to shore. Everyone applauded and breathed relief that we had a Lab that could swim after all.
Louie accomplished something that I never could.
Years ago my wife and I joined our twin girls in learn-to-swim classes. The twins and mom graduated and moved through higher levels. I never made it out of baby class.
So when Louie comes to visit again we will go swimming. He will be the one swimming with the tennis ball in his mouth. I’ll be the one floating in the life jacket.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
June 29, 2017
Paying By The Piece
There is hope.
Despite the collapsing daily newspaper industry and concern that people are not getting enough factual, balanced news on current affairs, there is hope.
Hope is difficult to see through dark statistics showing fewer sources of truthful and objective reporting of world affairs.
Pew Research Centre data shows that in 2015 only 16 per cent of adults 18 to 34 years old read a daily newspaper. Among people 65-plus, traditionally the age group with the largest per cent of readers, only 50 per cent were daily newspaper readers.
News Media Canada, which represents print and digital news platforms, puts a brighter face on it. It says nine out of ten Canadian adults read a daily or community newspaper in print, online or mobile format every week.
Forget all the research, statistics and various commentary on readership, however. The plain fact is there is more fake news, less trustable news and fewer people reading reliable news that can help them to make informed decisions.
That is a serious problem for democracy. Even more serious considering that three of the planet’s most dangerous countries – Russia, North Korea and the U.S. – are led by psychopaths.
News is as vital to democracy as clean air, safe streets, good schools and publichealth, an American blue ribbon commission on information has noted.
Daily newspapers are providing fewer stories of importance. Radio and television don’t have the length or depth to fill much of that role. New media such as Twitter and Facebook don’t do it either because they can’t be relied on to provide unvarnished facts.
Where is the hope then?
There are some new initiatives, and the one that has impressed me the most is the Dutch startup named Blendle. It is an online news platform launched three years ago by two young Dutch journalists. It aggregates articles from newspapers and magazines, which can purchased on a pay-per-article basis. The average cost of an article is roughly 30 cents.
The service was Europe-only at first but has been tested in the U.S. and will officially launch there this fall. It has about 25 U.S. titles now but so far none in Canada.
To use Blendle you go to its website and read the menu of stories available. You might see a New York Times piece on how Trump’s new health care plan shifts dollars from the poor to the rich. The article will cost you 19 cents to read, which you pay by opening a digital wallet where you have deposited some money.
An interesting aspect of Blendle is that if you don’t like a story you have paid for, the service will refund your money. That seems a dangerous policy. People read articles, say they don’t like them, even if they do, and get their money back. How many unscrupulous readers are doing that?
Not many, Jessica Best, head of Blendle editorial, tells me in an interview from Amsterdam, Blendle’s headquarters.
The U.S. refund rate is only seven per cent, she says, “. . . partly because people care about our mission. They believe in our mission.”
I love the pay-per-article idea. You don’t have to pay a subscription or buy an entire newspaper or magazine to read one article when you don’t have interest in - or the time to read - the rest.
To be successful Blendle must offer top drawer content tailored for its readers. Or as Ms. Best puts it, “original quality journalism.”
And that means more than reporting just what happened this morning, or yesterday, with no perspective, background or why what happened, happened.
“We are looking for people willing to pay for the why, not the what,” she says.
So therein lies the hope: two young guys invent a new way of bringing trustable news to readers who need it to make informed decisions on what is happening in their world.
There are others out there who will find more ways of delivering the vital and trustable news and information we need to understand this increasingly complicated world and give us ideas on how to best navigate it.
What we all need to do is dedicate more time to consuming it. Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
Despite the collapsing daily newspaper industry and concern that people are not getting enough factual, balanced news on current affairs, there is hope.
Hope is difficult to see through dark statistics showing fewer sources of truthful and objective reporting of world affairs.
Pew Research Centre data shows that in 2015 only 16 per cent of adults 18 to 34 years old read a daily newspaper. Among people 65-plus, traditionally the age group with the largest per cent of readers, only 50 per cent were daily newspaper readers.
News Media Canada, which represents print and digital news platforms, puts a brighter face on it. It says nine out of ten Canadian adults read a daily or community newspaper in print, online or mobile format every week.
Forget all the research, statistics and various commentary on readership, however. The plain fact is there is more fake news, less trustable news and fewer people reading reliable news that can help them to make informed decisions.
That is a serious problem for democracy. Even more serious considering that three of the planet’s most dangerous countries – Russia, North Korea and the U.S. – are led by psychopaths.
News is as vital to democracy as clean air, safe streets, good schools and publichealth, an American blue ribbon commission on information has noted.
Daily newspapers are providing fewer stories of importance. Radio and television don’t have the length or depth to fill much of that role. New media such as Twitter and Facebook don’t do it either because they can’t be relied on to provide unvarnished facts.
Where is the hope then?
There are some new initiatives, and the one that has impressed me the most is the Dutch startup named Blendle. It is an online news platform launched three years ago by two young Dutch journalists. It aggregates articles from newspapers and magazines, which can purchased on a pay-per-article basis. The average cost of an article is roughly 30 cents.
The service was Europe-only at first but has been tested in the U.S. and will officially launch there this fall. It has about 25 U.S. titles now but so far none in Canada.
To use Blendle you go to its website and read the menu of stories available. You might see a New York Times piece on how Trump’s new health care plan shifts dollars from the poor to the rich. The article will cost you 19 cents to read, which you pay by opening a digital wallet where you have deposited some money.
An interesting aspect of Blendle is that if you don’t like a story you have paid for, the service will refund your money. That seems a dangerous policy. People read articles, say they don’t like them, even if they do, and get their money back. How many unscrupulous readers are doing that?
Not many, Jessica Best, head of Blendle editorial, tells me in an interview from Amsterdam, Blendle’s headquarters.
The U.S. refund rate is only seven per cent, she says, “. . . partly because people care about our mission. They believe in our mission.”
I love the pay-per-article idea. You don’t have to pay a subscription or buy an entire newspaper or magazine to read one article when you don’t have interest in - or the time to read - the rest.
To be successful Blendle must offer top drawer content tailored for its readers. Or as Ms. Best puts it, “original quality journalism.”
And that means more than reporting just what happened this morning, or yesterday, with no perspective, background or why what happened, happened.
“We are looking for people willing to pay for the why, not the what,” she says.
So therein lies the hope: two young guys invent a new way of bringing trustable news to readers who need it to make informed decisions on what is happening in their world.
There are others out there who will find more ways of delivering the vital and trustable news and information we need to understand this increasingly complicated world and give us ideas on how to best navigate it.
What we all need to do is dedicate more time to consuming it. Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
June 23, 2017
Whispering Killer Wings
I love the sound of dragonfly wings in the evening.
From my deck easy chair I savour the whispering clicks of their translucent wings as they float through the air like prima ballerinas. Such grace. Such precision. Such great killers.
They move like ballet dancers but are powerful war machines, intercepting and destroying millions of blackflies, mosquitoes and other flying terrors that arrive each summer to torment us. They actually catch their prey with their feet and tear their wings off so they can’t escape. Then they chew them up with their razor mandibles.
I love them and the work they do. Sometimes when the Irish whiskey jug accompanies me to the deck I stand shouting: “Attaway. Way to go. Kill baby, kill!”
Dragonflies are said to have a 97-per-cent success rate in hunting. A single dragonfly eats hundreds of mosquitoes, blackflies and midges every day. It can eat its weight in mosquitoes in 30 minutes.
They have a computer-like connection between their tiny brains and their flight controls. Each of their four wings can operate independently, allowing them to fly backwards, sideways; basically any direction that they wish at average cruising speed of 16 kilometers per hour and top speeds of 30 to 40 kph.
Their heads are pretty much all eyes that give them exceptional vision, combined with an uncanny ability to focus and zero in on prey. They are able to select and target a single blackfly among an entire swarm.
They are said to have the best vision of anything in the animal kingdom. Humans have three light sensitive proteins that allow us to see colour and details. Dragonflies have up to 33, which allows them to see colours that humans cannot even imagine.
Although they are deadly hunters, dragonflies do not bother with humans. They don’t bite us because their razor mandibles are not strong enough to break human skin.
It is a strange twist of nature that the much tinier blackfly is able to cut human skin, allowing it to soak up the resulting blood. Only the female blackfly bites because she needs blood for laying her eggs.
The blackflies thankfully are almost done for this year. They usually come out in mid-May and are mostly gone by the end of June. The life span of a black fly is only three weeks, far too long for many people.
Mosquitoes, however, are with us for the entire summer and the early autumn. They are continually laying eggs that produce adult mosquitoes in less than 10 days if conditions are perfect. And they are perfect right now – 22 to 27 degrees Celsius with plenty of humidity.
Like the blackfly only female mosquitoes bite, or to be accurate, drill down to get blood for egg development. Females live only one or two weeks, which of course gives them plenty of time to lay hundreds of eggs that become new populations.
While blackflies like moving water for hatching, mosquitoes prefer slow moving or still water. That is why it is so important to get rid of small puddles of standing water around homes and cottages. Even a Frisbee left overturned in the rain will collect enough water to become a breeding site.
Dragonflies were among our planet’s first insects and are believed to have been around for 300 million years. There are more than 3,000 known species of dragonflies, some of which now are endangered because of habitant loss and pollution, notably pesticides and insecticides.
There is enough concern about and interest in dragonflies that dragonfly sanctuaries are being developed. In recent years important sanctuaries have been established in the United Kingdom, Japan and the U.S. southwest.
Dragonflies are found throughout the world and are important not just because they eat other flies that irritate us. Their exceptional vision and flying mechanics have been studied to help advance engineering innovations.
They also have symbolic importance. For some people they represent adaptation and transformation. For others, joy and lightness of being, and yet others, power and poise.
Samurai in Japan see the dragonfly as symbolising power, agility and victory. The Chinese see the insect as prosperity and good luck.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
From my deck easy chair I savour the whispering clicks of their translucent wings as they float through the air like prima ballerinas. Such grace. Such precision. Such great killers.
They move like ballet dancers but are powerful war machines, intercepting and destroying millions of blackflies, mosquitoes and other flying terrors that arrive each summer to torment us. They actually catch their prey with their feet and tear their wings off so they can’t escape. Then they chew them up with their razor mandibles.
I love them and the work they do. Sometimes when the Irish whiskey jug accompanies me to the deck I stand shouting: “Attaway. Way to go. Kill baby, kill!”
Dragonflies are said to have a 97-per-cent success rate in hunting. A single dragonfly eats hundreds of mosquitoes, blackflies and midges every day. It can eat its weight in mosquitoes in 30 minutes.
They have a computer-like connection between their tiny brains and their flight controls. Each of their four wings can operate independently, allowing them to fly backwards, sideways; basically any direction that they wish at average cruising speed of 16 kilometers per hour and top speeds of 30 to 40 kph.
Their heads are pretty much all eyes that give them exceptional vision, combined with an uncanny ability to focus and zero in on prey. They are able to select and target a single blackfly among an entire swarm.
They are said to have the best vision of anything in the animal kingdom. Humans have three light sensitive proteins that allow us to see colour and details. Dragonflies have up to 33, which allows them to see colours that humans cannot even imagine.
Although they are deadly hunters, dragonflies do not bother with humans. They don’t bite us because their razor mandibles are not strong enough to break human skin.
It is a strange twist of nature that the much tinier blackfly is able to cut human skin, allowing it to soak up the resulting blood. Only the female blackfly bites because she needs blood for laying her eggs.
The blackflies thankfully are almost done for this year. They usually come out in mid-May and are mostly gone by the end of June. The life span of a black fly is only three weeks, far too long for many people.
Mosquitoes, however, are with us for the entire summer and the early autumn. They are continually laying eggs that produce adult mosquitoes in less than 10 days if conditions are perfect. And they are perfect right now – 22 to 27 degrees Celsius with plenty of humidity.
Like the blackfly only female mosquitoes bite, or to be accurate, drill down to get blood for egg development. Females live only one or two weeks, which of course gives them plenty of time to lay hundreds of eggs that become new populations.
While blackflies like moving water for hatching, mosquitoes prefer slow moving or still water. That is why it is so important to get rid of small puddles of standing water around homes and cottages. Even a Frisbee left overturned in the rain will collect enough water to become a breeding site.
Dragonflies were among our planet’s first insects and are believed to have been around for 300 million years. There are more than 3,000 known species of dragonflies, some of which now are endangered because of habitant loss and pollution, notably pesticides and insecticides.
There is enough concern about and interest in dragonflies that dragonfly sanctuaries are being developed. In recent years important sanctuaries have been established in the United Kingdom, Japan and the U.S. southwest.
Dragonflies are found throughout the world and are important not just because they eat other flies that irritate us. Their exceptional vision and flying mechanics have been studied to help advance engineering innovations.
They also have symbolic importance. For some people they represent adaptation and transformation. For others, joy and lightness of being, and yet others, power and poise.
Samurai in Japan see the dragonfly as symbolising power, agility and victory. The Chinese see the insect as prosperity and good luck.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
June 15, 2017
When A Culture Changes
There is an important anniversary in my life this month. It is an anniversary that tells more about a changed culture than my individual life.
Twenty years ago June 27 I left a daily newspaper career to become a freelance writer. I left not because I tired of the work, but because I could not stomach some of the people.
No, not the real workers. Not the gals and guys who work observing and reporting the important events of each day. They were dedicated, honest and fair journalists doing their best to inform their communities of what was happening in their lives.
Some of these folks were quirky. Some could be irritating at times, but I don’t recall working with any that I truly disliked. Or any who put profit ahead of producing a factual and balanced news report.
What I truly disliked were the new ‘leaders’ brought into the daily news business during the late 1980s and the 1990s. They came with an increase in chain ownership; invaders with different values. They were business bobble heads from outside the news industry and bootlickers they brought with them or converted on the inside.
Their God was the bottom line and they replaced old-time publishers and others whose passion was product. For these invaders, producing news reports was no different than producing widgets. Many were narcissists who practised situational ethics, played loose with the truth, and were devoid of empathy.
Their mission was to resuscitate a failing newspaper industry through the bottom line. The result is well known: The North American daily newspaper industry is in a state of collapse.
A Pew Research Centre analysis indicates that U.S. daily newspaper circulation fell eight per cent in 2016, the 28th consecutive year of declines.
The new leaders lacked the understanding and feel for the business. They were total duds when it came to innovation. They were incapable of managing a peanut stand.
What they and other business executives did manage well were their compensation agreements and future severance packages. From 1978 to 2013 Chief Executive Officer compensation increased 937 per cent, while a typical worker’s compensation increased 10.2 per cent. Those figures appeared in a 2014 report by the Economic Policy Institute, a U.S. non-profit think tank.
What happened in the news game also was happening in other industries. Workers were tossed from windows in the push for more profit. Sell more, care less about quality.
Appliances that used to last decades became throwaways after four to six years. Commercial airline service, once a pleasurable experience, descended to cattle car level.
The new culture in the business world rewrote the social contract under which people had lived since the end of the Second World War. It was a contract that set out the mutual expectations and obligations of workers and their employers and it helped to create the economic stability of the 50s, 60s and 70s.
The culture spawned in the 80s grew slowly but surely into what we see today. It is the culture of U.S. President Forrest Trump, his associates and their followers. It is a culture that values profit more than people.
Its theme: Everyone should be able to look after themselves. Why should society pay taxes to help pay for someone’s else’s medical problems? If you don’t have a great life, it’s your own fault.
Change always will be a needed part of North American culture. But not change by oligarchs and moguls who are mean-spirited mongrels.
Certainly more change will come to the newspaper industry, some of it good. Major daily newspapering will be confined to large global centres – New York, London, Paris, Sydney and some others. These global newspapers will provide us with the most important and interesting news of the world.
News from our own surroundings will come from community newspapers like this one.
The culture typified by the Trumpists will disappear, overtaken by people who care for people and who work to find goodness, even in tragedy. People like the Castlegar, B.C. family of Christine Archibald who died in the latest London terrorist attack.
"Volunteer your time and labour or donate to a homeless shelter," the family said in a statement. "Tell them Chrissy sent you."
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
Twenty years ago June 27 I left a daily newspaper career to become a freelance writer. I left not because I tired of the work, but because I could not stomach some of the people.
No, not the real workers. Not the gals and guys who work observing and reporting the important events of each day. They were dedicated, honest and fair journalists doing their best to inform their communities of what was happening in their lives.
Some of these folks were quirky. Some could be irritating at times, but I don’t recall working with any that I truly disliked. Or any who put profit ahead of producing a factual and balanced news report.
What I truly disliked were the new ‘leaders’ brought into the daily news business during the late 1980s and the 1990s. They came with an increase in chain ownership; invaders with different values. They were business bobble heads from outside the news industry and bootlickers they brought with them or converted on the inside.
Their God was the bottom line and they replaced old-time publishers and others whose passion was product. For these invaders, producing news reports was no different than producing widgets. Many were narcissists who practised situational ethics, played loose with the truth, and were devoid of empathy.
Their mission was to resuscitate a failing newspaper industry through the bottom line. The result is well known: The North American daily newspaper industry is in a state of collapse.
A Pew Research Centre analysis indicates that U.S. daily newspaper circulation fell eight per cent in 2016, the 28th consecutive year of declines.
The new leaders lacked the understanding and feel for the business. They were total duds when it came to innovation. They were incapable of managing a peanut stand.
What they and other business executives did manage well were their compensation agreements and future severance packages. From 1978 to 2013 Chief Executive Officer compensation increased 937 per cent, while a typical worker’s compensation increased 10.2 per cent. Those figures appeared in a 2014 report by the Economic Policy Institute, a U.S. non-profit think tank.
What happened in the news game also was happening in other industries. Workers were tossed from windows in the push for more profit. Sell more, care less about quality.
Appliances that used to last decades became throwaways after four to six years. Commercial airline service, once a pleasurable experience, descended to cattle car level.
The new culture in the business world rewrote the social contract under which people had lived since the end of the Second World War. It was a contract that set out the mutual expectations and obligations of workers and their employers and it helped to create the economic stability of the 50s, 60s and 70s.
The culture spawned in the 80s grew slowly but surely into what we see today. It is the culture of U.S. President Forrest Trump, his associates and their followers. It is a culture that values profit more than people.
Its theme: Everyone should be able to look after themselves. Why should society pay taxes to help pay for someone’s else’s medical problems? If you don’t have a great life, it’s your own fault.
Change always will be a needed part of North American culture. But not change by oligarchs and moguls who are mean-spirited mongrels.
Certainly more change will come to the newspaper industry, some of it good. Major daily newspapering will be confined to large global centres – New York, London, Paris, Sydney and some others. These global newspapers will provide us with the most important and interesting news of the world.
News from our own surroundings will come from community newspapers like this one.
The culture typified by the Trumpists will disappear, overtaken by people who care for people and who work to find goodness, even in tragedy. People like the Castlegar, B.C. family of Christine Archibald who died in the latest London terrorist attack.
"Volunteer your time and labour or donate to a homeless shelter," the family said in a statement. "Tell them Chrissy sent you."
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
