Jim Poling Sr.'s Blog, page 41
December 17, 2015
A Cappelletti Christmas
It is warm and spring like outside, but when I open the side door and step into the kitchen, suddenly it is Christmas.
Flour dust covers the table, one end of which supports a well-used pasta stretcher. Stretched pasta, waiting to be cut, hangs from old broom handles suspended between the backs of two kitchen chairs.
There’s a maple cutting board on the table where lengths of pasta are cut into small squares. And off to one side, the most certain sign that Christmas is almost here: plump little pasta pieces that have been shaped into the form of tiny hats.
At our house these little hats – cappelletti – are as much a part of Christmas as a decorated evergreen, or stockings hung by the chimney with care.
Cappelletti are small pieces of pasta filled with meat and are cooked in a hearty chicken broth. They are a traditional Christmas Day dish in many Italian households.
My introduction to cappelletti was in my future mother-in-law’s house in Sault Ste. Marie’s Little Italy many years ago. It was love at first sight, and there has not been a Christmas without cappelletti since.
Cappelletti are said to have been created first in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. The hat shape, some references say, originated from the pointed hats that Spanish soldiers wore when they invaded Italy in the seventeenth century.
These pasta delicacies can be bought, but in our house they are always made from scratch, totally by hand. They are a labour of love.
I always watch Christmas cappelletti production with great interest, but never become actively involved. A kitchen is the last place anyone wants me messing about.
I watch as a ball of homemade pasta is cut into small chunks. Each chunk is fed into the pasta stretcher to produce a long narrow strip that is laid out and cut with a knife into pieces roughly 1 ¼ by 1 ¼ inches.
A little fingertip dab of meat filling is placed on each piece of pasta. The filling consists of ground chicken, nutmeg, ground lemon rind, an egg and Romano cheese. You can use ground turkey, veal, or pork, or a mixture of all. Never go light on the lemon!
Then comes the hard part. The pasta is folded over to have two corners touch and form a triangle. The seams are pressed together. Then the bottom left and bottom right points of the triangle are brought together and through some upward manipulation with the thumbs and pointer fingers are folded into a little hat.
No one should take this as a recipe. I’m just an observer trying to do a little reporting here. If you want a real recipe instead of a description, check with Google.
My wife Diane will make as many of 2,000 of these little hats for the Christmas season. When the entire family is here we will eat as many as 800 at Christmas dinner. Takeaway sacks and New Year’s dinner take care of the rest.
That sounds like a lot, but our cappelletti are small. Three or four fit on a soup spoon.
The only downside to cappelletti is you want to eat too many, leaving little room for the Christmas turkey. But hey, you can have turkey any day.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
Flour dust covers the table, one end of which supports a well-used pasta stretcher. Stretched pasta, waiting to be cut, hangs from old broom handles suspended between the backs of two kitchen chairs.
There’s a maple cutting board on the table where lengths of pasta are cut into small squares. And off to one side, the most certain sign that Christmas is almost here: plump little pasta pieces that have been shaped into the form of tiny hats.
At our house these little hats – cappelletti – are as much a part of Christmas as a decorated evergreen, or stockings hung by the chimney with care.
Cappelletti are small pieces of pasta filled with meat and are cooked in a hearty chicken broth. They are a traditional Christmas Day dish in many Italian households.
My introduction to cappelletti was in my future mother-in-law’s house in Sault Ste. Marie’s Little Italy many years ago. It was love at first sight, and there has not been a Christmas without cappelletti since.
Cappelletti are said to have been created first in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. The hat shape, some references say, originated from the pointed hats that Spanish soldiers wore when they invaded Italy in the seventeenth century.
These pasta delicacies can be bought, but in our house they are always made from scratch, totally by hand. They are a labour of love.
I always watch Christmas cappelletti production with great interest, but never become actively involved. A kitchen is the last place anyone wants me messing about.
I watch as a ball of homemade pasta is cut into small chunks. Each chunk is fed into the pasta stretcher to produce a long narrow strip that is laid out and cut with a knife into pieces roughly 1 ¼ by 1 ¼ inches.
A little fingertip dab of meat filling is placed on each piece of pasta. The filling consists of ground chicken, nutmeg, ground lemon rind, an egg and Romano cheese. You can use ground turkey, veal, or pork, or a mixture of all. Never go light on the lemon!
Then comes the hard part. The pasta is folded over to have two corners touch and form a triangle. The seams are pressed together. Then the bottom left and bottom right points of the triangle are brought together and through some upward manipulation with the thumbs and pointer fingers are folded into a little hat.
No one should take this as a recipe. I’m just an observer trying to do a little reporting here. If you want a real recipe instead of a description, check with Google.
My wife Diane will make as many of 2,000 of these little hats for the Christmas season. When the entire family is here we will eat as many as 800 at Christmas dinner. Takeaway sacks and New Year’s dinner take care of the rest.
That sounds like a lot, but our cappelletti are small. Three or four fit on a soup spoon.
The only downside to cappelletti is you want to eat too many, leaving little room for the Christmas turkey. But hey, you can have turkey any day.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
December 11, 2015
Mindless Bickering Returns
The politicians are back on Parliament Hill apparently having learned little from October’s general election.
It seems to me that we voters told them clearly that we want an end to mindless partisan bickering. Stop saying and doing things designed only to get more votes. Stop the unintelligent cheap shots. Seek compromise and work constructively on behalf of the people.
It was too much to hope for, judging by some of the news generated by the return of Parliament. Take for example the mindless criticism of the new prime minister over the fact that taxpayers are paying for two nannies to help with his three young children.
That began when the CBC reported that the Trudeaus have two nannies paid between $15 and $20 an hour for day work, and $11 to $13 an hour for night work. The report criticized Trudeau for this because he had said during the election campaign that wealthy families like his should not receive government handouts to help raise their kids. He said he and wife Sophie would donate their federal Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) to charity.
It seemed odd that the report came from the CBC, which had worked so vigorously to defeat Stephen Harper and elect Trudeau. At any rate, other media and opposition politicians jumped in.
Some media labelled the so-called scandal Nannygate (will we ever stop tagging anything even slightly controversial as something ‘gate’). Some opposition politicians called the prime minister a hypocrite for saying the wealthy should not receive the UCCB, then have taxpayers pay for his two nannies.
Let’s all take a deep breath and give our heads a shake. Being prime minister is a job, an incredibly busy job. The job comes with a salary and benefit package that includes staff such as drivers, housekeepers and other assistants, including nannies. All recent prime ministers with young children have had nannies as part of their salary and benefit package.
The child care benefit is not part of a salary package. It is for all Canadians who qualify. That’s why it is called the Universal Child Care Benefit. Lumping it in with a job benefit is disingenuous.
Criticizing the prime minister for it is unwarranted and silly. It is the type of political manipulation that we told the politicians we want them to stop.
There will be many reasons and opportunities to criticize the new prime minister and his government as time goes on. We could start with the fact that Canada sent 383 people to the Paris summit on climate change, all expenses paid by the taxpayer. The U.S. sent 148, the UK 96 and Australia 46.
Canada is back all right, but hopefully not back to bigger spending, bigger deficits and bigger tax increases.
Taxpayers voted for change, not only in government but in the attitudes of the politicians. They want a progressive opposition that holds the government accountable, and one that works constructively to create better programs and services for the people.
Mindless criticisms about nannies are misguided and not a hopeful sign for constructive change. Neither was the start of the throne speech debate in Parliament Monday.
Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose initially took a constructive approach to the debate. She promised that the opposition would be the taxpayers’ watchdog, and praised Trudeau for revising his overzealous plan to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by Dec. 31.
However, she slipped back into old-style cheap shot political rhetoric, saying that while world leaders were ramping up their efforts to defeat ISIS, Trudeau was posing for selfies at international conferences.
Treasury Board President Scott Brison returned the insult by saying that the defeated Conservative government was one of the biggest, most wasteful governments in Canadian history. Whether that is true, or false, or somewhere in between is hardly relevant now.
To which Ambrose shot back: "It's been 25 minutes and the sunny ways are over." That was a reference to Trudeau’s Oct. 19 election victory speech in which he said sunny ways - positive politics – achieve good things.
So much for real change in political behaviour.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
It seems to me that we voters told them clearly that we want an end to mindless partisan bickering. Stop saying and doing things designed only to get more votes. Stop the unintelligent cheap shots. Seek compromise and work constructively on behalf of the people.
It was too much to hope for, judging by some of the news generated by the return of Parliament. Take for example the mindless criticism of the new prime minister over the fact that taxpayers are paying for two nannies to help with his three young children.
That began when the CBC reported that the Trudeaus have two nannies paid between $15 and $20 an hour for day work, and $11 to $13 an hour for night work. The report criticized Trudeau for this because he had said during the election campaign that wealthy families like his should not receive government handouts to help raise their kids. He said he and wife Sophie would donate their federal Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) to charity.
It seemed odd that the report came from the CBC, which had worked so vigorously to defeat Stephen Harper and elect Trudeau. At any rate, other media and opposition politicians jumped in.
Some media labelled the so-called scandal Nannygate (will we ever stop tagging anything even slightly controversial as something ‘gate’). Some opposition politicians called the prime minister a hypocrite for saying the wealthy should not receive the UCCB, then have taxpayers pay for his two nannies.
Let’s all take a deep breath and give our heads a shake. Being prime minister is a job, an incredibly busy job. The job comes with a salary and benefit package that includes staff such as drivers, housekeepers and other assistants, including nannies. All recent prime ministers with young children have had nannies as part of their salary and benefit package.
The child care benefit is not part of a salary package. It is for all Canadians who qualify. That’s why it is called the Universal Child Care Benefit. Lumping it in with a job benefit is disingenuous.
Criticizing the prime minister for it is unwarranted and silly. It is the type of political manipulation that we told the politicians we want them to stop.
There will be many reasons and opportunities to criticize the new prime minister and his government as time goes on. We could start with the fact that Canada sent 383 people to the Paris summit on climate change, all expenses paid by the taxpayer. The U.S. sent 148, the UK 96 and Australia 46.
Canada is back all right, but hopefully not back to bigger spending, bigger deficits and bigger tax increases.
Taxpayers voted for change, not only in government but in the attitudes of the politicians. They want a progressive opposition that holds the government accountable, and one that works constructively to create better programs and services for the people.
Mindless criticisms about nannies are misguided and not a hopeful sign for constructive change. Neither was the start of the throne speech debate in Parliament Monday.
Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose initially took a constructive approach to the debate. She promised that the opposition would be the taxpayers’ watchdog, and praised Trudeau for revising his overzealous plan to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by Dec. 31.
However, she slipped back into old-style cheap shot political rhetoric, saying that while world leaders were ramping up their efforts to defeat ISIS, Trudeau was posing for selfies at international conferences.
Treasury Board President Scott Brison returned the insult by saying that the defeated Conservative government was one of the biggest, most wasteful governments in Canadian history. Whether that is true, or false, or somewhere in between is hardly relevant now.
To which Ambrose shot back: "It's been 25 minutes and the sunny ways are over." That was a reference to Trudeau’s Oct. 19 election victory speech in which he said sunny ways - positive politics – achieve good things.
So much for real change in political behaviour.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
December 3, 2015
Whispers of Winter
Gentle mists caress the lake like a mother’s hand massaging her child's back, calming her to sleep.
Sleep for the lake is delayed this year. Winter’s approach, usually loud and bullying, is just a whisper so far. It might be well into this month of December, perhaps even early January, before the lake stiffens and accepts the inevitable.
This is the quietest time of year on the lake. The hunters are gone. The last motor boat appears to have been pulled ashore. It is a time for reflection. Time to review months passed and contemplate what might be ahead.
My favourite place to reflect is on the hilltop overlooking the lake. There is perspective here. What often seems so important when I am away from here, is of little importance when I am here.
The stillness in the surrounding forest makes my ears ring. The trees are grey and their limbs have that stiff, arthritic look as they stand stoically waiting for the snow that will clothe them soon. The stillness is broken occasionally by a few remaining dried oak leaves scratching against each other in an almost non-existent breeze.
High on my thought list today is the fate of the big buck whose movements I have followed for the past few years. He has posed many times for my trail cameras, almost always at night. He is a beauty; muscular and healthy, crowned with 10-point rack. I have never seen him in the flesh.
There has been little sign of him in the past month. A few tracks and a scrape but it is impossible to tell whether they were made by him. I worry that perhaps he was shot during the fall deer hunt. I hope not and soothe my concern by telling myself he got to be a 10-pointer by being cautious and cunning.
In past years he has stayed around this hill until the snow deepened, so I might see signs of him yet. I will be sad if he is gone forever, but change is a part of life that we all must face and accept.
From up here I see change as a blessing. The snow and cold that will come any day offer us time to recover from the exertions of spring, summer and fall. With it comes Christmas and New Year’s and relaxed fun with family and friends.
The second part of winter, which can so harsh, brings the excitement of planning and preparing for spring.
The winter ahead is forecast to be mild because of the return of an El Niño weather pattern created by unusual warming of the Pacific Ocean. This year the El Niño is forecast to be one of the strongest ever.
A milder winter will be appreciated by many, but hopefully it will not be so mild as to curtail our great winter recreations, such as downhill and cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and snowmobiling. And, of course, fishing through the ice.
The last powerful El Niño brought disaster to Ontario. That was the winter of 1997-98 when what has been tagged The Great Ice Storm caused massive damage to trees and electrical infrastructure, especially in Eastern Ontario. That storm caused 35 deaths and basically shut down Ottawa and Montreal, with power outages lasting days, and sometimes weeks and months.
More than 16,000 Canadian Forces troops were mobilized to help with the crisis created by the storm. It was the largest deployment of Canadian soldiers since the Korean War.
No one knows exactly what El Niño will bring us this winter. The forecasters say that if it continues to strengthen, the deepest part of winter will be mild. There are indications, however, that this strong El Niño will weaken come January and cold air could return along with plenty of lake effect snow.
If the latter occurs, we’ll just put another log on the fire and consider John Steinbeck’s thoughts, written in Travels with Charley:
“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”
Email: shaman@vianet.ca Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
Sleep for the lake is delayed this year. Winter’s approach, usually loud and bullying, is just a whisper so far. It might be well into this month of December, perhaps even early January, before the lake stiffens and accepts the inevitable.
This is the quietest time of year on the lake. The hunters are gone. The last motor boat appears to have been pulled ashore. It is a time for reflection. Time to review months passed and contemplate what might be ahead.
My favourite place to reflect is on the hilltop overlooking the lake. There is perspective here. What often seems so important when I am away from here, is of little importance when I am here.
The stillness in the surrounding forest makes my ears ring. The trees are grey and their limbs have that stiff, arthritic look as they stand stoically waiting for the snow that will clothe them soon. The stillness is broken occasionally by a few remaining dried oak leaves scratching against each other in an almost non-existent breeze.
High on my thought list today is the fate of the big buck whose movements I have followed for the past few years. He has posed many times for my trail cameras, almost always at night. He is a beauty; muscular and healthy, crowned with 10-point rack. I have never seen him in the flesh.
There has been little sign of him in the past month. A few tracks and a scrape but it is impossible to tell whether they were made by him. I worry that perhaps he was shot during the fall deer hunt. I hope not and soothe my concern by telling myself he got to be a 10-pointer by being cautious and cunning.
In past years he has stayed around this hill until the snow deepened, so I might see signs of him yet. I will be sad if he is gone forever, but change is a part of life that we all must face and accept.
From up here I see change as a blessing. The snow and cold that will come any day offer us time to recover from the exertions of spring, summer and fall. With it comes Christmas and New Year’s and relaxed fun with family and friends.
The second part of winter, which can so harsh, brings the excitement of planning and preparing for spring.
The winter ahead is forecast to be mild because of the return of an El Niño weather pattern created by unusual warming of the Pacific Ocean. This year the El Niño is forecast to be one of the strongest ever.
A milder winter will be appreciated by many, but hopefully it will not be so mild as to curtail our great winter recreations, such as downhill and cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and snowmobiling. And, of course, fishing through the ice.
The last powerful El Niño brought disaster to Ontario. That was the winter of 1997-98 when what has been tagged The Great Ice Storm caused massive damage to trees and electrical infrastructure, especially in Eastern Ontario. That storm caused 35 deaths and basically shut down Ottawa and Montreal, with power outages lasting days, and sometimes weeks and months.
More than 16,000 Canadian Forces troops were mobilized to help with the crisis created by the storm. It was the largest deployment of Canadian soldiers since the Korean War.
No one knows exactly what El Niño will bring us this winter. The forecasters say that if it continues to strengthen, the deepest part of winter will be mild. There are indications, however, that this strong El Niño will weaken come January and cold air could return along with plenty of lake effect snow.
If the latter occurs, we’ll just put another log on the fire and consider John Steinbeck’s thoughts, written in Travels with Charley:
“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”
Email: shaman@vianet.ca Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
November 26, 2015
A Sinkhole of Debt
It is remarkable how tiny pieces of news help us to see much larger, worrisome trends.
For instance, we now learn that the Natural Resources Ministry has been poking about, seeking a partner to help maintain the Sherborne Road. The gravel road winds 12 kilometres from Highway 35 just south of Dorset through the bush to Sherborne Lake.
It is an access road for anglers, hunters, hikers, campers, snowmobilers, ATV riders and logging operators.
The ministry is asking various sources, including Algonquin Highlands Township, to take on the costs of maintaining the road. It says it can no longer afford the upkeep.
The good news here is that the Ontario government may be getting serious about its dire financial situation. It must be when it goes begging for help maintaining a 12-kilometre gravel road.
The bad news is that if the government cannot afford to maintain the road, nature will take it back, limiting access to a huge wilderness recreation area. Also, the Sherborne Road is a glimpse of the new trend in which citizens pay more to receive less.
The Sherborne Lake road story illustrates how badly Ontario is hurting from years of less than brilliant financial management. And, how the current government is relentless in squeezing taxpayers for more and more dollars to try drag itself out of a quicksand of debt.
Our electricity bills will increase at least an average $120 a year Jan. 1, on top of a series of stunning increases this year. Driving and vehicle licensing fees have increased and will increase more. We all will receive higher municipal tax bills in the spring because of more downloading of Ontario Provincial Police costs onto rural municipalities.
Then we have the service fees placed on top of service fees at Service Ontario outlets. And, the plans to make High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes.
Not to mention the new three-cents-a-litre provincial tax on beer, which took effect this month.
The government is desperate for more money to service its overwhelming debt. Ontario residents can expect this trend to continue, and likely worsen.
Ontario’s debt has surpassed $300 billion. California, poster child for reckless government spending and poor financial management, has less than half the debt of Ontario.
Bonnie Lysyk, Ontario’s auditor general, expects the Ontario debt to reach $325 billion by 2017-18. To pay off that debt Ontario would have to collect $23,000 each from every woman, man and child in the province.
Ontario pays more than $11 billion a year in debt interest charges. That is more than the province spends on post secondary education for our children.
Credit raters have been following closely this plunge into deeper debt. Moody’s Investor Services and Standard and Poor’s have downgraded Ontario’s credit rating in recent months.
The province plans to spend another $130 billion on infrastructure over the next 10 years, which will increase the debt load even more. Much of the spending will be to alleviate the nightmare of Toronto-area transportation.
The government says going deeper into debt will spur economic growth, which will produce more dollars to pay off debt. We all hold our breath and hope this is true. Past performance leaves us skeptical.
Another reason for skepticism is the controversy surrounding the government’s selling off 60 per cent of Hydro One. It hopes to bring in $9 billion from the sale but in fact will realize only $3.5 to $5 billion after the utility’s debt is paid.
Some observers call the Hydro One offering a disaster in the making.Stephen LeClair, the province’s financial accountability officer, says that selling the utility to private investors will cost the provincial treasury more than it takes in.
“The province’s net debt would initially be reduced, but will eventually be higher than it would have been without the sale,” he wrote in a critical review of the plan.
Deterioration of the Sherborne Lake access road would be a disappointment to users, but not a catastrophe. Real catastrophe will come to all of us if the government does not create a strong plan for reducing its debt.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
For instance, we now learn that the Natural Resources Ministry has been poking about, seeking a partner to help maintain the Sherborne Road. The gravel road winds 12 kilometres from Highway 35 just south of Dorset through the bush to Sherborne Lake.
It is an access road for anglers, hunters, hikers, campers, snowmobilers, ATV riders and logging operators.
The ministry is asking various sources, including Algonquin Highlands Township, to take on the costs of maintaining the road. It says it can no longer afford the upkeep.
The good news here is that the Ontario government may be getting serious about its dire financial situation. It must be when it goes begging for help maintaining a 12-kilometre gravel road.
The bad news is that if the government cannot afford to maintain the road, nature will take it back, limiting access to a huge wilderness recreation area. Also, the Sherborne Road is a glimpse of the new trend in which citizens pay more to receive less.
The Sherborne Lake road story illustrates how badly Ontario is hurting from years of less than brilliant financial management. And, how the current government is relentless in squeezing taxpayers for more and more dollars to try drag itself out of a quicksand of debt.
Our electricity bills will increase at least an average $120 a year Jan. 1, on top of a series of stunning increases this year. Driving and vehicle licensing fees have increased and will increase more. We all will receive higher municipal tax bills in the spring because of more downloading of Ontario Provincial Police costs onto rural municipalities.
Then we have the service fees placed on top of service fees at Service Ontario outlets. And, the plans to make High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes.
Not to mention the new three-cents-a-litre provincial tax on beer, which took effect this month.
The government is desperate for more money to service its overwhelming debt. Ontario residents can expect this trend to continue, and likely worsen.
Ontario’s debt has surpassed $300 billion. California, poster child for reckless government spending and poor financial management, has less than half the debt of Ontario.
Bonnie Lysyk, Ontario’s auditor general, expects the Ontario debt to reach $325 billion by 2017-18. To pay off that debt Ontario would have to collect $23,000 each from every woman, man and child in the province.
Ontario pays more than $11 billion a year in debt interest charges. That is more than the province spends on post secondary education for our children.
Credit raters have been following closely this plunge into deeper debt. Moody’s Investor Services and Standard and Poor’s have downgraded Ontario’s credit rating in recent months.
The province plans to spend another $130 billion on infrastructure over the next 10 years, which will increase the debt load even more. Much of the spending will be to alleviate the nightmare of Toronto-area transportation.
The government says going deeper into debt will spur economic growth, which will produce more dollars to pay off debt. We all hold our breath and hope this is true. Past performance leaves us skeptical.
Another reason for skepticism is the controversy surrounding the government’s selling off 60 per cent of Hydro One. It hopes to bring in $9 billion from the sale but in fact will realize only $3.5 to $5 billion after the utility’s debt is paid.
Some observers call the Hydro One offering a disaster in the making.Stephen LeClair, the province’s financial accountability officer, says that selling the utility to private investors will cost the provincial treasury more than it takes in.
“The province’s net debt would initially be reduced, but will eventually be higher than it would have been without the sale,” he wrote in a critical review of the plan.
Deterioration of the Sherborne Lake access road would be a disappointment to users, but not a catastrophe. Real catastrophe will come to all of us if the government does not create a strong plan for reducing its debt.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
November 19, 2015
Wild Thoughts on a Wet Day
I listen for sounds of movement but the woods are as silent as the wet stones on the hillside. Rain drips off my hunting cap brim, each drip telling me that no sensible deer, or person, would be out in this foul weather.
I am too stubborn to go home and get out of the wet. So I sit in the rain, thinking wildly abstract thoughts.
One of my wilder thoughts is about why we can’t make some use of all the dead and dying wood in the forest. The forest floor is littered with trees that have died and fallen, or been taken down by the wind or in logging. And, there is much standing dead that remains solid and sturdy.
This is especially noticeable today, and not just because my mind is damp and wandering. I am in a logging area behind Dan Lake in the Frost Centre lands. The amount of wasted wood left here to rot is astonishing.
Aside from the usual deadfalls there are piles of tree crowns, hundreds of chunky branches and a variety of logs left behind.
This is not a criticism of the loggers, who are doing what they are instructed to do. They are following guidelines set by the Ministry of Natural Resources which oversees the logging.
In fact, they appear to be going beyond the guidelines. In one staging area they have left standing a magnificent and elderly yellow birch which will live a bit longer to spread its seeds. And they have been more than tolerant of any hunters or others passing through their work areas.
The crowns and branches and leftover logs are being left to rot because that’s what the government wants.
Some time back I let slip within earshot of a government official that I was taking firewood from a logged over area. I received a lecture on why it is good to leave wood to rot in the forest and was told to apply for and pay for a licence to collect firewood.
The official’s lecture on the benefits of letting wood rot in the forest was correct, to an extent. Trees that die naturally are a necessary part of the cycle of forest life.
However, logging, which when done selectively aids forest health, creates more rotting wood than any forest needs. Clearing out the excess and putting it to use would be helpful to the forest and to people who could use it.
I can think of several uses, the most important being firewood for heating. Many people turned to electric heat for homes and cottages in the days when electricity was affordable. Now the cost of heating electrically is prohibitive for many people and they depend more on firewood.
The government says people can collect firewood on Crown lands if they apply for a licence and pay government timber charges.
Charging citizens for collecting firewood from deadfalls and logging leftovers is an example of government and its bureaucracies at their worst. There is no cost to government for people to collect fallen timber for firewood, so licensing charges are simply another tax, another money grab.
If there is a need to supervise people collecting firewood from extensive deadfall areas, let private organizations do it. Church groups, service clubs and the such could supervise deadfall harvesting and make a few much needed bucks doing it.
Governments do not view wood as a renewable heating resource important to people living outside major urban areas. They see it as a pollution problem, which is nonsense considering the many sources of human-made pollution.
Government thinking on fuel wood will not change because government policies, even policies affecting rural areas, are made in downtown urban areas. They are made by urbanites who listen to major media outlets, lobbyists and special interest groups, all of which occupy urban downtown offices. Yes, rain falling in a quiet forest tends to produce abstract thoughts. Thoughts that bring to mind Henry Thoreau’s essay Civil Disobedience, in which he accepts that “government is best which governs least," and by extension "government is best which governs not at all."
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
I am too stubborn to go home and get out of the wet. So I sit in the rain, thinking wildly abstract thoughts.
One of my wilder thoughts is about why we can’t make some use of all the dead and dying wood in the forest. The forest floor is littered with trees that have died and fallen, or been taken down by the wind or in logging. And, there is much standing dead that remains solid and sturdy.
This is especially noticeable today, and not just because my mind is damp and wandering. I am in a logging area behind Dan Lake in the Frost Centre lands. The amount of wasted wood left here to rot is astonishing.
Aside from the usual deadfalls there are piles of tree crowns, hundreds of chunky branches and a variety of logs left behind.
This is not a criticism of the loggers, who are doing what they are instructed to do. They are following guidelines set by the Ministry of Natural Resources which oversees the logging.
In fact, they appear to be going beyond the guidelines. In one staging area they have left standing a magnificent and elderly yellow birch which will live a bit longer to spread its seeds. And they have been more than tolerant of any hunters or others passing through their work areas.
The crowns and branches and leftover logs are being left to rot because that’s what the government wants.
Some time back I let slip within earshot of a government official that I was taking firewood from a logged over area. I received a lecture on why it is good to leave wood to rot in the forest and was told to apply for and pay for a licence to collect firewood.
The official’s lecture on the benefits of letting wood rot in the forest was correct, to an extent. Trees that die naturally are a necessary part of the cycle of forest life.
However, logging, which when done selectively aids forest health, creates more rotting wood than any forest needs. Clearing out the excess and putting it to use would be helpful to the forest and to people who could use it.
I can think of several uses, the most important being firewood for heating. Many people turned to electric heat for homes and cottages in the days when electricity was affordable. Now the cost of heating electrically is prohibitive for many people and they depend more on firewood.
The government says people can collect firewood on Crown lands if they apply for a licence and pay government timber charges.
Charging citizens for collecting firewood from deadfalls and logging leftovers is an example of government and its bureaucracies at their worst. There is no cost to government for people to collect fallen timber for firewood, so licensing charges are simply another tax, another money grab.
If there is a need to supervise people collecting firewood from extensive deadfall areas, let private organizations do it. Church groups, service clubs and the such could supervise deadfall harvesting and make a few much needed bucks doing it.
Governments do not view wood as a renewable heating resource important to people living outside major urban areas. They see it as a pollution problem, which is nonsense considering the many sources of human-made pollution.
Government thinking on fuel wood will not change because government policies, even policies affecting rural areas, are made in downtown urban areas. They are made by urbanites who listen to major media outlets, lobbyists and special interest groups, all of which occupy urban downtown offices. Yes, rain falling in a quiet forest tends to produce abstract thoughts. Thoughts that bring to mind Henry Thoreau’s essay Civil Disobedience, in which he accepts that “government is best which governs least," and by extension "government is best which governs not at all."
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
November 12, 2015
Making Snoopy Proud
I have a new granddog. His name is Rusty and he is a rescued dog from Los Angeles.
Rusty was given up by his owners who kept a bunch of backyard dogs and he wasn’t well looked after. He had a recent scar on his head and had lost hair around one eye because of an infection.
He’s now a happy, well cared for and important member of my daughter’s family in the San Francisco area.
I don’t know much of Rusty’s history except that he escaped the fate of many dogs living in the Los Angeles area. Roughly 6,000 dogs are impounded in LA shelters every year. More than 1,000 are euthanized.
Statistics about impounded pets truly are amazing, and disturbing. In the United States 6.8 million pets are taken into shelters every year. Pets of all sorts, but the vast majority are dogs and cats. An estimated three to four million are euthanized every year.
A survey of Canadian animal shelters found that 46,000 dogs were impounded in 2013. The number of cats taken in was roughly double the total for dogs.
Almost one-half the dogs taken in were strays and just over one-third of the total were given up by their owners. Of the overall total, 17 per cent were puppies.
Of the 46,000 Canadian dogs taken in, 8,000 were euthanized. That’s 1,000 fewer than in 2012, which we would like to think is because more people are becoming involved in pet rescue organizations. There are no statistics to support this, but rescue efforts seem to be attracting more people willing to volunteer their time, and in some cases their money, to ensure that unwanted, abandoned or mistreated animals are given a chance for a new life.
Two of the most interesting rescue organizations are California-based Wings of Rescue and Pilots N Paws, based in South Carolina. These are volunteer groups that recruit volunteer pilots and planes to relocate pets to areas where rescue groups are able to find them permanent homes.
Pilots N Paws has flown more than 15,000 dogs to new homes in the last two years and says it has relocated 75,000 over the last seven years.
Wings of Rescue says it has saved 5,000 dogs and cats and plans to rescue 7,000 more by the end of this year. Next week its Annual Holiday Airlift will fly 1,000 dogs and cats in 20 aircraft from Van Nuys general aviation airport in LA. The pets will be flown to various locations in the U.S., mainly on the west coast.
The flying rescues work well because there are overcrowded, high-kill shelters in some states like California. Yet other states like Oregon, Florida and New York need more pets to satisfy adoption demands.
For instance, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho has many retired people looking for smaller dogs which are easier to care for but hard to come by because of high demand. So the humane society there orders a planeload of dogs under 16 pounds every month to meet adoption demands.
Yehunda Netanel started Wings of Rescue as a lone pilot who rescued 300 dogs. The number of dogs Wings now flies has been doubling every year.
Pilots N Paws reports similar growth.
"We have seen the number of animals rescued go up every year since we started in 2008," said Kate Quinn, executive director of Pilots N Paws, told the Associated Press.
"Pilots love a reason to fly,” Quinn says. “They love making these flights."
Some people raise ethical questions about spending time, money and other resources on rescuing animals when so many humans are in distress. Why rescue dogs when millions of Syrians, and others are homeless? they ask.
Obviously there is no quick and easy answer to that question. Except to say that we all have a responsibility to help alleviate cruelty of all kinds in this world. And, not spending time and resources to stop cruelty to animals will not likely do much to stop cruelty against humans.
At any rate, my granddog Rusty is certainly happy that there are people volunteering their time and resources to help abused and abandoned dogs in Los Angeles.
Rusty was given up by his owners who kept a bunch of backyard dogs and he wasn’t well looked after. He had a recent scar on his head and had lost hair around one eye because of an infection.
He’s now a happy, well cared for and important member of my daughter’s family in the San Francisco area.
I don’t know much of Rusty’s history except that he escaped the fate of many dogs living in the Los Angeles area. Roughly 6,000 dogs are impounded in LA shelters every year. More than 1,000 are euthanized.
Statistics about impounded pets truly are amazing, and disturbing. In the United States 6.8 million pets are taken into shelters every year. Pets of all sorts, but the vast majority are dogs and cats. An estimated three to four million are euthanized every year.
A survey of Canadian animal shelters found that 46,000 dogs were impounded in 2013. The number of cats taken in was roughly double the total for dogs.
Almost one-half the dogs taken in were strays and just over one-third of the total were given up by their owners. Of the overall total, 17 per cent were puppies.
Of the 46,000 Canadian dogs taken in, 8,000 were euthanized. That’s 1,000 fewer than in 2012, which we would like to think is because more people are becoming involved in pet rescue organizations. There are no statistics to support this, but rescue efforts seem to be attracting more people willing to volunteer their time, and in some cases their money, to ensure that unwanted, abandoned or mistreated animals are given a chance for a new life.
Two of the most interesting rescue organizations are California-based Wings of Rescue and Pilots N Paws, based in South Carolina. These are volunteer groups that recruit volunteer pilots and planes to relocate pets to areas where rescue groups are able to find them permanent homes.
Pilots N Paws has flown more than 15,000 dogs to new homes in the last two years and says it has relocated 75,000 over the last seven years.
Wings of Rescue says it has saved 5,000 dogs and cats and plans to rescue 7,000 more by the end of this year. Next week its Annual Holiday Airlift will fly 1,000 dogs and cats in 20 aircraft from Van Nuys general aviation airport in LA. The pets will be flown to various locations in the U.S., mainly on the west coast.
The flying rescues work well because there are overcrowded, high-kill shelters in some states like California. Yet other states like Oregon, Florida and New York need more pets to satisfy adoption demands.
For instance, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho has many retired people looking for smaller dogs which are easier to care for but hard to come by because of high demand. So the humane society there orders a planeload of dogs under 16 pounds every month to meet adoption demands.
Yehunda Netanel started Wings of Rescue as a lone pilot who rescued 300 dogs. The number of dogs Wings now flies has been doubling every year.
Pilots N Paws reports similar growth.
"We have seen the number of animals rescued go up every year since we started in 2008," said Kate Quinn, executive director of Pilots N Paws, told the Associated Press.
"Pilots love a reason to fly,” Quinn says. “They love making these flights."
Some people raise ethical questions about spending time, money and other resources on rescuing animals when so many humans are in distress. Why rescue dogs when millions of Syrians, and others are homeless? they ask.
Obviously there is no quick and easy answer to that question. Except to say that we all have a responsibility to help alleviate cruelty of all kinds in this world. And, not spending time and resources to stop cruelty to animals will not likely do much to stop cruelty against humans.
At any rate, my granddog Rusty is certainly happy that there are people volunteering their time and resources to help abused and abandoned dogs in Los Angeles.
November 5, 2015
Who Is Buying the Pizza?
I totally get why Education Minister Liz Sandals feels the way she does about receipts. They are a pain in the butt. So difficult to organize. Always impossible to find when needed.
They swell our wallets, clutter our vehicle dashboards and are bad for the environment. The Internet tells me that 640,000 tons of paper receipts are used in the US each year. And, it takes 1.2 billion gallons of water annually to produce those paper receipts.
So we understand why Minister Liz can’t be bothered asking for receipts for the taxpayer dollars she gave teachers’ unions to cover their travel, hotel and food expenses while negotiating new working contracts. After all, she does have a masters degree in mathematics and knows the price of pizzas. With those qualifications who needs receipts?
“You’re asking me if I have receipts and invoices; no, I don’t,” she said when asked if she got receipts for $2.5 million in teacher union expense spending. “You don’t need to see every bill when you’re doing an estimate of costs. I don’t ask.”
"We know what the meeting rooms cost. We know what the food costs. We know what 100 pizzas cost.”
When you are that smart and up on the cost of pizzas, asking for receipts seems old-fashioned and unnecessary.
The practice of getting and giving receipts might be old-fashioned in the sense that it has been around for a long time. Roughly 5,200 years actually. All the way back to the time when writing was invented.
So billions of people over 50 centuries have thought receipts are a good thing, especially when it comes to managing money. Billions of people, but not Liz Sandals.
Written receipts are believed to date back to 3200 BC in Mesopotamia. The oldest known existing receipt was given 4,000 years ago to a guy named Alulu in Samaria. It was for the sale of five sheep, a lamb and four grass-fed goat kids and was written on a clay tablet.
Presumably Alulu was not as smart at math as Liz Sandals, and not up to speed on the price of livestock, so that’s why he asked for the receipt.
Someone must have told Premier Wynne about Alulu and receipt history because she overruled her education minister. She says the teachers’ unions have not yet been given the $2.5 million but when they are receipts will be required.
So Ontario taxpayers can breathe easier knowing that their government says it intends to follow the 5200-year-old practice of getting receipts.
That still leaves us with a worrisome problem, however. Why are taxpayers paying teachers’ union expenses while they negotiate higher salaries and better working conditions?
Minister Liz says the money is being shelled out because of the transition to a new bargaining system with teachers.
“When you are going through a transformational process, if you want the transformation to work, the first thing to do is to get the people into the building and committed to making the process work by being there . . . ” she said.
I assume that means that unless the government pays travel, hotel and food (including pizzas) expenses, the teachers’ negotiators will not show up to negotiate. The last time I was in a union we paid dues to build a fund to pay expenses like negotiating working agreements.
However, this latest scandal is about more than just who pays for the pizza. It’s all about politics.
During the 2014 provincial election the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association together spent more than $3 million on political advertising. Most of it was for ads attacking the Liberal government’s main opponent, the Conservatives.
So the government makes secret payments for teachers’ union expenses (including pizzas), plus gives them special favors and rich contracts. In return the teachers’ unions spend money, some of it which came from taxpayers, to ensure the government stays in power.
The government says it is routine to pay teacher union expenses incurred in negotiations.
Routine? Sleazy is a more accurate, more appropriate word.
They swell our wallets, clutter our vehicle dashboards and are bad for the environment. The Internet tells me that 640,000 tons of paper receipts are used in the US each year. And, it takes 1.2 billion gallons of water annually to produce those paper receipts.
So we understand why Minister Liz can’t be bothered asking for receipts for the taxpayer dollars she gave teachers’ unions to cover their travel, hotel and food expenses while negotiating new working contracts. After all, she does have a masters degree in mathematics and knows the price of pizzas. With those qualifications who needs receipts?
“You’re asking me if I have receipts and invoices; no, I don’t,” she said when asked if she got receipts for $2.5 million in teacher union expense spending. “You don’t need to see every bill when you’re doing an estimate of costs. I don’t ask.”
"We know what the meeting rooms cost. We know what the food costs. We know what 100 pizzas cost.”
When you are that smart and up on the cost of pizzas, asking for receipts seems old-fashioned and unnecessary.
The practice of getting and giving receipts might be old-fashioned in the sense that it has been around for a long time. Roughly 5,200 years actually. All the way back to the time when writing was invented.
So billions of people over 50 centuries have thought receipts are a good thing, especially when it comes to managing money. Billions of people, but not Liz Sandals.
Written receipts are believed to date back to 3200 BC in Mesopotamia. The oldest known existing receipt was given 4,000 years ago to a guy named Alulu in Samaria. It was for the sale of five sheep, a lamb and four grass-fed goat kids and was written on a clay tablet.
Presumably Alulu was not as smart at math as Liz Sandals, and not up to speed on the price of livestock, so that’s why he asked for the receipt.
Someone must have told Premier Wynne about Alulu and receipt history because she overruled her education minister. She says the teachers’ unions have not yet been given the $2.5 million but when they are receipts will be required.
So Ontario taxpayers can breathe easier knowing that their government says it intends to follow the 5200-year-old practice of getting receipts.
That still leaves us with a worrisome problem, however. Why are taxpayers paying teachers’ union expenses while they negotiate higher salaries and better working conditions?
Minister Liz says the money is being shelled out because of the transition to a new bargaining system with teachers.
“When you are going through a transformational process, if you want the transformation to work, the first thing to do is to get the people into the building and committed to making the process work by being there . . . ” she said.
I assume that means that unless the government pays travel, hotel and food (including pizzas) expenses, the teachers’ negotiators will not show up to negotiate. The last time I was in a union we paid dues to build a fund to pay expenses like negotiating working agreements.
However, this latest scandal is about more than just who pays for the pizza. It’s all about politics.
During the 2014 provincial election the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association together spent more than $3 million on political advertising. Most of it was for ads attacking the Liberal government’s main opponent, the Conservatives.
So the government makes secret payments for teachers’ union expenses (including pizzas), plus gives them special favors and rich contracts. In return the teachers’ unions spend money, some of it which came from taxpayers, to ensure the government stays in power.
The government says it is routine to pay teacher union expenses incurred in negotiations.
Routine? Sleazy is a more accurate, more appropriate word.
October 29, 2015
Settling the Frost Centre Ghosts
Each Hallowe’en I perch on a rockcut across from the Frost Centre, watching for the ghosts to appear. They always do.
I see their excited faces as they step down from arriving school buses. I hear their laughter echoing in the dormitory hallways. I feel their presence as they hike the trail to the old ranger cabin.
The ghosts are my memories. Unsettled memories of when kids came to the Frost Centre to learn about nature and experience the health and joy of the outdoors.
One of my favourite memories is the Spirit Walk staged one Hallowe’en week in 2002 by Frost Centre staff and others.
We walked the darkened grounds beside St. Nora Lake, unexpectedly meeting ghosts from the past carrying lanterns and dressed in the fashions of their times. There was a dynamiter who had worked on Highway 35 construction in the 1930s. And a log driver for lumber baron J. R. Booth in the 1800s. And a settler come to Haliburton County to build a life in the bush.
Each talked about the events of their times. It was a fascinating evening and we learned much about the lives of the people and the history of the area.
Another special memory is of following children through the Frost Centre’s sawmill and sugar bush area behind Sand Lake. The kids saw how logs were milled into building boards, then how maple trees were tapped and the sap cooked to become maple syrup spooned onto fresh snow for them to eat.
These were paid attendance events put on by staff and Frost Centre friends who understood the importance to children, and adults, of learning our history and heritage.
All that ended July 9, 2004 when the McGuinty government closed the Frost Centre. David Ramsay, then Natural Resources minister, said education was not a core service for his ministry. The money spent on the Frost Centre operation could be better used improving health care, he said.
The government then proceeded to squander millions of taxpayer dollars in the outrageous EHealth and Ornge air ambulance spending scandals. The money lost in these mismanagement epics could have funded 10 Frost Centres for many years.
Meanwhile 35 people lost their Frost Centre jobs and the local economy lost an estimated $700,000 a year. We all lost a priceless resource for learning about and understanding nature at a time when environmental disasters threaten our planet’s existence.
Ramsay said the Frost Centre presented a great opportunity for private development. The government could sell it to private enterprise for developing into a resort.
The last thing Ontario needed was another struggling resort. Eleven years have passed since the closure. The Frost Centre sits empty and rotting, costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for heat, electricity, maintenance and security.
I‘m told that vandals have done a number on the demonstration saw mill and the sugar shack. I haven’t been there myself because of the No Trespassing signs.
Someone is using the old police and conservation officer gun range behind Sand Lake. Every weekend there are explosions of gunfire from there. Some of it sounds like heavy caliber, automatic gunfire. On two weekend occasions there have been explosions loud enough to be dynamite or hand grenades.
There’s no use wailing any longer about the Frost Centre closing. It is history and more weeping and gnashing of teeth will not change it.
It is time for a new approach. The Frost Centre should be dismantled. Local people should be given contracts to take down the 21 buildings and reclaim and recycle any useful parts. It is a project that should be managed by local government and local organizations. Certainly not by the Queen’s Park elite.
Take down the buildings. Plant more majestic white pines. Create a roadside park beside the lake. Or an expanded wilderness canoe/camping launch site.
Perhaps build a small museum, or at least a historical cairn, that will help people remember and honour the important history and contributions of the Frost Centre and its surrounding area.
Maybe then the ghosts of the Frost Centre will be settled.
Email: shaman@vianet.
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
I see their excited faces as they step down from arriving school buses. I hear their laughter echoing in the dormitory hallways. I feel their presence as they hike the trail to the old ranger cabin.
The ghosts are my memories. Unsettled memories of when kids came to the Frost Centre to learn about nature and experience the health and joy of the outdoors.
One of my favourite memories is the Spirit Walk staged one Hallowe’en week in 2002 by Frost Centre staff and others.
We walked the darkened grounds beside St. Nora Lake, unexpectedly meeting ghosts from the past carrying lanterns and dressed in the fashions of their times. There was a dynamiter who had worked on Highway 35 construction in the 1930s. And a log driver for lumber baron J. R. Booth in the 1800s. And a settler come to Haliburton County to build a life in the bush.
Each talked about the events of their times. It was a fascinating evening and we learned much about the lives of the people and the history of the area.
Another special memory is of following children through the Frost Centre’s sawmill and sugar bush area behind Sand Lake. The kids saw how logs were milled into building boards, then how maple trees were tapped and the sap cooked to become maple syrup spooned onto fresh snow for them to eat.
These were paid attendance events put on by staff and Frost Centre friends who understood the importance to children, and adults, of learning our history and heritage.
All that ended July 9, 2004 when the McGuinty government closed the Frost Centre. David Ramsay, then Natural Resources minister, said education was not a core service for his ministry. The money spent on the Frost Centre operation could be better used improving health care, he said.
The government then proceeded to squander millions of taxpayer dollars in the outrageous EHealth and Ornge air ambulance spending scandals. The money lost in these mismanagement epics could have funded 10 Frost Centres for many years.
Meanwhile 35 people lost their Frost Centre jobs and the local economy lost an estimated $700,000 a year. We all lost a priceless resource for learning about and understanding nature at a time when environmental disasters threaten our planet’s existence.
Ramsay said the Frost Centre presented a great opportunity for private development. The government could sell it to private enterprise for developing into a resort.
The last thing Ontario needed was another struggling resort. Eleven years have passed since the closure. The Frost Centre sits empty and rotting, costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for heat, electricity, maintenance and security.
I‘m told that vandals have done a number on the demonstration saw mill and the sugar shack. I haven’t been there myself because of the No Trespassing signs.
Someone is using the old police and conservation officer gun range behind Sand Lake. Every weekend there are explosions of gunfire from there. Some of it sounds like heavy caliber, automatic gunfire. On two weekend occasions there have been explosions loud enough to be dynamite or hand grenades.
There’s no use wailing any longer about the Frost Centre closing. It is history and more weeping and gnashing of teeth will not change it.
It is time for a new approach. The Frost Centre should be dismantled. Local people should be given contracts to take down the 21 buildings and reclaim and recycle any useful parts. It is a project that should be managed by local government and local organizations. Certainly not by the Queen’s Park elite.
Take down the buildings. Plant more majestic white pines. Create a roadside park beside the lake. Or an expanded wilderness canoe/camping launch site.
Perhaps build a small museum, or at least a historical cairn, that will help people remember and honour the important history and contributions of the Frost Centre and its surrounding area.
Maybe then the ghosts of the Frost Centre will be settled.
Email: shaman@vianet.
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
October 22, 2015
Yellow Jackets and Health Care
It was plenty late arriving but Sunday’sfirst hard frost fell from the sky like George Bush’s shock and awe campaign in Iraq. It hit fast and hard and completed autumn’s Job One.
Job One in autumn is putting to sleep every yellow jacket in the county. Jack Frost got it done Sunday. He knocked all the wasps onto their backs, frostbitten stingers pointed skyward. Deader than the falling leaves.
So that’s it for another stinging insect season. The one just past was particularly nasty, starting early and lasting longer with wasps seriously aggressive in September and the first half of October.
Wasps are especially noticeable – and especially aggressive – in the fall because they are on vacation. Spring and summer they toil non-stop gathering food for their colony’s young. In late summer and early fall the queen wasps stop laying eggs and the workers are free to go about looking for carbohydrates and sweets, such as rotting fruit, to feed themselves.
More free time to roam usually means more encounters with humans. When they sting they don’t leave behind the stinger, therefore one wasp can sting multiple times.
I had two wasp encounters this fall. The second encounter, on Thanksgiving Weekend, landed me in a hospital emergency room. Two stings from a lone wasp left me looking like Pumpkinhead, my eyes swollen almost shut.
Three little bags of intravenous cocktails started to put me back in shape. No real damage done but it was a good reminder how dangerous these critters can be. And, another reminder of the contradictions in our health care system.
Allergic reactions to wasp stings can kill. Deaths from wasp stings are rare in Canada but anyone spending a lot of time outside, especially in the fall, is wise to carry a couple of antihistamine tablets. They will slow down an allergic reaction, if you happen to develop one.
Allergic reactions occur sometimes even if you have been stung before and have not reacted. Also, wasp stings can react with some medications, like blood pressure pills.
Going to hospital because of a wasp sting had a positive side. Once again I got to see the dedication and professionalism of medical staff who perform miracles in spite of the cancerous government bureaucracies that control their work.
The growth of health care bureaucracies is shocking and people need to rise up and demand a stop to it. Ontario has 14 Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) each with a CEO earning an average annual salary of close to $300,000. Then there are the COOs, CFOs, Chief Communications Officers and on and on.
Search the Internet for LHIN salaries and you’ll find eight screens of the names of LHIN employees earning the big bucks. Big buck acronyms sucking up dollars that should go into direct care for patients.
Ditto the 14 Community Care Access Centres (CCACs), which govern home care.
Executive salaries in these questionable bureaucracies have been soaring. Meanwhile, the salaries of people who do the real work helping patients have fallen behind.
Bob Hepburn, a Toronto Star staffer, reported last year that only 40 to 50 cents of every tax dollar earmarked for home care actually reaches the health-care professionals who deliver services to patients. Guess where the rest goes? Executive salaries, administrative costs and corporate profits.
Meanwhile, back in the bush the frost has killed all the worker wasps but the queens have survived. They will hibernate below ground until spring when they will establish new colonies, build new nests and the cycle will begin again.
There is no such cycle in the health care system. The real workers survive the bureaucratic hard frosts and continue to help people with their afflictions.
Their big buck bureaucratic bosses, however, do not get to hibernate like the queen wasps. They continue to shuffle paper, improve their media relations and lobby politicians for more money and more power.
Wasp stings can be neutralized by drugs. Too bad there is not a drug to relieve taxpayers from the pain and swelling of health care bureaucracies.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
Job One in autumn is putting to sleep every yellow jacket in the county. Jack Frost got it done Sunday. He knocked all the wasps onto their backs, frostbitten stingers pointed skyward. Deader than the falling leaves.
So that’s it for another stinging insect season. The one just past was particularly nasty, starting early and lasting longer with wasps seriously aggressive in September and the first half of October.
Wasps are especially noticeable – and especially aggressive – in the fall because they are on vacation. Spring and summer they toil non-stop gathering food for their colony’s young. In late summer and early fall the queen wasps stop laying eggs and the workers are free to go about looking for carbohydrates and sweets, such as rotting fruit, to feed themselves.
More free time to roam usually means more encounters with humans. When they sting they don’t leave behind the stinger, therefore one wasp can sting multiple times.
I had two wasp encounters this fall. The second encounter, on Thanksgiving Weekend, landed me in a hospital emergency room. Two stings from a lone wasp left me looking like Pumpkinhead, my eyes swollen almost shut.
Three little bags of intravenous cocktails started to put me back in shape. No real damage done but it was a good reminder how dangerous these critters can be. And, another reminder of the contradictions in our health care system.
Allergic reactions to wasp stings can kill. Deaths from wasp stings are rare in Canada but anyone spending a lot of time outside, especially in the fall, is wise to carry a couple of antihistamine tablets. They will slow down an allergic reaction, if you happen to develop one.
Allergic reactions occur sometimes even if you have been stung before and have not reacted. Also, wasp stings can react with some medications, like blood pressure pills.
Going to hospital because of a wasp sting had a positive side. Once again I got to see the dedication and professionalism of medical staff who perform miracles in spite of the cancerous government bureaucracies that control their work.
The growth of health care bureaucracies is shocking and people need to rise up and demand a stop to it. Ontario has 14 Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) each with a CEO earning an average annual salary of close to $300,000. Then there are the COOs, CFOs, Chief Communications Officers and on and on.
Search the Internet for LHIN salaries and you’ll find eight screens of the names of LHIN employees earning the big bucks. Big buck acronyms sucking up dollars that should go into direct care for patients.
Ditto the 14 Community Care Access Centres (CCACs), which govern home care.
Executive salaries in these questionable bureaucracies have been soaring. Meanwhile, the salaries of people who do the real work helping patients have fallen behind.
Bob Hepburn, a Toronto Star staffer, reported last year that only 40 to 50 cents of every tax dollar earmarked for home care actually reaches the health-care professionals who deliver services to patients. Guess where the rest goes? Executive salaries, administrative costs and corporate profits.
Meanwhile, back in the bush the frost has killed all the worker wasps but the queens have survived. They will hibernate below ground until spring when they will establish new colonies, build new nests and the cycle will begin again.
There is no such cycle in the health care system. The real workers survive the bureaucratic hard frosts and continue to help people with their afflictions.
Their big buck bureaucratic bosses, however, do not get to hibernate like the queen wasps. They continue to shuffle paper, improve their media relations and lobby politicians for more money and more power.
Wasp stings can be neutralized by drugs. Too bad there is not a drug to relieve taxpayers from the pain and swelling of health care bureaucracies.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
October 15, 2015
A Tough Way to Earn a Buck
New book releases are tumbling into book shops, book sites and libraries this fall almost as fast as the falling autumn leaves. As many as 20,000 to 25,000 new titles could be released in the United States during this fall’s book season.
The flurry of new books is so great that it is difficult to decide on a list of books you might want to read, let alone an individual book.
The sheer numbers leave an impression among some people that authors who write them are taking in major dollars. Not exactly.
The big names like Stephen King, Nora Roberts and James Patterson continue to pull in millions of dollars but the lesser lights are seeing diminishing incomes.
The Authors Guild in the U.S. surveyed more than 1,400 full- and part-time writers this year and found that more than one-half of respondents earned less than $11,670 a year. That figure just happened to be the U.S. federal poverty level in 2014.
"No one likes to see the word 'poverty level' on a survey that has anything to do with people you know,” says Roxana Robinson, Authors Guild president. “You used to be able to make an absolutely living wage as a writer. You wrote essays and you published them in journals. You wrote magazine pieces and you got paid very well for those. And you wrote books and you got good advances. So being a writer, it didn't usually mean you would be rich, but it had meant in the past that you could support yourself."The Guild survey reported that the average income of a full-time writer has dropped to $17,500 a year, down from $25,000 in 2009. For the average part-time author the figure was $4,500 a year, down from $7,250 in 2009.
The numbers for authors who win major book awards also are shocking.
The Man Booker prize in the United Kingdom released its short list of nominees for the prize last month. Two of the Man Booker finalists each have sold only 15,000 to 20,000 hardcovers each of their books. One other finalist has sold 3,600 copies in the U.S., another only 3,000.
Those numbers mean meagre money for authors who spend countless hours researching and writing these books. At least getting into the finals does provide more. The Man Booker winner gets $75,000 Canadian, while the runners-up get roughly $3,800 Canadian.
Canadian writers’ book earnings in most cases are small. However, they also receive small payments from the Public Lending Right based on how many libraries are carrying their books. The more of your books in the library, the higher the payment.
Also, Access Copyright pays writers money from a fund collected from institutions that use writers’ copyrighted work. The federal government passed a new copyright act not long ago which screwed writers out of an important source of income. Schools and other educational institutions, and even some government departments, now say they don’t have to pay into the copyright fund for using writer’s works anyway they wish.
E-books have created new earnings opportunities for writers. More and more writers are self publishing digital books. There have been success stories.
British author Mark Dawson is pulling down six figures a year from his series about an assassin published through the Amazon Kindle program.
Self publishing through a digital platform is a simple way to get a book out. But the majority of those books go nowhere because moving the books to make some money is all up to the author. Hundreds of thousands of books are self-published and getting one noticed in that ocean of publishing is difficult no matter how good the book.
The writer has to become an entrepreneur, which means weekends at flea markets, fairs and days and nights speaking to book clubs and any other groups willing to listen. Promoting, marketing and selling the book leaves little time for more writing.
I mention all this because Haliburton County has a sizeable population of writers. They work hard with varying degrees of success and we hope they will continue and someday we’ll see some county names on those lists of awards and bestsellers.
The flurry of new books is so great that it is difficult to decide on a list of books you might want to read, let alone an individual book.
The sheer numbers leave an impression among some people that authors who write them are taking in major dollars. Not exactly.
The big names like Stephen King, Nora Roberts and James Patterson continue to pull in millions of dollars but the lesser lights are seeing diminishing incomes.
The Authors Guild in the U.S. surveyed more than 1,400 full- and part-time writers this year and found that more than one-half of respondents earned less than $11,670 a year. That figure just happened to be the U.S. federal poverty level in 2014.
"No one likes to see the word 'poverty level' on a survey that has anything to do with people you know,” says Roxana Robinson, Authors Guild president. “You used to be able to make an absolutely living wage as a writer. You wrote essays and you published them in journals. You wrote magazine pieces and you got paid very well for those. And you wrote books and you got good advances. So being a writer, it didn't usually mean you would be rich, but it had meant in the past that you could support yourself."The Guild survey reported that the average income of a full-time writer has dropped to $17,500 a year, down from $25,000 in 2009. For the average part-time author the figure was $4,500 a year, down from $7,250 in 2009.
The numbers for authors who win major book awards also are shocking.
The Man Booker prize in the United Kingdom released its short list of nominees for the prize last month. Two of the Man Booker finalists each have sold only 15,000 to 20,000 hardcovers each of their books. One other finalist has sold 3,600 copies in the U.S., another only 3,000.
Those numbers mean meagre money for authors who spend countless hours researching and writing these books. At least getting into the finals does provide more. The Man Booker winner gets $75,000 Canadian, while the runners-up get roughly $3,800 Canadian.
Canadian writers’ book earnings in most cases are small. However, they also receive small payments from the Public Lending Right based on how many libraries are carrying their books. The more of your books in the library, the higher the payment.
Also, Access Copyright pays writers money from a fund collected from institutions that use writers’ copyrighted work. The federal government passed a new copyright act not long ago which screwed writers out of an important source of income. Schools and other educational institutions, and even some government departments, now say they don’t have to pay into the copyright fund for using writer’s works anyway they wish.
E-books have created new earnings opportunities for writers. More and more writers are self publishing digital books. There have been success stories.
British author Mark Dawson is pulling down six figures a year from his series about an assassin published through the Amazon Kindle program.
Self publishing through a digital platform is a simple way to get a book out. But the majority of those books go nowhere because moving the books to make some money is all up to the author. Hundreds of thousands of books are self-published and getting one noticed in that ocean of publishing is difficult no matter how good the book.
The writer has to become an entrepreneur, which means weekends at flea markets, fairs and days and nights speaking to book clubs and any other groups willing to listen. Promoting, marketing and selling the book leaves little time for more writing.
I mention all this because Haliburton County has a sizeable population of writers. They work hard with varying degrees of success and we hope they will continue and someday we’ll see some county names on those lists of awards and bestsellers.
