The Commonwealth Games..good show!

Did you know that in the Commonwealth games offers full inclusion for atheletes with disabilities? In that way Chantal Petitclerc's gold and the seven other medals won by our disabled atheletes have been counted in the Canadian total. They are truly world class atheletes and regular atheletes would be hard pressed to do as much in those conditions. Finally these atheletes are given the recognition that they deserve.
I was listening to a report on CBC Radio about the Paraolympics at Torino and the reporter was saying what a shame it was that there were hardly any spectators or media at the events. I find that so sad, these atheletes have overcome so many hurdles and all they get is an afterthought. The Olympic Governing Committee should take a page from the Commonwealth Games. Include these superbe atheletes so that they get the recognition that they deserve. Let them have their place in the sun. How hard can it be? If there is a will they can surely find a way.
Finally bravo to the Canadian Team for having chosen Chantal Peticlerc to be the flag bearer for the team... I am sure, that for her, it was as great an honour and pleasure as winning her gold medal. After all, this was a gesture from her peers, recognizing her talent and perseverence.

Of seals and cod fish!!!

Don't you wish that international stars that are in need of an infusion of publicity would stay away from the "save the animals " thing. Bardot's back in Ottawa to shake a finger at we Canadians saying naughty, naughty, because of the seal hunt. There are about 5 million of the critters, and the population has been going way up since the 70's. They are far from being an endangered species. I wonder why McCartney and Bardot haven't shed any tears for the poor common cod fish, whose population has been decimated by overfishing. Certain nations of the EU being amoung the worst offenders... Could it be because the cod fish are not cute, are not photogenic ? Where were they when Canada was trying to control the EU fishing fleets that were scooping up all the cod they could, making a recovery of the population almost impossible. What about all the little lambs or calves being slaughtered in Europe to make lamb chops or veal parmesan?
Can we all spell H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E-S???

Of priorities and the public good

I think that this rant deserves a post all by itself. As I have said before I am a teacher in the public school system and as such have been told that the system costs too much and that we must do more with less, that we must find creative solutions. There is no money. So our students work on old beat up computers that have been donated and don't work half the time. There is no money... we are trying to find the $25000 it would cost to equipe a new computer lab but it is going to take some kind of miraculous finances to accomplish this. What services will we cut to do it?
In the mean time, our elected commisioners of the school board have voted themselves $65000 worth of new P5 laptop computers ($48000 for computers and $17000 for IT support such as WIFI and broadband internet at home). The students are using recycled computers and they are spending the equivalent of two new computer labs to "save paper and mailing costs". (But let's be fair, in fours years when they are obsolete, they'll be changed and the old ones then given to the schools... how's that for generous. )
We are always being told that there is no money, that we must cut costs. I just wonder sometimes what percentage of the billions in the education budget is really spent DIRECTLY on the students. (By directly I mean, money that goes into the classes, that the students profit from, either in equipement or direct services) I would not be surprised if it was less than 1%. Since the students are at the end of the line there isn't much left when everyone above have taken their slice. Then society wonders why so many students drop out and don't finish high school. The budget should be reversed... the students get what they need and whatever is left over can be used for other things. Gee what an inovative thought, the education budget actually being used for the education of students.

Luv that new car smell...

Last post car died... put it out of its misery. Got a new car, don't you just love that new car smell? That folks is the smell of hard earned cash going, going, gone... Bought a Subaru, cuz the last Toyata kind of soured me on Toyota's in general and Corollas in particular. I know they are good cars but I got the only lemon they ever built. (By the way I forgot one other defect in my last post... when we put gas in the Corolla's tank the revs would yoyo so you had to keep your foot on the gas or she'd die. Ever try to keep your foot on the gas, work the clutch and brake and pull out of a service station? After 2km the occilattions would fade and away you'd go until the next time. :o( ) The Impreza drives like a charm and I'm really happy since I no longer have to worry if I'll get home again.

Cars and things...

Last night the f***ing transmission/clutch of my Toyota Corolla gave out... The thing started to whine, grind and finally jolt. Acrid smoke started to come out from under the car. The only good thing is that I wasn't far from home and finally limped into the driveway. The language I used about the situation would have blistered the paint off the barn at 100 meters. (This is one advantage of being bilingual, it gives you so much more material for creative swearing) This car must have been made on a Friday at 4pm just before a long weekend... after a year changed the bearings on the transmission, after 2.5 years changed the linking arm for the wipers (took them over a week to get the part since this happens so rarely), the anti-theft stopped working, the A/C died when its bearings seized, the check motor light kept coming on despite changing just about every part in the pollution control system... the motor takes about a gallon of oil between oil changes and sounds like a farm tractor, the suspension always makes the ride interesting, and finally the transmission/clutch gave up the ghost with a screeching whine and a crunch... We've always had Toyota and never had any problems. We ran the cars into the 270000 km's and still they ran, yet this one was one big pain in the kiester. One thing is sure, I'm not pouring more money into the thing... to paraphrase Monty Python's Dead Parrot Sketch... "it is dead, defunct, passed away, this is a dead car... it is not sleeping, it is DEAD". So I guess I'll soon be paying car payments again but it won't be to Toyota.

Roots

We spent the March Break in "le Vieux Québec". For those of you that are not from Québec, "la Vielle Ville" is the old part of Québec City near the St. Lawrence River. It dates back to the the 17th and 18th century and has been largely restored. It is one of the first UNESCO hertitage sites in North America. It is the cradle of French America and most francophones have ancestors that come from there. This is where it all started.
As I walked along the snowy cobbled streets, that have a distinctly European flavour, I reflected upon what it must have been like to live there 300-350 years ago. You would have left a nice safe civilized country, sailed for at least a month across the stormy Atlantic, to end up in a place where nothing was the same. You had more freedom, but life was probably much harsher than back in France. Chances were that you would never see your family or homeland again. Yet people made a place for themselves and created a French culture in this strange land. They set out and explored a continent, going from Hudson's Bay to the far west all the way down to Louisiana and New Orleans.
This is where my roots are, and I can feel that even if I have spent most of my life elsewhere. It is a strange feeling, this feeling of being home. I was an airforce brat and as such lived all over the place but when I came to study in Québec, as I got off the bus, the feeling struck me, I was home. This place was home. It is a feeling that I have never had elsewhere. I know it sounds strange but that feeling has stayed with me all my life and though I have lived longer elsewhere than here, Québec is still my home, my roots.

March Break, Yeah!!!

Finally March break is here... in the darkness of a cold/cool dank winter we can all take a break in the educational world. Why, many you ask, do we get a week off in the first week of March? Well one very good reason is that both students and teachers are much more likely to do grievous bodily harm to each other at this time of the year, so in lieu of hibernating the winter away, we all get a time out to go back to our corners to prepare for the final half of the year. ;o)
So it's a week of taking it easy, undoing the stress and preparing for what is to come, for both the students and the teachers. Soooo...
Have a very good, relaxing, and safe March Break, doing all the things you love!!!

Sitting in the dark

The electricity went out last night on my side of the street, not the whole street, just our side of the street. (How come that always happens when the temprerature is -18 degrees celsius (0 degrees F) with a wind chill of -25 degrees(-13 degrees F)) We could look out of our cold dark house and see the lights in the houses across the street. Even the street lights were on.... but not on our side of the street.
We always take our modern convenience for granted until it stops working. Sitting there shivering in the dark reading by the flickering light of a candle, oh all right to the light of a propane camping lantern, made me think about how much we depend on our fragile technology. Makes me think of a quote from Carl Sagan, "Our society is exquisitly dependant on science and technology, yet very few of its members know anything about science and technology." How true it is. I know people who don't know how to connect their VCR to their TV. Look at how many people use a computer without having any idea of what is going on. Yet we all depend upon it for our very survival. How many of us could suvive without the technology?
A couple of years ago, we had an ice storm that shut down the electrical grid, in many places, for over a month in the dead of winter. People had to abandon their homes and go live in shelters. New Orlean's infra-structure is no more and the city has almost ceased to exist. Yet we still take it all for granted. Push a button, instant heat, light, and entertainment.
Makes you think when you're sitting there shivering in the dark. ;o)

St. Valentine's Day

Happy St. Valentine's day to all of you love lorne people out there. Did you know that:

• Approximately one billion Valentine cards are exchanged each year...the largest seasonal card-selling occasion of the year next to Christmas.
• Most Valentine's Day cards (83%) are purchased by women. However, the number of cards purchased by men (currently 17%) is gradually rising, thought by some sources to be due to the fact that men often purchase two cards for their siginificant others...an amusing one and the obligatory romantic one which they believe is expected of them.
• Half of all consumers prefer to receive a humorous Valentine, followed by a romantic greeting (31%) and then a more risque form of card (8.2%). More than one-third of women (36%) and 26% of males prefer to receive a romantic Valentine. 13% of males prefer a more sexy Valentine, whereas only 3.5% of women prefer this variety of card.
• February 14 is the most important holiday for florists, accounting for 32% of annual sales.
• 73% of people who buy flowers to send on Valentine's Day are male...only 27% are female.
• Approximately 110 million roses...the majority of them being red...will be sold and delivered within a three-day time period during the Valentine's Day celebrations.
• 36% of males and 28% of females put off their Valentine's Day shopping until February 14 or the day before...64% of consumers will plan to do their shopping a week or more prior to the date.
• Males tend to spend more money on Valentine's Day gifts than do females and are more likely to buy big-ticket items...the average amount spent being $95.00.
• Alexander Graham Bell applied for his patent on the telephone on Valentine's Day in 1876.
• The chief colors associated with Valentine's Day are pink, red and white. Pink is a delicate, almost innocent shade of red and is also connected with Saint Valentine, whose burial was said to have caused the pink almond tree to blossom. Red is a symbol of warmth and feeling...the color of the heart, while white represents purity and faith...a faith between two who love each other.
• from : http://www.novareinna.com/festive/valentine.html
  

For more St. Valentine facts for Canada see: The London Free Press

To the Moon and Back

Watched the HBO series "From the Earth to the Moon" last night. Boy that sure brings back some memories. I can remember watching the lift off's on TV with Walter Cronkite giving the commentary. It's funny, my generation grew up with the space program. We lived through the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space shots. We watched John Glenn orbit the earth, the first space walk, Armstrong stepping out on the moon. It is probably the best thing that was done in the sixties. It made us all dream of one day being in space. (Star Trek was born in those years.) We were with the astronauts and it was something that every one of us could relate with. Yes it cost billions, and yes there was also the Vietnam War, racial injustice, and the Cold war but the whole world could dream of the stars. If we could go to the moon, we could do anything. I think just about everyone stared out at the moon in wonder when Armstong, Aldrin and Collins were there.
It cost billions, but it was money well spent. Too bad that they squandered the dream, billions are still being spent but to what end? There is still poverty, war, and all kinds of social ills and on top of it, we don't even have a common goal, a dream. :o(

Ah the weekend, finally

Ah the weekend has finally arrived... been a long week. Doctor's appointment (does anyone like doctor's appointments, it's almost up there with seeing the dentist), Génie en Herbe on Tuesday (for those who don't do secondary school or have kids, it's the French version of "Reach for the Top", there's a whole league with rules, competitions, and statistics, great fun, but it means that when there is a competition, we get home after a 13 hour day) and finally having to deal with having my credit card cloned by some thief.
It is really a pain, although the credit card company is ok about it and they don't bill you for what was ripped off. But finally we all pay for the thieves since the companies make us pay higher interest rates to cover the losses. You'd figure that someone would come up with a better system, something with a NIP that isn't stored on the card, but then again people get ripped off with their interact cards. Maybe with computer chips but it probably costs VISA less to leave things as they are than to spend the money to change it (see article). I know at least 4 people who have had it happen to them so watch out even though there is probably not much you can do about it.
Now on to the weekend. Finally we are getting nice cold dry sunny winter weather, I love it. It's much better than the damp, grey stuff we've been having since the start of winter. You know kind of mixed up weather that can't make up its mind whether it's fall or winter or a hybrid of the two. So I finally got to go skating on the Rideau Canal... great fun and exercise. To top it off tonight went to a nice Scottish pub for a pint of Guinness with a steak. A fine ending to the week and tomorrow should be pretty much the same. That's the life!!! :o)

I think the whole world has seen and heard about the cartoon issue. All I can say is that I find it extremely ironic that by protesting the "blasphemy" with violence, arson, and death threats, they are giving credibility to what would otherwise be an exercise in bad taste. Laughing at another man's religion may be in very bad taste but it certainly doesn't deserve the violence, hate and threats that it has engendered. Obviously religion just does not seem to have much of a sense of humour, I guess it comes from taking yourself too seriously.

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In another twist of the weird, how do you like our new Prime Minister’s spanking new cabinet. Not too bad, for a new style politician, who is going to change the nature of politics. He named a turn-coat liberal to his cabinet (remember the big kafuffle about Belinda?) and he made one of his political cronies a senator (remember the TRIPLE “E” senate, efficient, equal and “tadah” ELECTED) and then named him to his cabinet without his ever seeing the inside of a ballot box. The more it changes the more it is the same old, same old… and they wonder why people are cynical about politics.

Democracy at work

What is democracy and when does democracy start to be coercive. I'm sure everyone has come across situations where the group decides what each member must do or not do. Everyone must march in lockstep and nobody can march to his/her own drummer. To justify this they use democracy to tell you what you must do (or not do) and god help you if you have a different opinion. You're not a team player, you're not following the party line, you are not right... you are a traitor; you are responsible for breaking up the team. It's all your fault.
No I'm not talking about a strike, nor am I talking about a major negotiation or an election. I'm talking about simple everyday situations that we meet whenever a group gathers. Has majority rule gone too far... I wonder? (I know that it's not politically correct to question this but I've never been PC)
Here's a hypothetical situation to illustrate the point... It is Christmas and in schools there are often Christmas parties at noon with your class. Some teachers don't want to do a party with the kids and that's fine, they are allowed to do what they want during their noon hour, it is their time. So they vote to stop all parties because they don't want any of the kids asking them why they're not doing something. In other words, everyone must do the same thing because they can't assume the consequences of their decision. So instead they bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator. We are not ordering them to do a party on their own time. They are completely free to not do one, yet they use "democracy" to stop others from "doing their thing" because they have trouble taking responsibility for their decisions. Here my illustration uses schools but I am sure that the same situation exists everywhere. (I'm even sure that among the "cols bleus" (municipal workers of Montréal that have a very militant union) there are reasonable workers that just want to get their job done to the best of their abilities and are high jacked by the hotheads of their union.)
It is ironic that in the name of democracy we force a rigid homogenization on people. People should be allowed to be different, to have their own way of doing things, to do things if they want to (or not)... in other words a nice big dose of "live and let live". If not, how do we tell the difference between a tyranny and a democracy?

What a way to start a week...

Wouldn't it be nice if winter could make up its mind? Went to bed last night with snow and woke up this morning with freezing rain, and at noon it was a fine humid drizzle. I wish that we could have one or the other but not both at the same time. The weather person says that we are 5.5 degrees celsius (that's 9.9 degrees F for you Americans) above the seasonal average. (Can we all spell global warming?) Nice to have warmer weather since it costs less to heat, but it might be nice for it to be a little less humid and a little more stable. ;o)

Fustration in the morning

I am one of those unlucky people that has to drive to work each and every morning... (I don't have any choice cuz there just isn't any public transport from where I live to where I work :o( believe me I would if I could.) The traffic was really heavy this morning and we were all patiently waiting in a loooong line to get onto the 20. Lo and behold comes this driver, driving along in the left lane, passing everyone who had been there driving "stop and go" for five minutes. Just before the entrance to the highway he wants to cut into the line in front of everyone. Unfortunately I was feeling rather grumpy (I'm allowed to be at my age and because the alarm clock hadn't gone off that morning) so I didn't stop the car and let "Monsieur" cut in front of me. (It helps that I have an older car and his was a new one) He was so fustrated that that he hadn't got his way that he found a way to pass in front of me on the highway and flip me the bird... Now here is a guy so arrogant, that he feels that he doesn't have to follow the line and everyone must let him pass in front of them (stopping the whole line of cars in the process) and he has the unmitigated effrontery to be fustrated and angry when we didn't all bow down to his majesty. All I can say to him is... no I won't stoop to his lack of "savoir vivre" but I must admit to a bit of satisfaction at having made his morning even more fustrating... I waved at him with a smile as he passed. :oP