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I know what you’re thinking. “Fascinating subject Arb, do tell us more!”
Okay, perhaps not as gripping the other newsy bits we we have around here but none the less a subject that shouldn’t be casually swept aside. Living in Alberta means that for three to five months of the year, snow will be on the ground. The lovely first fall of snow marks the official end of mosquito season and the transition to having ‘exposed flesh stick uncomfortably to metal season’. Some might balk at all the freezing rain, sleet and snow – but really – it isn’t that bad.
One of the civic expectations of snowy Edmontonian existence is keeping the public sidewalk in front of your place of residence clear of snow and ice. Our civic authorities mandate that from the time of the last snow event forty-eight hours are given in which to clear your walks in order to make them safe for people to walk on.
Sound reasonable?
Seems workable to me and thus after each snow I make my rounds with my trusty shovel and ice-scraper. My goal is to get down to the concrete to ensure a safe and solid footing for all those who would come to see me, or merely have to sojourn past my property. For my work to be done, my walks need to pass the inappropriate winter footwear test. If I can confidently make my way in my sandals –
Then, and only then, my job is done. :)
It takes some time and work, let me assure you. Many factors are working against you in the valiant quest for clean sidewalks it is here my arch nemesis must be named.
Freezing Rain.
A glossy, slippery, unchippable horror that can only be bested by the most potent weapon in my winter arsenal.
Glorious sidewalk-salt. That being said, one must consider the bitter-salty implications of using this dread weapon on icy sidewalks. Salt is not conducive to the growing and maintenance of grass or anything else organic for that matter.
Observe.
The battle for clean sidewalks is necessarily a delicate balance. A fateful alchemy of dedication, perseverance, and Na Cl. It is a fine line that must be walked during snow-season in Alberta.
Canada has sent CF-18’s to participate in the bombing of ISIS. I think this is a very bad idea and I need to tell you a story from my childhood to illustrate why.
This whole sending planes overseas to bomb people reminds me of one Christmas I had the pleasure of spending in Hawaii. Oh let me assure you gentle readers, it was a very merry Mele Kalikimaka for my Mom and I. We saw many wonderful sights, swam on many beaches, drove around for the first couple of days in a standard car that my dear Mum couldn’t reliably drive (which I nearly fell out of on the highway), turned my back on the ocean and was promptly slammed by a monster-wave that sent me cartwheeling underwater up a thirty-foot sandy incline losing my glasses and nearly my life in the process. Like I said, good times. But there was a side story that went along with our little Hawaii get-away and it involves attempting to acquire a certain toy that I reeeeeeeealy wanted.
You see, back at the time I happened to be young and had a certain proclivity toward the latest and greatest toys available at the time – Transformers. Specifically for some reason lost to me now I wanted to get Soundwave – an evil Decepticon robot that could transform into a tape deck. Witness (If you’re really curious, you can see Soundwave in action on youtube):
Whoa! So tricky, hiding as a radio/cassette player. My 10 year old mind didn’t do physics at the time, but how does a 12 foot multiple tonne robot “transform” into a human sized, human portable – boom box?
Daaaamn, Soundwave was cool. In the cartoon he spoke in a heavily vocoded monotone voice.
As I recall, our dynamic mother and son team spent a good deal of time on our vacation looking for the authentic Soundwave toy. Now being that Tranformers were all shiny and new back then, they had not made it to the Big Island yet; and if they did the branded toys were snapped up by savvy Hawaiian shoppers before the likes of our pasty Canadian tourists had even thought about buying them.
What was available were many imitation toys that mimicked the brand name toy precisely. The knock-offs where everywhere in the Hawaiian toy stores. And yes, in retrospect, I’m completely embarrassed at how spoiled I was for dragging my mother to so many malls in Hawaii looking for Mr.Soundwave – only child – I had no choice in the matter :)
Anyhow, we eventually had to settle on getting the very good Soundwave knock-off. It was under the Christmas lamp and promptly opened and played with on that sunny tropical Christmas morning. I remember though, that as much fun as I had with said toy it just wasn’t quite right. It was almost everything I wanted, yet there was a keen edge of disappointment because we had to settle for something wasn’t exactly what I wanted. It was a gift that involved a settlement – the best we could do at the time.
I’m sure we’ve all been in that situation in one form or another. We’ve all wanted “X” soooo bad for so long but then “Y” comes along and we jump at the opportunity to get what we almost wanted because we figure it will do and make us just as happy.
Hint: Settling doesn’t make us as happy.
So why is Canada going in with the Royal Canadian Air Force, when we know that bombing is not the solution to the ISIS problem?
“Air strikes alone are really not enough to defeat Isis in Kobani,” said Idris Nassan, a senior spokesman for the Kurdish fighters desperately trying to defend the important strategic redoubt from the advancing militants. “They are besieging the city on three sides, and fighter jets simply cannot hit each and every Isis fighter on the ground.”
He said Isis had adapted its tactics to military strikes from the air. “Each time a jet approaches, they leave their open positions, they scatter and hide. What we really need is ground support. We need heavy weapons and ammunition in order to fend them off and defeat them.”
Hmm…consider the words of US Army officer who sees a slightly different picture.
“For example, what would happen if the President took Mr. Kristol’s advice and bombed targets “for a few weeks” and then waited just to “see what happens”? The first few iterations of air sorties would have a good chance of taking out numerous ISIS vehicles and personnel. But in short order ISIS would adjust its methods of operation to disguise vehicle movements, reposition troops and embed command and control centers more deeply into civilian areas, becoming indistinguishable from the civil population.
Now, despite having successfully destroyed a few targets, we would have pushed the enemy deeper underground, hardened his resolve, and seen his troops burrow in like ticks among the innocent residents of the cities he occupies. Further targeting from the air becomes next to impossible without killing noncombatants or sending in ground troops to flush the fighters out. Unless the President will entertain deepening American engagement by deploying ground combat units to root ISIS members out of their dug-in positions, house-by-house – decidedly not recommended – those successful bombing runs will have led to dismal failure.”
So our goal is stop the massacre of innocents and the spread of radical islamic notions. It would seem that given our tactics, neither of those goals would be accomplished. So here we are at that fateful time do we get the knock off toy – we have to do something to stop ISIS – and get not quite the result we’re looking for or do we wait for what we authentically want and commit to to bring that ideal to fruition?
Here is a strategy I think that Canada could actually play a role in; specifically point 3,4, and especially 5. Canada’s role in the world used to be synonymous with Peacekeeping as opposed to the murderous imperialistic role that our current PM thinks is a-fucking-okay.
“To protect American and allied interests in and around ISIS, the United States would design and lead an aggressive regional diplomatic campaign to first isolate, and over time defeat this group of thugs; the military would play a supporting role. To accomplish this objective, the United States would isolate ISIS economically, financially, and geographically, while eroding its support from within.
To accomplish this strategic objective, the U.S. should:
1) Work with the states around and near ISIS territory for the purpose of closing the borders leading into and out of ISIS areas including those in Syria as well as Iraq, thus depriving the jihadists of materiel that could support military operations;
2) use aggressive border control to pin ISIS to its current positions;
3) at the same time, separate ISIS from its external financial and material support;
4) conduct a social media campaign that truthfully exposes the grotesque nature of ISIS ideology in ++terms that would-be jihadists can understand;
5) conduct a sustained humanitarian aid effort to ensure the people currently under ISIS bondage will survive; and
6) institute a coalition-supported “no-go zone” between ISIS territory and that of friendly nations. If ISIS vehicles or ground personnel venture into this zone, they will be destroyed.
In short, we would make it clear to the world and the potential recruits that ISIS has fatally overstepped its capabilities. Faced with the stark reality that they have isolated themselves physically, diplomatically, and morally from the rest of their own region, unable to repair broken equipment, provide fuel for their vehicles, unable to replace expended ammunition, and incapable of performing even the basic functions of a state, it will be clear to all both inside and outside the blockade: ISIS is a regime of losers whose singular accomplishment has been butchering the defenseless, and the impoverishment of the civil populations under its domination.”
Jesus-fuck! Isn’t it nice when someone with a whit of sense speaks clearly to the issue at hand. Full marks go out to this individual and his thoughtful take on what needs to be with ISIS. For a handy compare and contrast lets hear our twit of a PM on why Canada should go bomb people…
“If Canada wants to keep its voice in the world…and we should since so many of our challenges are global…being a free rider means you are not taken seriously. Left unchecked, this terrorist threat can only grow and grow quickly.”
Ah, so not participating in breeding more terror and terrorists in Iraq mean that you are “free rider” and are not going to be taken seriously. All I can say is:
Seriously?
Is France not being taken seriously for not contributing to the airstrikes that will serve only to push our goal further way? But wait, there is more apparently bombing people in Iraq is all about saving Canadian Families…
“As a Government, we know our ultimate responsibility… Is to protect Canadians, and to defend our citizens from those who would do harm to us and to our families.”
*sigh* Ratchet up fear and we’ll our darnedest overseas to protect the homeland. You’d think by now we would understand this most basic of propaganda principles. Baa..sorry for the tangent folks, but Steven Harper and the rest of his merry conservative crew of the RCN Clueless forced me to scribe about their relentless vapidity.
So, back on message – Let’s not be disappointed Christmas morning with a knockoff toy, but rather let us have Canada act in the way she knows best – humanitarian aid and assistance – and get the real toy and the real results that will bring us the ending we are anxiously hoping and expecting.
Hi everybody, just a random update from your friendly Intransigent blogger, to lighten the mood around here. I have a tale of a happy convergence of circumstances.
One day, I’m at the horse rescue and another volunteer invites me to come to a different horse-establishment to meet her horse. Of course I said yes! So we made a date, and I met up with her and her horse, and as we’re fussing over her horse and giving him treats, she asks me, have you ever thought of starting to ride again. I (as cheerfully as I can manage) say “nope, I’m too fat.”
We carry on pampering her horse, and the owner of the barn stops by to chat. “So,” she asks, quite innocently like there was no ulterior motive in getting me to visit, “Have you ever considered starting to ride again?”
I do my little nope too fat, shrug, self-deprecating laugh thing.
The barn owner looks me up and down, and says, “We have a couple lesson horses who could handle youno problem. Email me if you’d like to have a lesson sometime!”
I emailed her as soon as I got home, and lessons started the week after singing lessons ended for the summer!
A few observations upon getting back in the saddle after eighteen years on the ground:
- Everything is still there mentally, but the balance and fitness to do what I remember, has left the building
- Riding, especially posting trot, is way more exercise than I remember
- Horses are still very silly, unpredictable animals
- Falling off hurts about the same amount as ever
I’m not sure how much longer I can hold on to my introverts card as the membership committee takes a dim view of many of the activities I quite deeply enjoy doing. One of the renegade activities I partake in is running a role playing campaign in a fantasy world that involves a talking animals, hordes of zombies and a mysterious blue toxin that grants super powers when ingested.
On top of the horde and the blue toxin throw in chickens that talk with Russian accents, possums with ninja like abilities and wolverines that tend to end up without underwear and often on fire.
Oh, the motley crew that inhabits the world I’ve constructed.
If you’re wondering, the protagonists of this tale are mutated animals, just like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, only with much less pizza and much more profanity. Our group gathers every Sunday evening at my house, they come bearing paper, pencils, dice and munchies. The living room is colonized and the flat surfaces are fought over for the prime dice rolling/note taking places(not mentioning places with access to TIO’s heavenly veggie/chip dip). We start the game once everyone settles down, this can take anywhere from fifteen minuets to an hour as our group has a couple of extroverts that like to well, be extroverted.
I hate to admit it, as it goes against much of the fiber of my being, but I usually don’t plan the stories that unfold over the course of the evening. I mean, I did at one time make copious notes with tables and charts and what not; a carefully crafted plot line for my players to follow and discover. But what I often found happening is that my damn players often would do the most amazingly stupid creative things and take directions\actions I had not even remotely planned on them doing.
For instance, when battling an augmented human that had the ability to change into a fire form our intrepid Wolverine decided the best course of action would be to engage in close quarters combat – imagine giving a bonfire a loving hug – in the midst of performing a ‘stealthy reconnoiter’ of an auto mechanics shop. Another character, the ninja possum mentioned earlier, decided the best course of action would be to hotwire a car near this melee and promptly gun it in reverse through the bay door and down a embankment. You see, said possum had an electronics skill, but not a driving skill, thus hilarity ensued.
You really can’t plan for shit like this. It is like this most nights, our group wildly careens across (and often through) the story arcs I set before them haphazardly fighting, problem solving and running amok/away. The little preparation I do undertake mostly involves thinking about the broadest of themes, and where I would like them to end up, by hook or by crook, by the end of the evening. It was a bit of a learning curve in the beginning for me as I would offer choice A, B, or C and they as a group, would consistently choose “Q”.
Leaving much of the planning behind seemed like the best option and I haven’t looked back. I worry about consistency sometimes as our intrepid animal heroes have crossed into several different worlds/timelines as our story has unfolded. Keeping track of who is which side and for what reason is difficult and times and I get confused – but I buy myself sometime to get things straight by having some straight up combat for my players to tackle while I refocus my story telling chops. It usually works out fairly well, and everyone has fun as a result.
Being a story teller is definitely not on the top ten list of activities introverts are supposed to enjoy, but in some weird way it works for me, and I am happy to be the weaver of a narrative that allows my group to have as much fun as they do.
Maintaining the drive and energy of a campaign is difficult sometimes, and one of the best ways to avoid storytelling burn out is to hand off the reigns to someone else every second week and let them run a different story. My character in the second campaign we run isa dragon hatchling, ostensibly named “Pookie”, and let me assure you Pookie has a great deal of fun cavorting and generally causing higgildy-piggildty in his travels across the story arcs that someone else has to manufacture and maintain. :)
Anyone else from my fair readership that indulges in the deeply introvert-transgressive practice of role playing or story telling?
Growf?
Go read The Bowl, the Ram and the Folded Map:Navigating the Complicated world by Elodie Under Glass. It is fine narrative post with plenty of interesting bits and sheep! It is wool worth your while. However, these paragraphs in particular, caught my educational eye as they articulate not only what happened to me, but what I see happening to those I teach.
“Science is traditionally taught by blowing the minds of students who struggle to understand the workings of pepper grinders, and leaving them to pick up the pieces for themselves. The students then reassemble the fragments of their minds incorrectly, retaining the sexy and surprising bit, and filling in the rest of the gaps with porridge before going out into the world and smugly misunderstanding everything they see in it. Naturally, what they observe in the world does not match the porridge in their heads. Sometimes the students reassess their minds and realize that the world is infinitely more complicated than porridge and that most of their education was a series of easy lies, in which case they are usually doomed to be writers or scientists. Conversely, if they insist that the world actually matches the composition of their porridge, such that the observable world is wrong, then they will go on to be successful and influential.
This is why people still insist that evolutionary biology underlies gender theory, and why they genuinely and honestly think that seasons are caused by the Earth’s elliptical orbit moving it closer to the Sun.
(it seems that there is a certain type of historical accuracy that only makes sense if it matches a historically inaccurate picture of the world.)”
My university days were long, dark, and cold. Socially meh, but then again social has always been on the “meh” side for me. Let’s use the term “methodical” to describe my educational experience, as in, I need “x” coursed to get “x” educational degree so I can get teach students stuff they are not interested in learning. I graduated in 1999 taking the seven year approach to a 4 year program, coming out the other side with bright shiny knollege!!! coupled with important educational ideas and lofty notions of helping children reach their collective potentials.
All of which came crashing down around my head with my very first desk being tossed in my general direction by an angry student one day. Backstory first. Ever the romantic, I took the subjects that I was interested in during my University tenure: Philosophy, History and Psychology and some English because I needed a minor.
My first teaching gig? In areas where I knew stuff? Hardly. It was a week at a school/ranch in rural Alberta specializing in troubled boys who, let me assure you, are not one bit interested in learning what I had to offer. I learned very quickly that the primary attribute required for teaching was patience, coupled with a side of patience then with some patience sprinkled on top, finishing with a delightful dollop of patience for dessert. Behavioural education is a bit of a different beast than the regular educational stream. Less focus on the traditional curriculum but much more focus on character and routine building and other humanizing activities.
I’m disgusted with what people do to their children. The experiences of frustration, anger, and pain whipsaws these kids into cold reactive silence. Their emotional scar tissue protects them and, at the same time, holds them back because progress and maturation requires taking risks which doesn’t happen when you have been playing defense all of your life. Cue all the anti-social destructive habits that make the pain go away, but land you in such lovely institutions as the ranch where I began my teaching career.
I’ve made it into the urban school board now as a supply teacher once again (woo) and stare at the long slog of building relationships and contacts that might get me hired somewhere. I’ve been there and done that once before, and I’m not sure that I want to do it again. I’m not sure is up with all the anecdata, but it was needed to get to this point to answer what the quote from Elodie was getting at – education doesn’t happen unless you undertake it yourself.
The University of Alberta offers off-season courses, amenably called the Spring/Summer semesters in which you can take 12 week courses squashed into a 6 week period. The learning is intense and the requires dedication and perseverance inside and outside of the lectures. Unlike my undergraduate days, I simply loved going to these classes, engaging fully into the learning process and tackling problems that ideas that broke my brain.
Loved it! The stress, the deadlines, the editing, polishing and reediting of essays and position papers, countless hours of review etc, it was great. I excelled in almost every class I took and now look back with a some pride. I did well now, as opposed to my degree studies because of the traits and knowledge learned outside of the ‘formal’ learning. I had no idea how the world worked until I read Chomsky and Zinn. I knew little of the struggles of women until I read BrownMiller (and am currently working through important works in the feminism canon), I knew little about the middle east until I read Tariq Ali and Robert Fisk.
These authors and many more fed my curiosity and growing sense of disgust and unease with the world. None of the knowledge that broke me into the world was ever found in the dim halls of my high school or the too warm/too cold lecture theatres of the University. It was a voyage sponsored alone, until I met and began to interact with my future partner, whose knowledge and scientific prowess/rigor far surpassed my own (still does, I’ve learned not to argue with awesome), goaded me into upping my intellectual game and going further than I thought possible. I owe a great debt to her for helping me build my intellect and foster the rational-academic aspects of my personality.
So how do you square being a teacher with the fact that you are stuffing a hodge-podge of oatmeal into your students heads and then with hoping that somehow they manage to find the path *despite* what you’ve taught them. Past bandying a few phrases about winnowing out the chaff or some sort of survival of the fittest bunk, I’m not seeing much sunshine in this particular situation.
One of my responsibilities in my part time job is to ensure that the bathrooms are reasonably clean and stocked, this equates roughly to once a shift boogieing around the building with a cart full of TP and paper towel (or many times during the most dreaded of all times on campus, dance festival season, but that is a different post). I’m not sure if behaviour in bathrooms are a psychological goldmine for understanding the human psyche, but a couple of interesting behaviours come to mind when it comes to maintaining the Water-closets where I work.
1. The amazing stupidity of people who think that wetting a bit of paper towel or TP and putting it on the roll of TP; thus ruining an entire roll of toilet paper. For what? What brave crusade are you fighting here dudes (and it is always dudes, not once in my 10 years working have I seen women be this stupid)? Your brave ‘fuck the system’ stance starts with destroying 45 cents worth of TP? Your cherished radical narchism has no room for bumfluff? The fuq? I just don’t get it.
2. For point two we have pictorial evidence. Observe.
Aww, you don’t want to catch anything from the nasty toilet seat, amiright? Your fine sense of hygiene is protecting your valued tuckus by laying down that half-micron thick patina of toilet paper protection. You are good now, “golden” even. You can do your business confidently and securely. Your commitment to cleanliness and hygiene should be applauded.
So, hyper hygiene freaks, why do you leave the TP on the seat? What is your reasoning behind this? Is pushing the TP the two centimeters into the bowl some sort Everest K2 type of task? Is Atlas pounding on the door demanding that you save some of that world-lifting action for him? If you’re all squicky about touching the TP your ass was just on could you not use your foot and nudge the now “toxic” paper straight into the loo (it is what I do after shaking my head for having to deal with your idiocy)?
Here is my hypothesis – and this applies to both dudes and dudettes – you are worried about your hygiene, but in your cravenly small self centered universe you really don’t care about the next person who has to deal with now adorned porcelain you’ve left behind. You exhibit a glaringly pathetic of empathy and consideration for the next person by not taking the two seconds to move your butt-shield into the loo. Concomitantly you are also slavishly embracing the foolhardy notion of the world revolving around your special-snowflake axis of posterior protection; and that positively pisses me off.
And thus, you too my toilet dressing friend are lumped into the same opprobrium deserving category as the brave anarchists sticking it to the Man by wetting toilet paper rolls.
Do you do this? If you do, please consider reforming your behaviour as I am sure it is furrowing brows everywhere for those who have to look after restrooms and puzzle why people do such inane things on such a regular basis.
Gaah!
Apologies folks, as today is a bit different. There happened to be a paper on the table today, so rather than plunging into blogging, my usual practice, I read newspaper from cover to cover. It was such a nice departure from my usual more directed, news gathering routine. It was a pleasant diversion from the usual scanning of sources online, sorting and selecting interesting topics for the blog, fuming over the stupid things people do. I’m happy with the contrasting experience, however, it does put me behind schedule when it comes to my bloggy responsibilities.
We’ll see if I can play some catch up today.
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