La défense du Canada

On Thursday last I wrote a rather bombastic letter to the mayor and city council of Vancouver in an attempt to have them alter a bothersome road sign on my commute. I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.

My letter, sent April 26, 2007, with my personal info edited:

Honourable Sam Sullivan and esteemed Council members,

Every day on my commute into downtown Vancouver as I head North on Oak Street, I drive under a sign at Douglas Crescent (W 19th on the West side of Oak) that directs you to turn left to enter the "City Center". This may seem like a small thing to the members of Council, but it disturbs me and several people I've mentioned it to and therefore feel that it is an appropriate matter to bring to your attention.

So much of what makes us Canadian is slowly eroding away as we become more and more integrated with other nations and this sign does not respect a basic tenet of our society; our language. I hope that our city Council will support my suggestion that this sign be either fixed or replaced with the word "Centre" spelled as we would in this country. The current incorrect spelling reminds me every morning of our inability to respect our heritage, protect our education system, or care about the impact of things that don't make big headlines.

We already have a populace who is in the beginning stages of being unaware that in Canada we use two 'l's in 'traveller' or that when we short form dates it should be listed as day/month/year rather than the American system of month/day/year. If we are unable to muster concern over these little things, soon we will lose the 'u' in our honour and forget our history - we will forget where our language comes from and why it is as we read and hear it today. And if we're willing to say that it's 'good enough', where are our values, self-respect, or drive to be better and show it?

Again, I hope this petition is taken seriously as I do find it to be a serious matter. None of the big problems can be fixed without looking at the principles and bases of what makes us who we are. If we are willing to be indifferent about our culture where will this leave us? Thousands of people see that sign every day, and whether they chose to or not they are affected by it. Everything around us has an effect on our beings - we can't escape it, so I will remain optimistic that our Council will see fit to spend a few minutes in their busy schedules and imagine what kind of Canada we'd like to build in our corner of the country.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,

Spage

The next morning I received this reply:

Thank you for your email which has been circulated for information to the Mayor, Councillors, City Manager, and forwarded to the attention of Engineering Services.

An hour and a half later I get a reply from a councillor:

Dear Spage,

I agree and I will have our staff make the change.

Sincerely,
Raymond Louie
Councillor, City of Vancouver

This morning (Monday) I got another e-mail:

Hi Spage, the sign will be changed to the correct spelling.

Thanks

Mike Markovic
City of Vancouver
Traffic Management

And then this afternoon another follow-up e-mail:

Dear Spage,

After communications with staff, I'm advised by Traffic Operations that this sign should be replaced within a couple of weeks. The exact schedule will have to be fitted in with some special-event work they are doing, but it will be installed very shortly.

Sincerely,

Raymond Louie
Councillor, City of Vancouver

How exciting! My pride cup runneth over.

Magnetic Poetry #6

I incubate screams
for esentially luscious
storms of languid
power and soar thousands
of shadowy gardens
away in an elaborately
bigger trudge. I manipulate
you and me and
lie & play for I am
me & I am gone.

Neutrinos. Want To Know More?

We hear a lot about the 'brain drain' in Canada so it's nice to point it out when a Canadian brain, residing in Canada, does something cool and gets an award for it. Not just any award either, a very prestigious one called the Benjamin Franklin Medal. How prestigious is it? "Previous winners of the Benjamin Franklin Medals — which date back to 1824 — include Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell and Orville Wright, with more than 100 Franklin winners going on to win Nobel Prizes." Yep, that's pretty prestigious!

So who is he and what did he do?

Art McDonald is a Queen's University physicist (and director of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Institute who was working with Yoji Totsuka from the University of Tokyo (they will share this award). They were studying neutrinos which are "an essential part of the Standard Model of physics and help explain everything from radioactive decay to the processes that occurred during the Big Bang" and are one of the fundamental particles that make up the universe.

What they discovered is that "the three known types of neutrinos can change into one another when travelling long distances and that they have mass."

This may seem like a very simple discovery but is, of course, not. With this revelation the idea that solar neutrinos disappear as they move through objects was refuted as it turns out they were just changing into other kinds of neutrinos. It has also led others in the field to "make connections to other areas of physics, such as the high-energy processes that are thought to have taken place during the first moments of the universe". Sounds righteous to me!


~

Earth 2 & Sun 1

European astronomers "have discovered the most Earth-like planet to date outside our solar system" that might have water in liquid form all over it - which is obviously very important when it comes to supporting life.

Models show that the planet, located 20.5 light years away, is about 1.5 times the size of Earth, has a temperature of 0-40 degrees Celsius, and should be either rocky (like Earth) or covered in oceans. Besides the excitement around the potential for finding life on that planet, scientists will learn more about our own planet, and are hopeful that this discovery will give better clues as to where they should be pointing their more powerful telescopes in order to find new hospitable planets.

"Victoria Hipkin, a scientist with the Canadian Space Agency, said finding planets like Earth will provide a unique perspective of our own planet.

"One nice thing about finding an Earth-like planet is it's like looking both forward and backward in history," she said.

"We could see a planet as ours was, providing a look at our early evolutionary history, or we could see a planet older than ours that might provide clues as to where we're heading.""

In other space news, NASA has released the first-ever photos of our sun in three dimensions collected from the STEREO Mission.

"For the first time, scientists are able to see structures in the sun's atmosphere in three dimensions. This new view will greatly aid scientists' ability to understand solar physics and there by improve space weather forecasting."

Be warned, the photographs can only be properly viewed while wearing 3D glasses and NASA provides instructions for that on the site. Below is a sample of the images, the 2D on is on top and the 3D version follows.

Passing Along The Zimmers

"The latest YouTube phenomenon making the rounds features a clutch of British seniors doing a spirited cover version of the Who’s My Generation. It may look like just another shared-video novelty, but the Zimmers' performance of a classic youth anthem has a poignant and defiant message. It’s part of a BBC television documentary aimed at challenging misconceptions about aging."

Normally I wouldn't tout a YouTube clip but it's really a BBC clip, I love the message, and dude, the thing fucking rocks.

Plus, if you can stand, like, reading and stuff, the article is a good read touching on robust and defiant elders, their mistreatment, and the documentary that led to this recording at the legendary Abbey Road Studios.

The link to the video can be found in the linked CBC article.

They'll Live Under A Beaver Flag

Did you know that Canada has had the opportunity to become an imperial power with our very own colonies? I learned that fact and others in this article about Imperial Remnants.

"Canada has twice had a chance to join the ranks of post imperial colonial powers. Proposals to annex the Turks and Caicos islands, near the Bahamas, made the rounds in Parliament in the 1970s and 2004. Much as we may think we need our own tropical paradise, the idea never got off the ground."

I'm glad we didn't go for it as I'm not a fan of imperialism, colonialism, and empires but what's weird about it to me is that despite that, I still enjoy thinking of Canada as a British colony...so can colonies have their own colonies?


~

Free To See

Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan has announced that he has a dream; to see Christ's birthday week as the time when we can all go to a local museum at no cost. This idea is part of the development of a long-term cultural strategy for Vancouver and the mayor uses Paris as the model where they offer free admission to public museums and galleries over the x-mas holidays.

It might please the mayor to know, that while he spoke of the one week a year of free museum entry in Paris, he failed to mention that there is one day every month that entry to museums is free. And Paris is far from the only city in the world to offer this deal. In short, I support the idea, but I believe it should go further and that we should be aware that this is absolutely not an innovative concept - in fact, we're far behind most in the appreciation of science, art, or anything else a museum can be built for.

Just ask Harper, his Conservative Party used the last budget to cut the already paltry funding to our country's smaller underfunded museums forcing many to close.

Asshole.

Headline Of The Day #3

Watch out, Superman! Kryptonite found on Earth

"Canadian scientists have discovered a new mineral here on Earth that matches the chemical description of kryptonite, the substance that robs comic book hero Superman of his powers.

The mineral, discovered by geologists in a mine in Jadar, Serbia, has the chemical formula sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide, the same formula used to describe kryptonite in the 2006 film Superman Returns.

But the similarities end there, said Pamela Whitfield, a scientist from the National Research Council's Institute for Chemical Process and Environmental Technology in Ottawa.

While the interstellar rocks from the comic books were typically green glowing crystals, the new mineral is a white, powdery substance with no radioactive qualities."

Go T.L.! / Letter to Braemar #2

Ahhh, those seventh game series wins do feel good. Our man T.L. got the winning goal and I thought you'd like these excerpts from the CBC article (emphasis added).

"It was Linden's second winning goal in the best-of-seven series and his sixth in a Game 7, the most among active NHL players.

"I thought Trevor did what I expect from him, what his teammates expect of him, and what he expects of himself," Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault said of Linden, the longest-serving Canuck.

"He's been a great player in this league for a long time. He's got a lot of experience, and we needed that experience to come out.""

"It was Linden's 34th playoff goal, tying Pavel Bure's franchise record."

Oh, and by the way - Steve (from Halifax) is doing Gorge this year!


And this from the Canucks official site:

"LINDEN AT HOME IN GAME SEVEN

All the talk was about Trevor Linden tonight. He equaled the Canucks’ franchise record in goal scoring, tying Pavel Bure’s record of 34. Linden holds records for most goals, assists, and points for Canucks in the playoffs.

But the stats say Linden knows what he’s doing in game sevens. Linden has played in all of Vancouver’s game sevens in their history – that’s nine in all. In those nine games including tonight, Linden has six goals and six assists.

Among active players, only Stephane Yelle of Calgary and Greg de Vries of Atlanta have played more game sevens than Linden at 10 games. But no active players have scored six goals in game sevens. That’s Linden’s sole title."

Commence assorted celebrations






now.

~

Role Models

Once again, a person who lived through the era of Holocaust reminds us about sacrifice and to look out for our fellow man.

Ignore everything to do with Bush in this article about one man's effort to save a few lives during the Virginia Tech shootings earlier this week. Reading it reminded me of another Holocaust survivor I recently wrote about and about how much we all have to learn about ourselves.

"Librescu, 76, leaned against the door of his Virginia Tech classroom, blocking the path of the gunman who had opened fire on campus and was carrying out a rampage that would result in the deaths of 32 people as well as himself.

Librescu's actions Monday morning gave his students enough time to climb out the window of his second-storey classroom. The gunman eventually got through the door and killed Librescu, but not before his students escaped."

This man stood for what he believed was right for his entire life, and gave everything in the end for those principles.

"Librescu, who grew up in Romania, was only a boy when his native country joined forces with Nazi Germany in the Second World War. His family said Librescu was interned at a labour camp and then sent to a ghetto with his family and thousands of other Jews.

Librescu survived the war and found work at a government aerospace company. His family said his career was stonewalled when he refused to pledge allegiance to Romania's Communist regime in the 1970s."

We don't have to stand against our governments, survive one of the worst atrocities in history, or go down in a hail of gunfire to be this man - you just have to fucking give a shit about the state of affairs this planet finds itself in. Just care - and act like you do.

Be a Sophia Rabliauskas who is seeking to protect the boreal forest we take for granted. Read a story about how human greed killed 51 sea lions and find it unacceptable. Be Corinne Keuter, a voter in France who learned the importance of casting her vote. Be aware that there are other wars going on besides the ones in Iraq and Afganistan; Somalia, Israel and Palestine, actually just look at this list of "Ongoing Conflicts" from Wikipedia. Doing any of these things has value too.

"His wife, speaking to reporters Wednesday, said her husband always thought of others before he thought of himself. This was most evident on the day he died, she said.

"He was fighting for everyone," Marlena Librescu said. "He was always helping how he could, but he was not able to help himself.""

He was not able to help himself. You see, if we all looked out for each other, then there would be somebody there to help you. It's pretty simple isn't it?


~

So it goes.

Humanity suffered a devastating loss this week. Good bye Kurt Vonnegut, thank you for everything you gave us all.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
1922 — 2007

Vonnegut.com

Wikipedia

Simple Lives

Life must be so basic for chicks. Everything in their lives seem to be expressions of the same objective: getting a man. And they believe that it is men who are that singularly focused on their prey. Please.

I've been trying to decide what courses to register for this summer. I picked one history class called War in the Modern World and then there were two others that are at the same time so I have to pick one. They are; Foundation of Economics and another history course, Introduction to Modern East Asia.

I asked one of my female supervisors for her opinion on whether she thought it was wise to take two History courses at the same time with the same instructor, if she had any personal insights, etc. It was a useless endeavour.

After declaring all three courses to be boring based on their titles, she suggested I find out which instructor was hotter and to take that class. When I informed her that History was taught by a man and Economics by a woman, she quickly handed me back the course descriptions and declared the decision to be obvious; you take the courses taught by the man. She called the choice a "no-brainer".

*sigh* Yes indeed. I suppose one with no brain would use that decision making process.

Random Lyric #5

and i will drift back to the slope
some face unlit, there, stuck into the incline
where i will sleep off all the noise
the soot accumulated, all my trials

-Mike Doughty, Thank You Lord, For Sending Me The F Train

Motivation

How to not instill it:

"Bush urged Congress to quickly send him the "unacceptable bill" as soon as they get back from recess so he can immediately veto it."

Five Countries In 152 Photos

Come see my city and show pics from the Dave Matthews + Tim Reynolds European Tour on my Flickr site titled Europe'07!

Tour Schedule (to sync with the pictures):

03.05.07 - London
03.06.07 - Paris & show
03.07.07 - Paris
03.08.07 - Frankfurt & show in Offenbach
03.09.07 - Brussels & show
03.10.07 - Amsterdam & show
03.11.07 - Amsterdam airport and flight to Vancouver




~