Wildfires and Social Media: a letter

Isn't it bizarre that various levels of Canadian government have come to rely on American social media to communicate with their citizens? 

And how now suddenly we see the catch? 
But there's a logical solution, which I haven't yet seen described anywhere: the CBC. 
It's a public broadcaster, heavily subsidized by Canadian taxpayers, available to anyone with an internet connection: surely the CBC could be "encouraged" to have a dedicated space for public service announcements! 
When we lived in the Cariboo in BC's interior in the 70's, local radio had a program (quite the most popular program among that listenership) which involved intensely local news, gossip, and information especially for people living in the outlying areas who had no telephone access. Obviously people in the area knew exactly how to operate the system, and as far as I know, it worked just fine. 
The CBC already runs a fine online digital news service. A dedicated add-on should be no problem, and we'd quickly get used to consulting it. 

Letter to the Globe, sent August 21, 2023 

published in slightly abbreviated form August 23

Letter to the Globe

 

    I'm not even remotely Chinese, but if I were I'd be outraged that Globe journalists Chase and Fife have swallowed the apparent CSIS line, hook, and sinker that Canadian citizens of Chinese origin are so easily influenced that if China "tried to elect 11 candidates..." it had a reasonable chance of doing so.
    I remind the Globe that only Canadian citizens can vote in Canadian elections, and it is profoundly insulting to suggest that Chinese Canadians would be particularly susceptible to the blandishments of a foreign state.
    As a former Dutch citizen I can assure you that in the unlikely event that the government of The Netherlands wished to put its oar into Canadian elections, this would not influence me in the slightest!
    I would also point out that if we were truly concerned about foreign influences in out political life, we need look no further than the flood of MAGA propaganda and financing from south of the border, as evidenced by the recent "Freedom Convoy" protests.
    We have strict rules concerning election funding and influence in Canada. If any of those rules were broken by any group or government, that should obviously be dealt with in the usual way, not by rumour and innuendo.

submitted March 9, 2023

On losing your coffee maker and your mind

     Just a few days ago we narrowly averted a disaster.

        Or rather, I did.

    I’d just finished reading the New York Times, the “wire cutter” section, where the writers were discussing coffee makers. This attracted my attention because the reviewers were particularly unimpressed by the Keurig, and proposed several recommended alternatives.

    Excellent alternatives, several not as expensive as the Keurig. We have a couple in our cupboards. In fact, Sandy habitually uses the highly-recommended Aeropress, of which we have two, originally bought for use in the van. They do make exemplary coffee. 

    (You’re probably aware that one can buy packs of Aeropress microfilters. But did you know you can buy replacements for the rubber seal at the end of the plunger? The one that, if it wears excessively, renders the press useless? Anyway…)

    But the Aeropress is slower and not as convenient as my Keurig, which is consequently my go-to coffee maker, and, as far as I’m concerned, consistently makes an excellent cup of coffee. 

    In seconds, furthermore, which also feeds a preference.

    Of course we don’t use Keurig pods, which I wouldn’t dream of recommending and which, I suspect, is the reason for the Times columnist’s disdain. Rather, we use refillable cups, packed with freshly-ground coffee. 

    And that, as far as I am concerned, points to the real secret of making a great cup of coffee: it’s not the method; it’s the beans.

    Here’s a little byway/advertisement, en route to the averted disaster. 

    Back when we were considerably younger –– not to mention poorer –– we were already supporters of Oxfam Canada. And one of Oxfam’s initiatives and offshoots, called “Bridgehead” signed up Central and South American coffee growers to participate in “Fair Trade” schemes, in which they would be paid above market rates for sustainably-produced and harvested Arabica coffee beans. So although that coffee was considerably more expensive than the stuff you could buy in grocery stores at the time, we purchased it in 5-pound bags that Canada Post delivered.

    I suspect Oxfam probably borrowed the concept from the Max Havelaar company, with its Fair Trade coffee shops in Europe. Or vice-versa. 

    Eventually Bridgehead (https://www.bridgehead.ca/pages/copy-of-history) apparently became more than Oxfam was interested in maintaining, so it became its own company with a roastery and coffee shops in the Ottawa area. We have dealt with Bridgehead ever since. Still excellent coffee; still expensive; and still absolutely worth it.

    Back to the averted disaster.

    The Times column raised a little spectre of doubt. Should I be considering a different machine? Was the Keurig getting too long in the tooth to do an adequate job? Did I really appreciate the last cup it had produced? Should I maybe clean it?

    Clean it. I should definitely do that before deciding on something more, like replacement. And how does one clean a coffee maker? Vinegar, obviously.

    So I filled the reservoir with vinegar, turned on the machine, and waited until the cup was full. The vinegar was the right temperature and quantity, so everything appeared to be working fine. But the liquid was pretty brown, so go for another shot.

    At which point it balked. A dribble of warm vinegar, sputters of something that looked vaguely like steam…I shut it off. Had I broken it permanently?

    Remove vinegar, fill reservoir with cold water, and try again. And again. And again. And yet again.

    Very gradually the Keurig started to produce heated water, and eventually the brown disappeared. When I got it to make me a coffee, that worked, and the coffee was fine: no residual vinegar. Success!

    But here’s the kicker: some time passed, and I couldn’t get rid of that feeling that I’d been here before, that I’d maybe even written about filling your Keurig with vinegar. I went on a small search of previous posts, and look what i found! From as recently as October, 2020: https://occasionaljustus.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-vinegar-solution-meets-new.html

    So now I get to worry about losing my short-term memory instead of my coffee maker!

letter to the editor, Campbell River Mirror

 

The Editor,
Dear Sir:
Congratulations to Campbell River's new City Council, who managed, as one of their very first acts, to put Campbell River in the headlines.
And not just locally, but nationally and internationally!
I suspected there would be some blowback in their handling of the street drugs and homelessness issue, but knew for sure when I heard Counsellor Lanyon making a hash of explaining the bylaw on national CBC Radio. And then or course the issue was picked up by many others, including the Globe and Mail, the Star, the New York Times, the BBC, and the Guardian.
That will draw the tourists!
The cherry on the top of this confection will be when Pivot Legal, represented by Sarah Runyon (who not that long ago made the news  herself by winning a case at the Supreme Court of Canada) gets the bylaw tossed, generating even more national and international attention.
Well done!

submitted Feb 15, 2023

printed in the Feb 22, 2023 edition with the headline, "Way to put us on the map, city council"

Friday, Feb 24: The councillors withdrew their motion at their next meeting!

The day I almost burned down George's shop

Got an email from our friend Geoff today: George Longden died, quite unexpectedly.

This –– when I was on my daily ramble –– led to thoughts about all the colleagues from my Carihi days who have died: an astonishing number; I must be getting old.

The news also reminded me of my one George Longden story.  Which isn’t really about George at all, but is worth telling. It requires a rather extensive preamble, at least in the way it makes sense to me. So bear with me while I get to the point:

Already before we left Quesnel and my first teaching gig, Sandy’s father, who was a lifelong enthusiast of innovative European cars, had given us the Fiat 128 he had bought when they were first on the Canadian market. We drove that car for quite a few years until I crashed it one evening driving home from Carihi. 

I’m sure I was driving largely autonomously as I followed the same route every working day: Alder, South Murphy, Evergreen, and Dogwood in the morning and the reverse after school. This route was necessitated by the fact that neither Dogwood nor Alder went through the forest which today is the Robron Centre, the Shaw offices, the Merecroft playing fields, and the Merecroft shopping plaza. 

When I went to school in the morning everything was as expected, but when I drove home the town had completed the South Alder connection... by removing the stop sign on Alder and placing it on the Evergreen corner. (Nowadays we get weeks of notice when this happens, but Campbell River and it’s municipal workers have become much more sophisticated!)  

Anyway, I ran smack into the one person in Campbell River –– totally in the right –– who wasn’t accustomed to stopping on Alder. Because he was new to town.

The police were very understanding; I wasn’t charged; we needed another car.

My parents had a slightly-newer Fiat 128 and bailed us out by passing it on to us. 

I never liked that car nearly as much as the first one. I suspect it wasn’t as well-made, because, among other things, after a number of years I started to notice that the steering was starting to feel odd. 

When I looked under the hood everything appeared quite normal, until I noticed that there was a crack developing where the part of the body that supported the engine was separating from the unibody that supported the wheels and the passenger compartment. The wheels, in short, were threatening to go in different directions. Not ideal.

And this is where George comes into the picture. 

I used to see George quite regularly because we both had rooms in the new Carihi shop building, which had more spaces than were required for the shop classes on offer. I found my assigned classroom delightful because, while it was a long way from those of my Humanities colleagues, it was bright and large and had reams of storage space. Also my students could make all the noise they needed to.

George ran the automotive shop, and he and his students –– some of whom were also mine –– in addition to working on their own projects, quite often helped out by doing small jobs on the cars of some of the staff. 

So I showed the problem to George. He was unenthusiastic about a permanent solution, but suggested he could try to spot-weld the two parts of the body, in the hope that would hold long enough for me to get rid of the vehicle. I jumped at the offer.

One Friday shortly after, he told me the job had been done. I went to the shop after everyone had gone home intending to drive the Fiat away. Popped the lid, started the engine, leaned in to see how it was holding together before driving off. Looked surprisingly good. 

Then I smelled gas. Couldn’t see why.

Finally I saw a very fine stream of that gas coming from the after-market in-line fuel filter I’d recently installed. And pooling on the block.

Almost immediately there was an enormous “WHOOOF!” and a sheet of flame shot out of the engine compartment, well above the car’s roof.

That got my immediate attention! 

Fortunately I had the presence of mind to shut off the engine, grab the fire extinguisher from the wall, and pull the trigger. 

A cloud of CO2 and the fire was out.

I don’t actually remember how I dealt with the defective fuel filter, but I must have because I drove home.

And George appreciated both the story and the fact that I hadn’t burned the building down when I told him the next Monday.

Good guy, George.