Wayne D's Blog

I write this as slowly crawl down the ramp at the parking garage from the fourth level after todays Argos game so it will be a short article. I am resigned to the fact thay I will never be an A list blogger. Merlin Mann says so. The reason? My blog doesn't have a theme. Merlin says I should pick something I am passionate about and make it the subject of my blog. My problem? Too much passion. I see something, or hear something, do something or an idea will pop into my head and I just have to blog about it. Some might suggest that I just can't focus on one thing. This hypothesis I reject.wholeheartedly.

One quick clarification, Merlin didn't actually speak to me, he was speaking about what makes a successful blog on the CBC radio show Spark.

Another quick clarification. Only the first half of this post was written on the parking lot ramp, the second half was completed in my tent on the Bruce Trail where my Explorer troop is spending the night after completing a 22 kilometre hike today. I didn't do the whole hike because the last time we did it the strain on my middle aged knees was so much that they hurt way to much at the end of the day.

I finish this posting content in the knowledge that though I'll never make the A list it doesn't matter. I write for myself, if somone stumbles upon my blog and enjoys it all the better.

For those interested here is a map of my hiking route from Caledon East out and back.

View Larger Map

On the drive back from Thanksgiving in Cornwall I had the chance to listen to the three part Ideas program The Suspect Society. The program discusses how governments are using our fear against us and creating a society where we are suspicious of everyone and everything. I recommend you at least listen to the first part. It talks about how the United States is subtly militarizing their schools and breeding fear through lock down drills. I viewed the emphasis on law and order by the Conservatives in tour recent election campaign through a different lens after listening to the first episode of the Suspect Society. We in Canada are not immune to fear of things that go bump in the night.

Part 2 focuses on how academic freedom is being attacked in this new age of patriotic correctness. Part 3 talks about how illegal immigrants in the United States are being treated very differently in this new age. Though you may not agree with everything you hear in this documentary it will certainly make you think.

The real audio for Part 1 is here, part 2 is here. If you prefer mp3's CBC only makes podcasts available for one month after the broadcast so the mp3 for part 1 is no longer available. The mp3's for part 2 and the part 3 will still be available for a short time. The real adio for part 3 is not currently available on the show website, I expect it may appear soon.

The recent frenzy that resulted when people tried to sign up for the Canadian Do Not Call list and were greeted with an overloaded website and clogged 1-800 numbers made me wonder what all the fuss was about. I implemented my own telemarketing screening method years ago. I don't answer the phone. More correctly, I use an old tape based answering machine that lets me listen to callers as they leave a message. I works like a charm, telemarketers hang up on it, the people who I want to talk to leave messages and if I'm home I mute the TV, computer or whatever when the phone rings and pick up on the real people when they start to leave a message. No calls for new windows, long distance providers or phone service providers.

If you are one of the people I want to talk to please leave a message, if I'm home I will pick up and talk to you. If I don't and you really want to reach me send me an email, some people in my family aren't so good about passing along messages.

Sunday at midnight I put my bike in the trunk of the car and headed to downtown Toronto to experience Nuit Blanche the dusk to dawn art extravaganza that is entering it's third year in Toronto. After getting stuck in a traffic jam on Yonge Street I found a tiny parking space in a lot near Church and Carlton, reassembled my bike and peddled off into the night. Six and a half hours later I returned to the parking lot with a sore knee, an appreciation that I need a new bicycle seat but no regrets about staying up all night to explore the art of the city with the other Arterati of Toronto. Click the picture below to see the other photos I took throughout the night. They barely begin to document the experience of the night.

I was particularly struck with the Sound Forest created by Tova Kardonne and Christine Duncan at Queen's Park. After hearing them once I went back a second time and took a short piece of video which is terribly lit and has pretty muddy sound. The drums you hear in the background aren't part of the Sound Forest. The drummers had set up to do some drumming in the park as an unofficial member of the Nuit Blanche experience.

Why is Canadian politics so focused on personality and not about plans and policies? The Conservatives have spent most of their time trying to convince the electorate that Stephan Dion isn't a leader. They called the election but haven't bothered to release an election platform so far. The Liberals decided to focus their election platform on their Green Shift plan but now that the economy is on shaky ground they seem unprepared to talk about it. Kim Campbell was pilloried in 1993 when she said that an election campaign was not the time to discuss serious issues bu that does seem to be the way things go now. Voter turnout was just under 65% in 2006. Only two out of three eligible electors took the time to vote. Is voter apathy a symptom of people thinking that there isn't much to differentiate between the parties? Are we simply getting who and what we deserve in our style not substance society? Does it matter who is running the country or are we so hamstrung by our trade relationships and the vagaries of the world economy that we only have a semblance of control over our destiny?

So many questions, not many answers.