09 August 2015
Island Life 9 August 2015: Politics
09/08/15 15:27
First though, some local news.
The blackberries are ripe. Due to the hot dry summer they came in early and we missed the beginning of the season. We’ve made up for it though. We now have four, gallon sized bags of berries in the freezer and sent a bunch to Barb for jelly. With luck we’ll get a couple more before they’re done. Didn’t get much in the way of raspberries though. I cut them back very severely this spring so this was a recovery year for them. The apple trees are loaded. Loaded with hundreds of tiny stunted apples. The drought has messed them up too. We’re not sure if we’re going to get much this year. Hundreds of small apples that are mostly core are hardly worth the effort.
I made a discovery this weekend. You know how sometimes you hear a piece of music, and like it but don’t know what it was or by whom. Well, this week I encountered a piece of Renaissance music that I have loved for years. It’s haunting and beautiful and, because it’s 500 years old it is in the public domain. As a result nobody would ever say what it was. It would be performed in movies and as background music here and there but I could never find out the name of the piece and by whom. Somehow going into a store and asking “What’s the name of the music that goes, la la la hmmmmmm la la” seldom gets you anything but blank stares. Well, this morning this particular piece was played and they actually said what it was. Thank you BBC. The piece is by Thomas Tallis. (A side note; when I Googled the name the first hit I got was for Mel Tillis, also a talented musician, but not really what I had in mind.) The piece is called called Spem In Allium and is written for eight 5 person choirs to be scattered around the Cathedral. What’s more, all forty singers each actually have their own individual unique score, all of which were written to compliment and synchronize with the others in order to pass the melody around the Cathedral. It’s a monumental work that is, because of the difficulty, seldom performed. I’d love to hear it in person. In the mean time here is a nice performance of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cn7ZW8ts3Y
But now on to the topic at hand.
This week was the first Republican debate. We ignored it. Nothing that happened on that stage among those people was of any interest to us in any way. Now understand, we’re non partisan about this. This coming week the Democrats are having their first presidential debate as well. We're going to ignore them too. There’s a long way to go and with a bit of work we can ignore all of them for at least another year. Now, the US is not alone in this exercise in civic epilepsy. In Canada the Prime Minister dissolved parliament and called for Canadian elections. They’ll be in October, and a lot of people up here are not pleased with this. It means that it will be an eleven week campaign, nearly a Canadian record. Most election campaigns are in the four week range, in fact you have to go back to the 1870s to find one longer. Terms like interminable, and never ending, and horrible are being bandied around. Meanwhile, those of you in the U.S. are looking at another sixteen MONTHS of this foolishness.
To quote Nelson: Ha Ha.
The campaign up here was kicked off by a Leaders Debate. The leaders of the four major Canadian parties; Progressive Conservative, Liberals, NDP, and Greens met to bicker about who did what to whom. It was the same night as the Republican Debate in the US and I’m very proud to say we managed to avoid both of them. We had a different reason to ignore the Canadian debate though. OK we actually had the same reason, but we had an additional one as well. You see, last November we took the test to become Canadian citizens. We passed and are just waiting for them to call us in to swear loyalty to Canada and the Queen. Unfortunately, they haven’t scheduled a ceremony yet. There was a ceremony in Nanaimo in April but we weren’t invited. We were told that our paperwork was “in process still” and we should call back in August. This week I called and was told that we couldn’t be sworn in until the end of December at the earliest. So the Canadian Federal election will come and go without us being able to vote. Therefore, as they bicker we’ll be watching Castle or Camp Lakebottom.
On the local front, there is a frenzied campaign going on in Lantzville as well. We had an election last year and in fact this all started right after the last election. It turned out that the Mayor and most of the city council hate each other. Not disagree mind you. Not even respectfully hold different viewpoints. Hate. Viscerally. I suspect that they'd have keyed each other's cars if they could have gotten away with it. Fortunately, this is a small town. Everyone knows each other so matters couldn't escalate to that level. Anyway, this culminated a couple of months ago when one after another, most of the city council, (and much of the town’s top civil service staff), quit. Just walked out, unable to cope, unable to even work on the relationship. The Mayor and two councilmen, one of whom was the Mayor’s wife so she kinda couldn’t quit, were all alone in city hall. For a while they tried to run things but finally an election was called for August 8. Signs filled the roadsides, our mailbox was full of material from all the candidates and we ignored all of it. But there is an upside to the Lantzville vote: That’s one down, two to go.
To close I’ll leave you this by the Roman Philosopher Diplodocus:
If politics is about power
and money is power
and money is also the root of all evil
that means politics is the root of all evil
Therefore
Anyone who wants to hold political office is either insane or evil.
Therefore people who seek public office should never be allowed into public office.
Think about that the next time you go to vote.
Doug and Marsha
PIX: Other local news, we finally got some rain. Not enough to end the drought by a long shot but enough to help with the fires and add a bit to the reservoirs. Hooray!
The blackberries are ripe. Due to the hot dry summer they came in early and we missed the beginning of the season. We’ve made up for it though. We now have four, gallon sized bags of berries in the freezer and sent a bunch to Barb for jelly. With luck we’ll get a couple more before they’re done. Didn’t get much in the way of raspberries though. I cut them back very severely this spring so this was a recovery year for them. The apple trees are loaded. Loaded with hundreds of tiny stunted apples. The drought has messed them up too. We’re not sure if we’re going to get much this year. Hundreds of small apples that are mostly core are hardly worth the effort.
I made a discovery this weekend. You know how sometimes you hear a piece of music, and like it but don’t know what it was or by whom. Well, this week I encountered a piece of Renaissance music that I have loved for years. It’s haunting and beautiful and, because it’s 500 years old it is in the public domain. As a result nobody would ever say what it was. It would be performed in movies and as background music here and there but I could never find out the name of the piece and by whom. Somehow going into a store and asking “What’s the name of the music that goes, la la la hmmmmmm la la” seldom gets you anything but blank stares. Well, this morning this particular piece was played and they actually said what it was. Thank you BBC. The piece is by Thomas Tallis. (A side note; when I Googled the name the first hit I got was for Mel Tillis, also a talented musician, but not really what I had in mind.) The piece is called called Spem In Allium and is written for eight 5 person choirs to be scattered around the Cathedral. What’s more, all forty singers each actually have their own individual unique score, all of which were written to compliment and synchronize with the others in order to pass the melody around the Cathedral. It’s a monumental work that is, because of the difficulty, seldom performed. I’d love to hear it in person. In the mean time here is a nice performance of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cn7ZW8ts3Y
But now on to the topic at hand.
This week was the first Republican debate. We ignored it. Nothing that happened on that stage among those people was of any interest to us in any way. Now understand, we’re non partisan about this. This coming week the Democrats are having their first presidential debate as well. We're going to ignore them too. There’s a long way to go and with a bit of work we can ignore all of them for at least another year. Now, the US is not alone in this exercise in civic epilepsy. In Canada the Prime Minister dissolved parliament and called for Canadian elections. They’ll be in October, and a lot of people up here are not pleased with this. It means that it will be an eleven week campaign, nearly a Canadian record. Most election campaigns are in the four week range, in fact you have to go back to the 1870s to find one longer. Terms like interminable, and never ending, and horrible are being bandied around. Meanwhile, those of you in the U.S. are looking at another sixteen MONTHS of this foolishness.
To quote Nelson: Ha Ha.
The campaign up here was kicked off by a Leaders Debate. The leaders of the four major Canadian parties; Progressive Conservative, Liberals, NDP, and Greens met to bicker about who did what to whom. It was the same night as the Republican Debate in the US and I’m very proud to say we managed to avoid both of them. We had a different reason to ignore the Canadian debate though. OK we actually had the same reason, but we had an additional one as well. You see, last November we took the test to become Canadian citizens. We passed and are just waiting for them to call us in to swear loyalty to Canada and the Queen. Unfortunately, they haven’t scheduled a ceremony yet. There was a ceremony in Nanaimo in April but we weren’t invited. We were told that our paperwork was “in process still” and we should call back in August. This week I called and was told that we couldn’t be sworn in until the end of December at the earliest. So the Canadian Federal election will come and go without us being able to vote. Therefore, as they bicker we’ll be watching Castle or Camp Lakebottom.
On the local front, there is a frenzied campaign going on in Lantzville as well. We had an election last year and in fact this all started right after the last election. It turned out that the Mayor and most of the city council hate each other. Not disagree mind you. Not even respectfully hold different viewpoints. Hate. Viscerally. I suspect that they'd have keyed each other's cars if they could have gotten away with it. Fortunately, this is a small town. Everyone knows each other so matters couldn't escalate to that level. Anyway, this culminated a couple of months ago when one after another, most of the city council, (and much of the town’s top civil service staff), quit. Just walked out, unable to cope, unable to even work on the relationship. The Mayor and two councilmen, one of whom was the Mayor’s wife so she kinda couldn’t quit, were all alone in city hall. For a while they tried to run things but finally an election was called for August 8. Signs filled the roadsides, our mailbox was full of material from all the candidates and we ignored all of it. But there is an upside to the Lantzville vote: That’s one down, two to go.
To close I’ll leave you this by the Roman Philosopher Diplodocus:
If politics is about power
and money is power
and money is also the root of all evil
that means politics is the root of all evil
Therefore
Anyone who wants to hold political office is either insane or evil.
Therefore people who seek public office should never be allowed into public office.
Think about that the next time you go to vote.
Doug and Marsha
PIX: Other local news, we finally got some rain. Not enough to end the drought by a long shot but enough to help with the fires and add a bit to the reservoirs. Hooray!