Brigette DePape’s act of civil disobedience
June 6, 2011
In 1846 Henry David Thoreau went to jail for his refusal to pay poll tax to a government waging what he considered an unjust war. His essay “Civil Disobedience” became a textbook for peaceful protest against an oppressive authority. A century later Mohandas Gandhi pointed out to newspaper readers in Britain the disparity between principle and practice in the Empire’s treatment of citizens in South Africa, and later in India.
Last Friday senate page Brigette DePape held up a hand-lettered STOP HARPER! sign during the Speech from the Throne. This act fits the definition of civil disobedience. It was a protest made with forethought by a serious individual who was aware of the consequences of her action and prepared to accept them.
Professor Ned Franks huffed in The Toronto Star: “Brigette DePape’s breaking of the rules governing the behaviour of the staff of Parliament was not civil disobedience. She was not protesting a specific law or policy. She was simply objecting to the results of a democratic nationwide election in which she, along with every other citizen 18 years or older, was entitled to vote. Her act was amusing, and held a sort of childish charm. But it offended her professional responsibilities.”
But I fear tradition’s egg was broken long before Brigette trampled a bit of the shell into the Senate floor. Further, I am not sure that in her view four years of unbalanced power does not constitute a specific set of policies. In interviews she has repeatedly mentioned large expenditures on fighter jets, prisons, cuts to social programs, and a lack of climate legislation – a set of policies in her view disastrous to Canadians.
In fact I would suggest that the target of Ms. DePape was Stephen Harper himself. Through her smuggled STOP HARPER! sign she pointed out to him that while voter tracking, mini-campaigns, attack ads and Zionism may enable his MPs to win just enough votes to form a majority, it takes policies which reach out to Canadians if he is to win their hearts. She told him in no uncertain terms that there is more to a mandate than 156 seats.
In fact DePape commented in the CBC interview that only one in four eligible voters supported the Conservative Party of Canada in the last election, and this shows that Stephen Harper does not represent the interests of all Canadians, particularly those of her generation.
In the face of massive power, without any checks upon the government except those of tradition which Harper has proven all too willing to dismiss (ministerial accountability, rights of the legislature, manual on the disruption of parliamentary committees), how else but by protest and civil disobedience will Canadians affect the direction of their country if they believe it is headed in the wrong direction?
If we accept that the people of Canada have given Stephen Harper a strong mandate in spite of the contempt-of-parliament charges, then by the same mandate anyone who wishes to speak out at any time in the House has the right to do so, because Canadians have made it clear that they don’t care about parliamentary protocol. With the actions of his government over the last five years Harper has shattered parliamentary tradition and can’t now hide behind the fragments of the shell.
Robert Silver ridiculed Brigette DePape’s use of the phrase “Arab spring” in her call for a protest movement in Canada. He correctly pointed out how the life-and-death struggles in North Africa have no Canadian equivalent. But in today’s virtual world a word takes on new context and meaning whenever it is uttered. The best Silver can say is that, up until DePape used the phrase in a CBC interview, “Arab spring” meant rebellion against a homicidal authority. No one can say for sure what the phrase now means, or what it will mean tomorrow, for television creates reality, and Brigette DePape showed last Friday that she understands this better than most.
The Trailer Bearing Project
May 27, 2011
One evening last week I spent 2 ½ hours on a simple bearing replacement on my trailer. Blame it on middle-aged ineptitude or bad lighting, for it wasn’t for a lack of tools, parts, or place to work. I just couldn’t get the thing to fit back together.
To my credit I must protest that I did spot the bad wheel and attempt to repair it before heading out onto the highway and endangering others. I have learned something in the aftermath of last summer’s loose-bolt debacle.
The clinical definition of insanity is repeatedly to try the same thing in the expectation of different results. Friday I must have gone a little crazy, because I kept thinking that if I could just get that big nut to catch on those threads, I could force the thing into place with the ¾” ratchet.
The fog of war has nothing on the confusion surrounding a dark trailer hub full of black grease, miscellaneous metal parts, and bits of gray limestone from each time I dropped it on the driveway.
Number one rule: don’t take a trailer bearing apart on a fresh gravel driveway, especially when there’s a nice clean garage floor twenty feet away. Grease is a gravel-magnet, and when things get sticky, my mind seems to seize up.
A question emerged when I looked up the broken bearing in the Princess Auto Catalog. It listed 1 inch and 1 1/16” splines for 2000 lb trailer axles. Mine measured 1 1/32”. Uh? Maybe they under-or over-estimate sizes, like the nominal measurements at lumber yards.
When I arrived at the store the following afternoon, bearings for 1 1/16” splines were not in evidence at all, but the 1.03125” size was available. That worked out to 1 1/32, so I bought a set of bearings, washers, nuts and seals for this size, but hedged my bets with the 1” size, as well. There are lots of other trailers at the farm which will need a set of bearings, I’m sure.
The new parts matched the old ones, so I was away to the races once the rain stopped. Removing the remains of the broken inside bearing the previous night had required the sacrifice of a small screwdriver, the services of a larger one and a 3 lb sledge, and finally a bearing puller once I had come to my senses. Add another hour to the time for the project, come to think of it.
On went the vinyl gloves. I tentatively wiped the black goo out of the hub, somewhat taken aback by all of the chunks of rock in there until I realized they were roller bearings which had been chewed up after their holder had disintegrated.
First I needed to seat the back bearing. I carefully checked the spline. It would fit fine. So I tapped the tapered holder into place on the back of the hub. It wouldn’t go far enough. Tap harder, with a piece of oak cut to fit on the amazingly dull band saw. I guess that alternator body Charlie was cutting up was made of something other than aluminum.
No luck. I measured the diameter of the race, then headed for the other garage and my ¾” sockets. Surely enough, a 1 7/16” socket fits the space nicely. Taps didn’t work. Harder taps started to crack the hub, so I decided that was far enough.
I emptied the grease gun into the cavity, then slipped it onto the spline. In went the front bearing, almost far enough. The bolt, even without a washer, just wouldn’t reach. Much insane wiggling, tapping with the sledge, imprecations to the twin deities of grease and gravel, came to naught.
When in doubt, remove the wheel and look. Off it came, with insolent ease, on the garage floor. The now-lighter hub still wouldn’t fit. Tried to measure. My expensive electronic measuring thing wasn’t going into that greasy hub. A piece of oak went in. Should work.
After an amazingly long time I realized that while I had put a tapered bearing sleeve into the hub part, I hadn’t previously removed the one that was in it. Inspection revealed that the poor fit was caused by two of the tapered sleeves jammed together in the back of the hub. A tap with a screwdriver and the extra race dropped out and rang triumphantly on the concrete floor.
From there it went together without difficulty.
What have I learned? In a bad wheel, even when some parts have disintegrated, the round, flat ones likely haven’t, and if you try to put an extra round flat thing into a hub without taking the other one out, the bearings won’t fit, no matter how much you tap them with a sledge hammer or ask them nicely.
If I hadn’t written this down I would have forgotten about my stupidity already. Amazing how the human mind heals the ego.
The Big Bang Theory: four seasons so far
May 22, 2011
After a painstaking analysis of four seasons of the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, my head is full of the episodes and not much else.
You can’t really watch a sitcom at its regularly scheduled time. Commercials and the week’s distractions get in the way. No, to really watch TV nowadays, one must download the episodes, cue them up on a DVD or memory stick, and then set the player to run them in succession.
It helps the “jacked in” effect if the viewer puts on a good set of sound-excluding headphones to intensify the experience. Then one can enter the alternate universe of the sitcom.
It is no surprise that The Big Bang Theory is the most popular T.V. download on the Internet. It’s a clever, well-written show, even when mainlined in a single sitting.
An episode usually begins with the four friends eating. The sameness of their meals, either in the lunchroom at the university lab in Pasadena where all are employed, or in the living room of roommates Leonard and Sheldon, serves as a springboard for the conversations which largely make up the interest of this program.
Sheldon, the scary-smart physicist, is a thirty-year-old child whose quirks produce much of the action in the series. The other three nerds are saved from typecasting by well-developed back stories, a series of neuroses which gain some viewer sympathy, and uniform anxiety in the presence of women.
Raj, the cosmologist, is so bothered by the presence of a nubile female that he becomes mute unless he has alcohol in his system. Too much alcohol, though, and he has a hard time keeping his clothes on. Raj is not a man of moderation.
Harold, a frail momma’s boy who works as an engineer on NASA projects, is so intimidated by women that he adopts an aggressive, roguish persona which puts everyone off. Harold’s lack of a PHD sets him up as the underdog in the group, but his connections give him access to all sorts of neat toys, from a space toilet he must fix in one episode, to a black ops satellite diverted to photograph models sunbathing, and the Mars Rover, access to the controls of which he uses to get girls until he gets it stuck in a ditch.
The most sympathetic of the four is Leonard, another physicist whose forays into the world of love are hampered by his short stature and a crippling psychologist-mother who seems incapable of affection.
The world of these four friends gains interest with the arrival of the new neighbour, an attractive would-be actress from Nebraska who works as a waitress. Penny quickly discovers she enjoys the free food and companionship of the guys across the hall, and this earthy girl provides a foil to the others, as well as keeping male viewers returning for her loveable ways.
For even though her life is a train wreck of bad relationships and unpaid bills, Penny’s fun to watch and basically generous. Her “Sweetie, …” sentences are often intended to mock the other characters, but we watch each of them grow in confidence under the nurture of this sexually confident, kind woman.
Penny even has moments of heroism. As the only non-nerd in the group, the guys with some embarrassment look to her to deal with bullies. Her responses are often as blunt as a hard kick to the groin, and she quickly gains the respect of the group and the viewers.
Familiar scenes are a big part of sitcoms. The most innovative in Big Bang involves the characters in conversation while climbing nine flights of stairs around the non-functioning elevator shaft to the apartments. Each ascent, of course, is viewed in the context of all of the others, and the directors carefully add little touches of originality. The running gag in the laundry room is Sheldon’s folding fetish. He stretches each item of clothing over this plastic frame to crease it while he carries on a conversation.
The main romantic interest on the show for the first two seasons involves Leonard’s hopeless longing for Penny. Season three dawns with the boys’ return from the Arctic, and Penny practically ravishes Leonard in the hallway. It seems she missed him. Their affair continues throughout the third season, but then Penny opts for friendship only. Raj’s high-flying lawyer-sister leaps into the breach at the beginning of season 4. Raj and Priya’s controlling parents appear by computer video-chat, and Priya turns inside out to avoid revealing to them that she’s seeing Leonard, a white American.
The surprise in seasons three and four is the evolution of the relationship between Sheldon and Penny. Penny’s at her best when mothering Sheldon, and the scenes where he regresses to a childlike state show the warmth that sets this program apart from lesser efforts. Leonard moves into the mix as the nervous surrogate father of this brilliant, wayward child.
So what is the effect of immersing oneself in almost a hundred, 21-minute episodes with this company of fools? Leonard, Sheldon, Penny and Raj have become my friends. Real relationships pale somewhat in contrast. This can’t be good.
Viewed in moderation, however, The Big Bang Theory is an intelligent and very amusing show.
The generation gap
May 18, 2011
Someone called me old yesterday. It came as a shock. I was in Ottawa to pick up a load of scaffold for the new garage project and the owner was working out my bill, in longhand. He’s about my age.
He looked up and asked, “Why are so many old guys like you still working?”
“I’m retired,” I countered.
“I know, but you keep working. A lot of you come in here to buy scaffold and take on big projects. Last week I sold an order to a man from Montreal who is 81 years old. He’s starting a house.”
So that was it. This well-meaning business owner who used a pen rather than a computer had lumped me in with an 81-year-old. At the tender age of 60 I have finally bridged the generation gap.
Eureka moment! Emergency reading glasses!
May 11, 2011
This missive is for those over forty with bifocals. Younger eyes need not read further.
You know how you want to check your mail but all sets of glasses are too far away and you decide to gut it out bare-eyed? Ever try to do it while drinking from a large coffee mug?
No kidding: the interference lines around a coffee mug can be made to work as an emergency eyeglass lens. Maybe it only works because of the self-illuminated screen, but it’s very easy to move the cup to where the interference lines produce a lens effect around the rim of the cup, and if you can’t make out letters and words with that, you’re not much of an improviser.
When I delivered her a lawn sign, Delta resident Terri Olivo had little green things in trays spread out on tables all over their sunroom on the shore of Lower Beverley Lake. She told me the seedlings were for the plant sale on the Delta Fair grounds on May 7th. As president of the Rideau Lakes Horticultural Society she encouraged me to attend.
Mrs. Olivo’s instructions were simple enough that even I could remember them: a place and a date. With no clear idea of what to expect, Bet and I wandered into Delta a bit before 9:00 on Saturday. Actually I missed the turnoff to the fair grounds and thus gave Bet a look at some of the properties along the lake, a lovely aspect of Delta one doesn’t see while winding through the village on Hwy 42.
So our first impression of the RLHS plant sale was a glimpse of a lot of cars clustered around a building at the other end of the fair grounds. We squeezed into one of the last parking spaces and hustled to join the lineup just before the doors opened.
A veteran of green-era shopping, Bet insisted upon stuffing plastic shopping bags into her pockets. Everyone else in the line had come better equipped. One young woman had a wheelbarrow. Another leaned on a walker. Turned out the assistive device is perfect for moving lots of potted plants around a hall and through to the checkout in short order. Most carried plastic crates, flats, or cardboard boxes.
A pleasant lady outside assured us that there were cardboard boxes inside to help organize our purchases.
Promptly at 9:00 the doors opened against the lineup and in we went. Conscious of the competition, I grabbed the tallest, prettiest green things I could and beat it over to the checkout for my first run to the truck. The pots turned out to contain Solomon’s Seal, a perennial well suited to the shady area on the north side of the house.
Bet had disappeared into the crowd to browse among the small green things.
Out of ideas after nabbing my trophies, my next sally focused on cool names for plants. Lamb’s ears and foxwallop, or something like that, took the cake. At the information desk they had a formidable array of reference books and spoke Latin, so it took a while to get an explanation and colour of the plant with the cool name which even Bet has since forgotten. Turns out its red flowers have an orange tinge, so they were banned-in-advance from the flower beds at the farm by a consensus of Mom, Bet and Glenda. Oh, well.
On one trip to the truck I watched a couple loading bedding plants into the back of a Smart car. I asked them how many it would hold. They good naturedly admitted to buying smaller green things than they would have otherwise.
We saw Newboro resident Rose Pritchard lecturing about plants to an interested gentleman while her neighbour Yvonne Helwig rounded up a great range of flowers.
While tending their gardens, Yvonne and Rose keep an eye on my fishing boat in its slip on the shore of Newboro Lake.
Our Forfar neighbour Judi Longstreet saw us examining a perennial which looked suspiciously like a celery plant. Well, actually she saw me pick off a leaf and chew it, so she came over to say hi. She had brought the Louvage from her garden and suggested that the hardy plant provides early greenery for salads and soups, but it grows to six feet in height, so it’s important not to plant it at the front of the garden, lest it hide everything else. The leaf tasted bitter, but no worse than many of the ingredients Bet puts in salads these days, so I took one of the large pots to the checkout.
The tables were nearly empty by 9:30. As we left the grounds we passed the fit young woman with the loaded wheelbarrow walking down the sidewalk with her friend while a boy on a bicycle circled ahead. I commented that she probably didn’t want to load bedding plants into her BMW, so she brought the wheelbarrow.
When we arrived home with our haul I realized that, apart from the Louvage, the only edible plants we had bought were a couple of Genovese Basil seedlings which are weeks from edibility. Then Mom explained that it’s way too early to plant any of the flowers, so they’ll get to spend some time indoors until soil conditions are right.
We could have stocked up on veggies! Next year.
In the meantime Bet and I need to learn the meaning of the following words: Blue Perennial Cornflower, Pink Lavatera (annual), Ground Plox (mauve), Ground Phlox (pink), Lillium Stargazer, Fillipendula (Queen of the Meadow).
What’s more, there’s another plant sale on May 21st at the Legion in Smiths Falls.
The Storm
May 3, 2011
Man, what a week! It started last Thursday when the wind blew Bet across a parking lot in Kingston and up against the side of the car. On our way home Mom called to tell us a limb from the huge maple outside the front door had blown over on the house. Then both cell phones went out. These combined for a tense trip back to the farm.
By the time we had gingerly winched the limb from the house and sorted out the damage, it became clear that the real problem was the torn roof on the plastic storage building. A bolt on an end support had snapped, allowing the 2X6 to flap around and puncture the roof membrane, leading to a tear the length of the structure. The repair became a race to protect the stuff in the shed from the rain.
Then came the royal wedding. As the world watched, the British people showed us how it’s done. It was a magnificent, early-morning spectacle.
Then we were back to the vulgarity of the federal election campaign with its attack ads and sleaze. A steady diet of this took us up to 9:30 Monday night when another storm swept across Canada, toppling many aged and hollow incumbents and allowing the younger and more vigorous candidates some space to flourish.
Like the storm which tore across our property, the effects of this political wind were pretty random.
I wonder what it’s like to be Ruth Ellen Brosseau this morning? Formerly a bartender at a pub on the Carleton University campus, the St. Lawrence College alumnus who barely speaks French is now M.P. for Berthier-Maskinongé, an Eastern Townships riding three hours from her home in Gatineau. She polled 40% of the vote despite never visiting the riding and spending a week of the campaign playing slot machines in Las Vegas. Her main political experience to date has involved finding homes for stray cats. Why does this sound like the scenario for an American romantic comedy?
Another NDP place-filler, Isabelle Maguire, ran her Richmond-Arthabaska campaign from France. That didn’t work. The Bloc incumbent campaigned hard and won by 700 votes, about 1%. Quebec voters don’t seem to like that kind of French. Look at the way pundit Chantal Hebert, usually a Liberal sympathizer, never missed a chance to tear into Michael Ignatieff. Could it be his spoken French was better than hers? My sister spent seven years in France and retired from a career as a French teacher, but waiters in Montreal will only respond to her in English.
Justin Trudeau survived the storm. Strong, decent candidates like Ted Hsu in Kingston and John MacKay in Toronto did well. Elizabeth May swept away cabinet minister Gary Lunn to earn a seat and at long last gain a voice for the Green Party.
But in Leeds-Grenville the Marjory Loveys campaign was no match for the combined NDP and Conservative waves. Gord Brown coasted to a massive win after running a decent and dignified campaign. In an interview in my living room I discovered that Gord’s a pretty good guy, loves his riding and his job, and deserved to win.
Last night I watched Michael Ignatieff’s closing speech. A total defeat is in many ways satisfying. It puts an end to the loose ends, the uncertainty, the persistent demands for compromise. It allows one to regain a measure of dignity that scrambling against the prevailing wind never can. Life in opposition must have been hell for Michael Ignatieff.
What was the turning point? Every pundit in Canada will offer one. For me it was that nauseating attack ad against Stephen Harper and health care. When Ignatieff allowed that ad and the others which followed, he gave up the high ground and hollowed out his party’s campaign.
Canadians rebelled at the mud-slinging, choosing the guy with the smile, the cane, and a wacko promise to cap credit card interest rates at 5%. But master strategist Guy Giorno played vote splits, micro-campaigns, and Liberal panic at the NDP rise in the polls to boost the Harper campaign to a majority.
So now we volunteers must rush out and gather up spent candidate signs. The more quickly we do this, the more relieved everyone will be to see the most visible debris from the storm cleared away.
In the last year and a half you have knocked on thousands of doors and have probably patted half the dogs in Leeds-Grenville. What have you learned?
(Laughing) I have learned that if I let the dog lick my hand, it stops barking long enough for me to talk to the owner.
Although many people have lived in Leeds-Grenville for generations, others have moved to Leeds-Grenville because of our strong communities and the beauty and recreational opportunities. And because of the Internet, a surprising number work from their homes. One guy manages a 400-person network in all parts of the world from his home in North Grenville. A woman works full time for a Bay Street law firm from her home in Gananoque. A Delta woman works for IBM from her home.
What is the ballot question for this election?
This election is about two things: one is the Liberal vs Conservative choices on what to spend money on; the other is whether people approve of Mr. Harper’s style of government.
The Conservatives are keen on mega-prisons and corporate tax cuts and sloppy military procurements. They’re often not bothering to get tenders and in the case of the F-35 jets, are signing on for something not completely developed yet. And they are stubborn enough to stay committed to it even as other countries are backing away.
Most economists agree that corporate tax cuts are not the best way to create jobs. Analysts at the Department of Finance, Jim Flaherty’s own department, have placed corporate tax cuts at the bottom of the job-creation list, well below investments in education and families.
The reason investments in families create jobs is that families will spend the money immediately, multiplying the economic benefit, while corporations are already sitting on hordes of cash.
The Liberals want to invest in education as well as other measures to help families get over the hurdles of raising kids, saving for pensions, and looking after gravely ill family members. And we have specific programs to do all of those things.
What about Mr. Harper’s approach to government?
I find it secretive, deceitful, and wasteful.
The most recent examples are their refusal to provide parliament or the public with the costs of the proposed legislation, of the cost to the taxpayers. Siphoning fifty million dollars of money intended for the improvement of our border infrastructure into washrooms and gazebos scattered around the riding of the Minister of Industry. The wasteful G20 photo op and the fake lake. More recently spending millions of dollars on taxpayer-paid ads to announce stimulus programs that had already expired.
Perhaps the most troubling thing about the Conservatives’ approach was that they shut down debate and fired or silenced anyone who disagreed with them. The head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Agency and the Veteran’s Ombudsman are but two of many examples of principled individuals fired for doing their jobs.
Why should we care?
There are so many issues we need to come to grips with as a country: jobs, climate change, dealing with our aging population, Canada’s place in the world. If we don’t have honest and substantive debates about these issues, we won’t find the right solutions.
Do the Harper Conservatives have too much respect for the free market?
I think they don’t see a role for government, so they’re offloading all responsibility for our economic direction and job creation to the big corporations, leaving our future in the hands of those whose chief requirement is to maximize quarterly profit. We need to balance the short-term thinking of the corporations with long-term plans and investments in education, research and technology. That’s the government’s job.
What things do people bring up most?
People are embarrassed and angry about question period. Teachers in particular complain about this. Personally I think we should try taking the TV cameras out of the House of Commons.
Jobs and job security are both huge issues. People who work for companies going through corporate transitions are seriously worried about the future of their pension plans.
I see lots of potential for jobs here. People with skills want to live in our communities. So let’s make sure we are as attractive as possible to startup and growing small businesses. Green energy is already creating jobs, and can create more.
Can tourism in Leeds-Grenville survive a high dollar?
I think it can because we do have a first class product in our land, our people, and our history.
As a landscape painter I take great joy in the beauty of the Westport area. One great opportunity is to prepare a Michelin-type tourist guide for artist’s studios and galleries in Leeds-Grenville, integrating our tourism and artistic communities.
How are the late stages of the local campaign going?
Not that I notice, but in my neighbourhood we’re winning the sign war, 8 to 6 (laughing).
Quite a few people have told me they plan to cast a strategic Liberal vote this time. I tell them their votes are safe with me. I’m a fiscal conservative, a social progressive, and a dedicated environmentalist. So I encourage those fed up with Stephen Harper’s behaviour to band together and make me their MP.
Steve Pettibone has a fine profile of Marjory Loveys at http://www.recorder.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3091585
the Walnut Diary 