Life Sentence

Yawn!

2006-11-29T19:03:00.000-05:00

Wow, according to my login I haven't been here since July 5.

I was down on Eglinton, and walked past Acqua50, the Italian restaurant I wrote about in April. It has closed down, and there's a sign that a new Indian restaurant is about to open in the space. Too bad, I really liked the place. But only ever went there the once. Sorry, Pasquale!

Stamp collector stuff

2006-04-02T17:34:00.000-04:00

I've decided to move any philatelic discussions to their own blog: http://gregsstamps.blogspot.com/. It seemed unlikely that the hypothetical readership of this blog would be interested in that stuff.

Hmm -- I think I feel a new unfinished novel stirring

2006-04-02T14:51:00.000-04:00

Last night I had dinner with some friends at Acqua52, a new Italian restaurant that’s opened a couple of blocks from my house. Why the new owners think they can succeed in a space where the previous tenant was a short-lived Italian restaurant, in a strip of stores where there are at least five other Italian restaurants (this isn’t an Italian neighbourhood!), rather puzzles me. But that may not be a problem for them. The place was packed last night.

After dinner the owner, Pasquale, came to our table with complimentary shots of grappa (yummmm!) and chatted with us for a while. Pasquale’s a big, friendly guy, one who looks like he hasn’t deprived himself of the better things in life. His restaurant has a warm, comfy, somewhat self-indulgent feel, as does the food. Exactly what you want in an inexpensive neighbourhood place.

Fast forward to this morning. I was sitting sipping a coffee waiting for Seth’s gym class to finish. And I started to think how last night’s dinner would have been different in the 1920s under prohibition – no shiraz, no shrimp in a wine sauce, no grappa – at least if we were at a legal restaurant. If it had been an illegal place, we wouldn’t likely have had the same range of wines to choose from, and the grappa surely wouldn’t have been so silky-smooth. My understanding of prohibition was that it fostered booze-cans selling cheap, nasty whisky – the stuff that can be made on the sly in basements.

But we do have some kinds of prohibition in place. At one point most of the people at the next table stepped out of the restaurant for a few minutes, so they could smoke.

If the notion of prohibition were to come back, it wouldn’t likely be from do-gooders wanting to prevent alcoholism. My shiraz and grappa are likely safe from zealots. But the prohibition of smoking in public places seems to have taken hold (which I think is a good thing), and it isn’t too much of mental stretch to imagine the wearing of perfume in public also being banned (which I’d also think was a good thing).

I got to thinking about zealotry, and the potential for new prohibitions. The pressure for new forms of prohibition comes from at least three places: people like me, who don’t like cigarette smoke and who sneeze at even expensive perfumes; religious people, ranging from the religious right in the US wanting to ban abortion and motley other things to the Islamists wanting to ban the education of women and all sorts of other stuff; and extreme environmentalists, who argue against everything from the use of fossil fuels to the resources it takes to put a steak on a dinner plate.

There’s a story in there somewhere, perhaps “Pasquale versus the zealots.”

I’m increasingly surrounded by vegetarians: nice polite vegetarians who would never dream of telling me what to eat and what not to eat, but who clearly get a bit squeamish if I chow down on a lamb shank. Many of the same people are strong devotees of public transit and bicycles; a couple of them are none too comfortable with the fact that I rarely ride my bike and actively dislike Toronto’s transit system (though I’m happy to use the much more extensive systems in places like London, Paris and to a lesser extent New York – Toronto’s dinky system is slow and expensive and rarely goes conveniently to where I want to go). These people are hardly zealots, and they are for the most part very polite about their preferences.

But such things can change with time. What happens to Pasquale and his restaurant if society moves in the direction of banning meats and the automobile? I think it might well take very much the same course as the prohibition of alcohol did last century: the prohibited meats would go underground, and eventually public pressure would overturn the system. Or would it? You can’t exactly drive cars around and not be noticed. (Especially with Google Earth – if that went to live images, it would be possible to see any automotive activity pretty much anywhere. What other changes would a live version of Google Earth cause? The end of many forms of privacy, especially if it were coupled with pervasive use of GPS.)

Anyway, I’ve started plotting out a novel, tentatively titled “Prohibition,” where Pasquale’s restaurant is closed down by environmental and vegetarian zealotry. It might be fun to think through how he’d fight back, how it would differ from last century’s prohibition and how it would be the same. I can borrow an environmental zealot, Gina, from an earlier unfinished novel. It might be fun to pit her against Pasquale and see what happens.

Multiple Balloon

2006-02-19T22:31:00.000-05:00

For quite a while, I'd been trying to compile a discography of Sweet Peach, a small Adelaide-based 1960s/70s label. Until I got to know the label quite well, I though I liked everything they'd ever released, ranging from Doug Ashdown's gorgeous folk/rock to Fraternity's psych-tinged metal. (Then I discovered the label also released MOR performers like Don Lane and quite a bit of country. Oh well.)

I had a hard disk crash about a year ago. The guys at Sogo managed to save almost everything. The one thing I cared about that they were not able to restore was the Sweet Peach discography. And I haven't had the time to reconstruct it. Maybe I'll start again. What is inspiring me is finding this Multiple Balloon 45 on eBay. I really thought I'd at least heard of every Sweet Peach performer at this point, but these guys are total news to me. A Google search on "Multiple Balloon" turns up all sorts of articles on angioplasties and clowning (but none that I could see on both those topics). "'Multiple Balloon' peach" pulls up two listings for the record I just bought, one for $25 and the other for $35. I wonder if they released anything else?

Making sense of a halfpenny KGV

2006-01-02T15:20:00.000-05:00

This stamp has the single-line perf 14.2 -- the rare one (BW 64). Supposedly all BW 64s are from Electro 3. And, to make it easy, from the watermark it is clear that this is the bottom right stamp (position 60) on the pane. So it is either 3L60 or 3R60. So, from Dix and Rowntree:

3L60: Lower frame: irregularity of lower side of frame for 1.5mm beginning 0.5mm from the right corner, usually having the form of two small notches.

3R60: Two flaws: (a) Lower right corner: point of white margin slightly enlarged and rounded. (b) Crown: cross shows signs of wear, especially at the left.

I guess it has to be 3R60 -- the white margin in the lower right corner is indeed slightly rounded. But the crown shows far more than "slight signs of wear" -- it is almost completely missing.

Have a great holiday, everyone

2005-12-24T10:43:00.000-05:00

This Christmassy "Getting Research Funding" Poster cracked me up. I hope you like it too.

Alumin[i]um foil helmets

2005-12-17T09:56:00.000-05:00

I'm probably the last person on the planet to see this -- I usually am -- but it really cracked me up.

Seen yesterday #2

2005-12-05T17:50:00.000-05:00

Last night, 7:00 p.m. Early evening but already very dark and a bit snowy. I'm driving to Orfus Road to pick up my daughter, who is at a place called Rinks with some friends. I get there about 15 minutes before I'm supposed to, so I decide to drive around the block. The area is full of discount stores; I'm curious to see if there are any new ones that might interest me. But on a Sunday night everything in the area, except Rinks, is closed.

I drive along Orfus to Caledonia, then turn on to Bentworth. A few doors in on Bentworth, I see five cars stopped in the parking lot of some industrial building with their lights on. A few young men are standing among the cars, smoking and talking. The scene is repeated at several more parking lots down the street, with from two to five cars in each lot. All have their lights on, and all either have men sitting in them, or standing nearby.

I presume what I saw was some drug deals in progress. A nicely secluded street where they will be able to do their business undisturbed. It briefly occurs to me to call the police and tell them what I've seen, but I decide that doing so would simply display my innocence. Presumably the drug cops already know. This was so out in the open! But if they know, why let it happen so openly? It would be so easy to block off each end of that block in an industrial area -- the drug guys would be pretty much trapped (or at least their cars would).

I'm also wondering at my reaction. I don't support the current drug laws. I think the criminalization of drug dealing has basically made it a profit centre for criminals. If you legalize drugs and make them readily accessible and affordable, the criminal types have no incentive to deal drugs. No money to be made there -- and no incentive to push the drugs either.

I think that what rattled me about the experience was more the open display of (presumably) criminal behaviour than the actual activity itself.

Australian beer glasses

2005-12-04T22:09:00.000-05:00

I was intrigued by this site on the regional names for different sizes (and presumably styles) of beer glasses in Australia. I'd always assumed that the schooner/middie/pony distinction I grew up with in Sydney was standard across the country. I should have known better! (A schooner was the standard size; middies were for teenagers or not-so-thirsty adults; and polite non-beer-drinking-ladies-who-ordered-something-to-keep-you-company would order a pony.) Apparently using that lingo will label you as a Sydneysider in Melbourne. Interesting how they still measure the stuff in ounces. Same here in metric Canada, although here we have only pints (20 ounces, no?) and half-pints. Ordering a half-pint in some Toronto pubs gets you a pint glass filled to within a half inch or so of the top -- a wonderful bargain! Oddly, the beer glasses they sell for home use seem to be 12 ounces. I wondered about that until I realized they hold exactly the contents of your average bottle or can. Duh!

Anyway, I'm contently sipping a fairly weak gin and tonic from a Creemore Springs (12 ounce) glass as I type this. The glass holds a full can of tonic and just enough gin to give it some flavour. Yummm.

JUMP at Home

2005-11-28T01:13:00.000-05:00

"Daddy, I can't figure out this math homework." Dreaded words. Not because I dread the math (I like math and like trying to teach it to my kids), but rather because I have problems with how it is being taught, and because the textbooks are dreadful.

"Can you show me how they subtracted 16 from 34 and got 28? I don't get it." I look where she's pointing. Sure enough, the example in the book is 34 - 16 = 28. (JUMP at Home, Grade 5, Number Sense 1, page 46, if anyone cares.)

We work through the questions on that page together. She turns the page. The example on the next page is 56 - 18 = 18. (That one's on page 47.) I hit the roof. Leah says, "why are they getting all the answers wrong, Daddy?"

I look at the page more closely. It is full of tiny copy editing mistakes, and occasional not-so-tiny ones too.

So I looked up "JUMP at Home" on the net, and was floored at what I found:

http://anansi.ca/titles.cfm?pub_id=247

Anansi is one of the most careful publishers in the country. What in hell is going on? Presumably this is just some sort of distribution deal -- but how can someone like Anansi put their name on the sort of math book where 56 - 18 = 18?

Fournier and Fiji

2005-11-17T17:54:00.000-05:00

I've been having fun trying to make sense of these one shilling Fijians. The problem is that Fournier made "very deceptive" forgeries of this stamp. The forgeries are perf 11 or 11 x 11.5, which means the top row here are ok -- they are all other perf combinations. (The Sydney receiver on the first stamp was a big clue to genuineness too.) Row 2 are perf 11 x 11.8; row 3 are perf 11.

Bill Claghorn has the Fiji Fourniers illustrated here. Serrane describes how to identify them: "the shading lines are not congruent and there is a very large blank space forming a spot". Ummmmmmm. That's a translation from the French. Could anyone provide a translation from the "English"? Does Serrane mean the shading at the base of the bust? There is more white space down there on most of my iffy ones than there is on any of the known genuines.

Serrane also says that the genuine ones are 27mm high, and the forgeries are 26.75mm high. All ten of mine are just a shade under 27mm high -- but not as little as 26.75mm. So do I conclude they are all genuine?

Serrane also points out that many Fourniers are postmarked "NOAPOPIPOR 5 MAR 02 FIJI", which is a Madame Joseph postmark. None of mine have that or any other Madame Joseph postmark, though a couple of them (row 2 stamp 2 and row 3 stamp 2) have identical, dubious-looking SUVA cancels.

I'm leaning towards a conclusion that all 10 of mine are genuine, but with no confidence whatever. Anyone?

(For a higher-res scan of my stamps, click here. )

Later: David Benson looked at the image and thinks they are all genuine, but I'm not convinced. I think I may have figured them out. Look at row 2 stamps 1 and 2 and row 3 stamps 1 and 4. All the stamps except those four have shading that goes right to the base of the neck. Those four stamps have about two fewer shading lines at the bottom of the bust. I think those four are likely Fourniers. I wish Bill Claghorn was around. He always knows the answers to questions like this. But I haven't seen him online for a couple of weeks. Billlllllllll!

Later still: Mystery solved, I think. From the Catalogue Fiji website:

The government of Fiji also made stamps for stamp collectors by applying a cancel to them. The cancels used were a circle with 'SUVA 15 DEC 00' and 'SUVA DE 9 19 01'.

Row 2 stamp 2 and row 3 stamp 2 have the remainder cancel. And row 2 stamp 2 was one of the ones I was sure was a Fournier. It isn't. So the other three that look like it presumably aren't either. So David was right. They're (probably) all genuine. How boring of them!

Seen yesterday

2005-10-25T06:35:00.000-04:00

Yesterday morning I was driving east on Harbord near Bathurst. A 40ish man in a motorized wheelchair was on the sidewalk on the south side of the street. He turned the wheelchair to face a crosswalk, and then backed it up for some reason -- right into a ditch.

I slowed the car, intending to help him. Before I could act, he hopped off the wheelchair and down into the ditch, lifted the heavy wheelchair out of the ditch (something I wasn't sure I was strong enough to do myself), then walked briskly around it to inspect for damage. Satisfied that the wheelchair was OK, he got back into it and went on his way.

I'm still a tad perplexed.

Mil Lel squared circles

2005-10-20T20:18:00.000-04:00

These two postcards from Mil Lel puzzled me for a few minutes. The postmark is only recorded from 1899 to 1902. But the 1d red perf 12 x 11.5 was issued in February 1904, so these had to be later than that. I couldn't quite make out the date on either cancel until I noticed the odd "1909/1910" notation at the bottom of one card. That was the clue I needed: the cancels are both dated JA 1/10 (January 1, 1910) -- by far the latest recorded date for these.

The cards are neat -- both show pictures of the main street of Mt Gambier, one looking east and the other looking west, mailed by the same person to the same recipient at the same time. Mil Lel was a satellite post office outside of Mt Gambier. There was a bicycle mail service between the two towns.

My best eBay find in quite a while!

Don Adams dies at 82

2005-10-01T19:19:00.000-04:00

Bob Roman had the best, briefest, obit:

It would have been nice if he'd made it to 83.
"Missed it by that much."

(Of course, that would have been funnier if it had been 86 rather than 83, but I laughed anyway. Bob also missed it by thaaaat much.)

Yeah yeah

2005-09-03T16:36:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I know I haven't posted anything in almost a month. I'm just back from a vacation in Vancouver and will write something about that in the next day. Or three.

Almost a month later: OK, so I'm never going to get around to writing up my impressions of Vancouver. So be it. I likely would have offended some friends if I'd done so anyway (though they wouldn't have been mentioned because I didn't have time to actually look them up when I was there. Grrrrr.).

Sometimes you see something that just....!

2005-08-08T05:51:00.000-04:00

This postcard is in Lot 274 of this month's John Talman auction. John really goes out on a limb with his description: "what I would call a racist card featuring Indian squaw used from Gotebo, Okla. Nov 23/1907." The handwritten-looking message on the card is part of the design. G.A. Rismer in Oklahoma in 1907 thought this card was funny. (Gotebo, by the way, was named in honour of a Kiowa Indian man.) I don't really need to say anything about the card, I don't think. It is simply unbelievable.

Doesn't anyone pay attention to postmarks?

2005-07-16T12:41:00.000-04:00

The description says Australia VALUABLE Collection+Scott SPECIALTY ALBUM! Yeah, right. The "1913 1/-" is postmarked 1921 -- six years after the stamp had been replaced. The "1915 9d" is postmarked 1928. The "1915 2/-", supposedly the rarest stamp in the collection, is postmarked 1922 and is the wrong shade. Three of the best stamps in the collection obviously misidentified -- all as much better stamps. Presumably most of the others are misidentified too. I hope this one doesn't find a sucker.

Some things novelists should never write

2005-07-16T10:13:00.000-04:00

A couple of nights ago, I decided to re-read Angela Carter's The Magic Toyshop, which I read about 30 years ago and didn't remember at all. I must have liked it somewhat back then, because I'm pretty sure I finished it. But the story, the writing, and my reactions to it left no trace in my memory.

My copy has some student's notes scrawled in black ink in the margins, which didn't exactly enhance my reading pleasure. I've never understood why people do that to books. ("It smells of rotten mortality," said Finn. is underlined, with LEAR scrawled beside it. Grrr. The phrase is "rotten death," and it isn't from Lear. As I read that line, I was reacting to the student's stupidity. And it also made me aware of how Carter clumsily substituted mortality for death, making the phrase feel more abstract -- a tiny example of her tendency to over-write.)

My reaction to one part of the book struck me. The passage (which is early in the book, on page 17 of the Virago edition) was:

The lilac bushes stirred. A small, furry, night animal scuttled across the lawn in front of her and vanished with a scrabbling noise into a pile of grass cuttings; the creature, whatever it was, had no more corporeal substance than wind-blown leaves.
"I never thought the night would be like this,' said Melanie aloud, in a tiny voice.
She shook with ecstasy. Why? How? Beyond herself, she did not know or care. ...

I was right with the writer, intrigued and enjoying, until I hit "Why? How?" At that point, Carter lost me utterly, and it took at least another 20 pages for me to get back into the story. I felt I was in an English class, and suddenly the teacher was pulling a snap quiz. Of course, I didn't know the answer to either question, because Carter hasn't provided one. And her next sentence, "she did not know or care," immediately reflected my own reaction. I didn't know why the character was over-reacting, and the book had abruptly lost me as a reader, so I no longer cared.

Writers do that quite often, and I always edit it out. There are variants of the same thing, but they all have one effect: they focus the reader not on the story, but on the reader's reactions to or understanding of the story. "Who could believe such an amazing thing could happen?" (Well I did, until you pointed out that it wasn't believable.) "Fritz could not understand why he had betrayed Ignatz." (Well yes -- now that you point it out, it is true that the character development makes no sense.) "The sun rising over the misty lake looked like a picture postcard." (It's true. All of the settings in this book are terrible cliches.)

1920 Ross Smith cover

2005-07-09T10:48:00.000-04:00

Sometimes really amazing things turn up on eBay. This is probably the best Australian airmail cover I've ever seen. A pristine Vickers Vimy cover from the first Britain to Australia airmail flight, addressed to Ross Smith -- the pilot.

I'm really curious to see how well it does on eBay. I'm the current high bidder at $255. That won't last!

A fun anecdote about the Vimy stamp. I was in Paris three years ago. I spotted a small stamp store in a very touristy area near the Louvre. It was run by a very bored middle-aged woman. I asked to see her "Australie." I was flipping through the pathetically mundane offerings when I saw a pristine used Vimy, with the right cancel -- very obviously genuine. I asked the woman how much she wanted for it. She shrugged. She looked at the stamp. She looked at me. She looked at the stamp again. Finally, resignedly, she decided she probably should look it up. So she hauled herself off her stool and took down the appropriate volume of Yvert and Tellier, which unfortunately (unlike most catalogues) lists the stamp. As she found the listing, her eyebrows shot up, and she said, "ooh la la!"

"C'est vrai?" she asked me.

"Oui, c'est vrai," I responded, pushing my French to its limits.

At which she took the envelope with the stamp and put it under the counter. She managed to convey the information that it was no longer for sale, and that she'd be consigning it to an auction. Smart lady. Oh well.

Looking for Mr Zoghby

2005-07-07T00:29:00.000-04:00

My 35-year obsession with the music of John Kongos has led me into some weird backwaters. One of the more obscure ones just got a little stranger.

A couple of years ago, my standing eBay search for "Kongos" turned up an odd single. It is a mono/stereo promo copy of "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday" (Cotillion 45-44095) by the wonderfully named Emil Dean Zoghby. The song, written by Kongos, is (according to the record label) "From the Musical 'Catch My Soul' Produced by Jack Good."

OK, so here's a webpage on Catch My Soul. Jack Good apparently wrote, produced, and directed this 1969 rock musical version of Othello -- and cast himself in the title role too. P.J. Proby played Cassio, P.P. Arnold was Bianca, and Montano was played by ... Emil Dean Zoghby. Among the backup singers is a (presumably very young) Dana Gillespie.

Note Lol Coxhill lurking among the musicians (credited as David Coxhill). How he must cringe at the memory of this turkey! I notice he doesn't mention this gig on his website.

I love Good's description of the soundtrack album: "This long-long-long playing gramophone record is an all live, unretouched, un-post-dubbed record and this is why it is so bloody awful."

But notice two things about that soundtrack album. "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday," the single from the album -- isn't on the album! Second, John Kongos isn't credited as a songwriter.

The mystery deepens a bit with another weird single that just turned up on eBay.

EMIL DEAN ZOGHBY 7" "Won't You Join Me" (Kongos/Essex) b/w "Misery Lane" (Dean/Heinz). Rare NZ 7" record 45rpm on Polydor label. Produced by Jack Good. Cat. #2058032.

Emil has outdone himself with this one. Another totally obscure Kongos song, this time co-written with David Essex. Produced by his old pal Jack Good.

OK, so who is Emil Dean Zoghby?

From the trusty Marmaladeskies website:

'This Is Our Anniversary' and 'Lonely Boy' were recorded by Emil Dean and issued back-to-back on 45. Emil Dean (he also recorded as Emil Dean Zoghby) cut a few other none too interesting singles. The topside, 'This Is Our Anniversary', is in his usual middle-of-the-road vein, and despite an interesting arrangement and good performances, has little or nothing to make it stand out from the interminably crowded ranks of mawkish late-60s balladry. On the other hand, and on the other side, 'Lonely Boy' is thankfully rather fine. Despite a vaguely MOR structure and un-hip vibe (think: some of the tracks on the first Blossom Toes album), it is introed and decorated with hypnotic organ, and includes cornet, some breathy harmonies, and cool jazzy tempo changes. It has, in all its lushness, style and decidedly un-manly tone very much of a Nirvana feel about it, particularly of their more over-produced and less beaty songs. Change the vocalist (although Emil is not a thousand miles away from Patrick) and pop this excellent slice of baroque chamber pop on 'All Of Us' and no-one could ever think it out of place. The final instro fade is most especially nice: the strings move up front, the Hammond shimmers and whirs, the drums break into loud rolls... It may be a softy (certainly not a rocker), and like much Nirvana material will be over-eagerly dismissed by some as "too saccharine for many psychsters' tastes"; but with its fey lyrics and camp aura, 'Lonely Boy' is much deserving of at least a nod of approval from the foppiest admirers of UK pansy pop.
EMIL DEAN - 'This Is Our Anniversary' / 'Lonely Boy' (Island WIP 6033) 1968.

Then, from a website on Rhodesian musicians:

HENNIE BEKKER

Instrumentalist
Bio details: Born in Rhodesia

Musical Career
Hennie became a professional musician in 1953 and played in a group in 1961 which also included Johnny Fourie on guitar and Johnny Boshoff on bass. Throughout the 60's and 70's Hennie was highly respected throughout southern Africa as being one of the region's best jazz-rock exponents. He also worked extensively in London as musical director of the Duchess Theatre (West End) and played the keyboards for stage productions such as Isabel's A Jezebel and wrote scores for films, including 'Tigers Don't Cry'. He produced records with Emil Dean Zoghby on Magna Carta's "Prisoner On The Line" album (1979). Hennie also worked with Johnny Kongos and ran a recording studio in Johannesburg before moving to Canada.

OK, I'm not going to track Emil through Magna Carta tonight -- there lies a deep murky swamp.

I can't resist quoting this, from a web discussion of PJ Proby, especially for the amusement of the Shakespeare fan who often reads this:

Next time I hoped to hear [Proby] singing, was in London (the 23d of July) 1971. He was going to act in Jack Good's play "Catch My Soul-The Rock Othello". Unlucky, the character Cassio was that evening played by Emil Dean Zoghby instead of P.J.Proby. [Proby was a] man of remarkable consistency; success hasn't changed him much. The greatest Cassio in living memory.

Where is he now? From today's Johannesburg Sunday Times (yes, a Thursday Sunday Times. Those wild and crazy South Africans playing silly newpaper-name games!):

"I nearly wet myself when I heard you were coming." - Emil Zoghby, a music producer from Johannesburg taking "a sabbatical" in the usually quiet Karoo town of Steynsburg.

Still in the biz, now living in Jo'burg. I wonder if he recorded any other Kongos obscurities?

Libraries as repositories

2005-06-30T10:05:00.000-04:00

There's an interesting issue raised in a press release called British Library predicts a switch to digital publishing is imminent.

Our aim at the British Library is to develop the infrastructure to store, manage, preserve and provide access to digital material in the same way as we do for the ‘physical’ national collection that we and our predecessors have stewarded for the last 250 years.

Our national libraries are no longer the repositories for everything that is copyrighted. As publishing becomes increasingly digital, the libraries become increasingly irrelevant. Do we actually need libraries to become "digital legal deposits"? I'd argue that existing systems for archiving web content already serve the purpose sufficiently.

In fact, do we need national libraries at all once their existing collections have been totally digitized? What possible purpose could they serve? Rather than becoming redundant digital legal repositories, I think that they should be engaging in the first steps of a planned, orderly shut-down. Rather than forcing new technology into old structures, we should be rethinking -- and in many cases discarding -- the old structures.

I'm not arguing against libraries. I think local libraries and school and university libraries serve essential educational functions. But I do think the era when we needed libraries to serve as repositories of record is very nearly over, and that we should be planning for their replacement.

Althea Rhooms

2005-06-29T06:05:00.000-04:00

Virtually every day, the kids bring home at least one printed announcement from school, and I have to admit I often don't pay much attention to them. Yesterday there were two from Seth's school. One was an announcement of "important dates" in the next school year: the barbeque in the fall and other essential events.

The other one has left me shaken and upset.

Dear Parent/Guardian

It is with deep sadness and regret that we inform you of the sudden death of Ms Althea Rhooms, past principal of Humewood Community School. We want to advise you of this sad event in case your son or daughter wishes to talk with you tonight about his/her feelings and thoughts.

Seth didn't seem to want to talk about it. I don't think he understands what "the sudden death of Ms Althea Rhooms" really means. I'm definitely feeling a need to talk about it. It's about 5:30 in the morning as I write this. I'm upset enough that I can't sleep.

Althea was someone I probably wouldn't have had much time for in another context: she usually dressed very formally, was deeply religious, and was strict almost to the point of caricature. She also cared very deeply about the kids in her charge, and spent an incredible amount of time and energy making sure her school was the right place for my often-difficult son.

In my childhood, the principal's office was somewhere I avoided rather energetically. In Seth's life, Althea's office seemed to be a place where he felt totally comfortable (as well he might -- he spent far too much time there), a place he went immediately and instinctively if he needed help.

One of my many meetings with her particularly stands out in my memory. I won't go into the details of the unlikely sequence of Seth's misdeeds that had caused me to be hauled before the principal -- they were like something you'd see in a sitcom or one of the Captain Underpants books. I remember sitting in the school office, waiting for the meeting, feeling 10 years old all over again, thinking how unfair it was that I'd been hauled before the principal for someone else's misdeeds.

She started the meeting talking with Seth, making sure he understood how badly he'd misbehaved, but being sure to find out why he did it. I remember him sitting in his chair, abjectly looking like he was trying to disappear as she spoke -- then hopping up and hugging her when she was finished. Then she and I talked, for well over an hour, about my son and his needs, and how best the school and my family could work together to make things work better. I left the meeting knowing that in Althea I had a friend and ally -- and quite an impressive one.

When I first met Althea, I remember thinking (grossly unfairly) "great -- the school's new principal is a young black woman. I wonder what quota system got this job for her?" It took only a few seconds of seeing how effective she was to establish that she'd won her promotion completely on merit. I was really disappointed when she transferred to another school last year. (Yes, the new principal is equally wonderful. But still...)

A tragic-events team from our school board was brought into the school to assist students and teachers in dealing with this tragic news, students were counseled to talk with one another, with their teachers, or the special support team members.

I have real problems with this whole approach to grief, but I'm not going to spoil this with a rant. Another time perhaps.

When we have further information regarding funeral arrangement, it will be made available. Should you have questions or need our assistance in helping your child in handling this sad news, please call the school.

I'm the one having trouble handling "this sad news." I wonder what happened to poor Althea. I hope her end was painless. I'll miss her.

Later: this morning's Star had an obituary.

"She could be strict in some ways, but there was always love for the students and lots of hugs," said Mike Timotheou, father of one of her students.

Rhooms, who loved the outdoors, rowed Saturday in the Toronto International Dragon Boat Race Festival, competing on the Toronto District School Board team.

The next day, she participated in a practice dive at Stoney Lake near Peterborough with her scuba diving club. She had been diving almost weekly for a year, friends and family said.

But on Sunday, she began having breathing problems under water and never made it up. She was 43.

Iron Knob

2005-06-21T12:09:00.000-04:00

There are three good things I don't need in this eBay lot. The first stamp has a Moonta Mines skeleton cancel. Not really rare -- the miners wrote home a lot, I guess -- but nice to find. Row 2 stamp 1 is an Iron Knob squared circle, which is really hard to find. (I will not make jokes about the town's name. I will not make jokes about the town's name. I will not make jokes about the town's name.) And the strip of three officials postmarked in Melbourne is just plain weird. I wish they'd been left on the cover so we could see how that happened.

Liars

2005-06-21T01:30:00.000-04:00

This is in response to something on This Crazy Industry. Read the "A Flotsam's-Eye View" posting, then the comments to it. Rather than respond at length there to the first comment, I thought it more courteous to post a link there and the reply here.

It's not like past years when (say) Reagan or Bush Sr. were in office, when their policies might be wrongheaded but at least you knew they wouldn't be in office forever. Since before the first inaugural, Bush & Co. have been acting like they don't expect that they and their buddies will ever go out of power. They're going after long-term control, and they're going after it in a coordinated fashion.

It would be difficult to find a political party in power -- or a major party trying to get into power -- that hasn't functioned that way. Politicians in power try to hold onto that power or pass it onto chosen successors. They try to alter both the political landscape and the rules of the game to make it more likely for their power to continue. That is, they go after long-term control. When they do so successfully, that control can last for generations. (Check out the histories of the Canadian and Australian Liberal parties to see how successfully it can be done.)

Ballot tampering has been a major multi-year project. Another project has been putting heavy pressure on established lobbying concerns, threatening them with zero cooperation -- which is death to lobbyists -- if they don't get rid of or refuse to hire lobbyists who aren't right-wingers. That'll be a lasting change. And right now they're threatening to do away with the Senate filibuster -- a very startling change -- so that it can't be used to hold up the appointments of a raft of scarily evil-minded ideologue judges.

Ballot tampering has a long, disreputable history, and it follows a pretty familiar pattern. (Yes, the "good guys" have been known to do it too. Think Boston and Chicago.) To make the discussion unpartisan, think of two parties, the Ins (the party currently in the ascendency) and the Outs (the party that has recently tended to lose).

The Ins tend to use their power to maintain their hold on power. They manipulate electoral boundaries -- for example, see how the electoral boundaries in Canada follow seemingly illogical paths, ignoring natual neighbourhoods. The boundaries are designed solely to maximize the number of seats won by the Liberal Party. The Ins also manipulate the voting process. Pay attention to where people have to join long lines to vote, and where they walk right up with no lines. Voters in the Out areas line up. Voters in In neighbourhoods don't have to. And in some cases the Ins manipulate the vote-counting process. That's been measured in simple ways. For example, more votes tend to get rejected by officials in In-controlled areas than in Out-controlled areas. The vote tampering in recent US elections is vile but it is hardly unprecedented.

And yes, politicians tend to hire their own, and tend to not co-operate with the other guys. The whole point is lasting change -- making sure the Outs stay out.

Go google up "astroturf" plus "social security" or "tort reform" to see how long they've been going after some of their pet issues, how much big-money backing they've had, and how comprehensively they've been lying to their Joe Average supporters.

Yep. The Republicans been really focussed and really organized. The Democrats have been neither, and it has hurt them. The Republicans have been better at staying focussed on a smallish number of manageable issues, ones that will make a long-term difference. They've lined up lots of support and money for those issues. And yes, they've lied to their supporters. Republicans lie. It is part of the political landscape. In Canada and Australia, Liberals lie. (In Canada, the Conservatives lied too, during their brief ascendency.)

The Republicans have been more organized at identifying their supporters, giving them reasons to vote, and making sure they get out and vote. The Democrats' relative disorganization hurt them in 2004. A couple of my political hack friends from Canada went down to help the Democrats in 2004, and came back complaining that the Dems weren't sure who their voters were, and were ineffectual at getting them out to vote. The Republican organization was like a Ferrari compared to Democrats' Ford Pinto.

The Democrats need to get down to basics: identifying their voters; knowing what will motivate them to get out and vote, and making sure every one of them does so; and getting control of every possible elected local position, both to start to get some control of local voting offices, but more importantly to start the careers of the next generation of politicians. Way too many local governments are in Republican hands.

That takes money. The Democrats have been catching up to the Republicans in fundraising, but they still have far to go. The Center for Responsive Government site has lots of info on fundraising, and if you compare 2000, 2002 and 2004, you can see the Democrats catching up. But they are still quite a way behind.

The Democrats are also missing the boat on another fundamental level of politics. Most people vote not on real issues but on symbolic ones. And the Republicans have been defining the symbols of US politics for a generation now.

I wish I could get the Democrats en masse to read the works of Murray J. Edelman. Edelman showed how politicians manipulate symbols to get voters onside. In another series of papers, he showed how they use vocabulary to manipulate the political landscape. (Iraqi "insurgents," anyone?)

The Democrats have powerful ammunition against this Republican regime. They need to focus their approach -- get the public using their vocabulary, not the Republicans' vocabulary, and get them thinking in terms of symbols the Democrats define, not the ones the Republicans have created.

At the moment, the Democrats are thinking like losers, looking like losers, and for the most part losing. Yes, Bernie Sanders' speech at BookExpo was brilliant. I was moved and motivated by it, and was on my feet applauding as soon as he was done. But think about his message: we need to rally all of our forces to be able to perhaps change one part of the Patriot Act? All that is in our power, if we try as hard as we can, is to change one part of one bill? And the Republicans are so powerful that they will get the rest of it through -- and they'll probably steal away our victory even if we do get that one part changed? What does that say about the power balance in Washington? Republicans = all-powerful; Democrats = pathetic (if well-motivated) wimps.

Al Franken hit a different nerve with his schtick on liars -- and I think that's one place where the Republicans are vulnerable. Bush came to power determined to find a reason, any reason, to go after Saddam Hussein. Rather than focussing on making sure 9-11 never happened again, he lied to the American people and went after Saddam rather than after the perpetrators. Bush used 9-11 as an excuse to even an old score. Isn't that pretty fundamentally betraying the people who died that day? How hard can it be to get that message across to the American people? And how rarely has it actually been presented to them that baldly?

But the target, from here in, can't be Bush. He's a lame duck. The criticism has to be focussed on those around him as a group, to discredit them all. It won't be Bush running for president next time.

Basically, these guys don't believe in democracy or the Constitution. I'm not sure they even believe in the social contract. I keep telling my friends who live outside the States that what's happening is nothing they've seen before. I'm telling you the same thing now.

Well yes, of course. But we've seen it before. I've lived through it before. Think Richard Nixon -- who was brought down, in the end, by his lies. That's the way to bring these guys down too. But you can only do so by being fanatically, dogmatically focussed. Al Franken is showing us their vulnerable spot, but he's going off like a catherine wheel, spraying accusations at too many targets -- and mostly at other journalists. That won't work; it never does. The attack has to be focussed, in terms of who is being attacked and in terms of concentrating on a small number of especially vulnerable points.

This eBay lot might be fun to watch

2005-06-05T22:08:00.000-04:00

Can you spot why this one caught my eye? Hint: Status International Auction #206 (24 October 2002) had something just like it, estimated at $80-$120. The lot # was 3221. I'm not going to be bidding on this eBay lot (unless it stays at the current low level). I already have a nicer copy of the rarity.