The Second Cull

Once again begins the ritual which is becoming all too familiar.

Last August it was the garage sale, where I watched as accumulated possessions from 21 years of marriage went to new homes. You know, it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. I look at it now as a redistribution of wealth. We gave away a lot of our stuff. And now it's a wonderful thing to go to friends' places and see bits of my past life in their house. It's not hard any more. It's comforting.

When it comes right down to it, I did keep a lot of stuff for that faroff day when I might have something resembling a home again. My favourite pieces of furniture are at my sister's place until I need them. And I kept about 30 boxes of my favourite things -- mostly books, CDs, my pottery, favourite dishes and kitchen things. And artworks of course.

I brought a carload of stuff down with me to Windsor. Now I'm going through all that stuff again (and the few bits that I've acquired) to see what I really want to keep and what I don't.

Through it all, I am always thinking about stuff .. what we need, what we don't. What we have that enhances our life and how much we have that bogs us down. And even though I enjoy what I have, I do think about how much easier it would be if I could just throw everything in a backpack and get on the plane.

Many times in my life, I have sold just about everything and done that. And just as many times, I've packed up more than I needed and moved it many more miles than it needed to go. Only to look at some of it and ask "why did I move that 2,000 miles"? (I'm travelling a bit lighter now, having sold the baby grand piano that moved all the way from Vancouver to Toronto with us in 1987. Beautiful instrument. I sold it in 1990 after deciding it was too heavy a load to carry. I miss it, but don't miss having to have it moved)

In material terms, I have lost a lot this past year. In moments when I am tempted to yell like Job, "what more do you want from me?" I wonder if I'm headed for the cloister to pray and make cheese or something. I don't think so .. I wouldn't fit in well in a religious setting ... Even the Moonies didn't want me because I was too independent a thinker. They didn't tell me to shut up in indoctrination classes but I could tell they wished I would.

Nonetheless, renunciation has its good points too. Makes it easier to let go. And it's easier to see things clearly without all that clutter.

See you in the cloister.

Delaurier House

Further to my previous post, this is what Delaurier House looks like. The front part isn't historically accurate -- Ed Delaurier, who died in the 1960's, loved plants. So he built a greenhouse on the front.

If you look at the house from the back, half of it is log cabin and the other half is board and batten. I think the front is all board and batten -- don't know why the back half is different than the front.

My grandmother's books say that it was also an inn at one point. Looked awfully small to me to be an inn, but I guess houses were smaller in those days. The family also ran a tavern and general store at the turn of the 20th century next to the house pictured above.

My great grandfather Fred Delaurier also ran a saloon in Leamington 'round about the same time. My aunt says that when my grandfather died, my grandmother gathered the whole family and made them uncork and drain every bottle of whisky. Except for one bottle which was saved for the christening of the first grandson.

Hmm.. lots of stories there ...

Looking for Grandmere et Grandpere Delaurier

On Easter Monday, Lori (my sister), Elizabeth and Emily (my nieces) and I went to Point Pelee. I had told Emily and Elizabeth that there was a museum at the Point which was the original home of our great-great-great-great (?) grandparents, John Baptiste Delaurier and his wife Julia Hazel Delaurier.

I had not been there in many, many years. I can remember going there with my grandmother, Madeline Delaurier Wallace, to visit her great uncle Ed. I was six, great-great (?) Uncle Ed looked like he was 251. I can remember being just a little spooked by the place.

My grandmother had said in her memoirs that she tried to get Uncle Ed to leave the house to Park (as in Point Pelee National Park) when he was alive. No go, Uncle Ed said. Well, somebody changed their mind because the home is now a museum.

And it's still spooky. The museum wasn't open, but we looked in the windows. The house was as I remembered it -- really dark. It's still dark, only now they have mannequins of three of the Delaurier family in the living room. One is sitting on a rocking chair with a fiddle on his knee. The other has a sheet over him and is hunched over the stove (they were fishermen by trade, so he probably just got in from the Lake). And right beside the window, there was a person in bed.

Emily and Elizabeth though it was, on one hand, pretty scary. On the other hand, to have a museum named after someone from your family, and have other people come see it, is pretty neat.

Our trip inspired me to do some digging, to remind myself who all these people were. My grandmother has written many volumes, all typewritten, of the history of the area. Our own family tree has been well documented but I didn't remember much of it. Here's what I found out:

The Delaurier homestead was built in 1839, by John Baptiste Delaurier (it is interesting that all the history books refer to him as John, rather than Jean)
He and Julia had ten children. The girls were sent away to be educated in a convent in Amherstburg.
My great-great grandfather was their youngest son Gilbert. He moved to Leamington and had two wives. Seventeen children altogether. Most of them moved back to the U.S.
My great-grandfather, Fred, stayed in Leamington and was a fisherman. He married Euphemia Foster. My grandmother was their daughter, Madeline Delaurier Wallace.

I read an interview in the library that was done with my grandmother about ten years before she died. She says they didn't get out to the Point much because Leamington was ten miles away and you didn't go that far in those days.

I'm glad to be reading the information that my grandmother worked so hard putting together for forty years of her life. And it's been really good to be back here where our roots run so deep -- every branch of our family has been in this county since 1830.

In a sense, it's home even if I don't plan to put down any more roots here myself .. I guess I don't have to because my roots are already here.

Inauspicious Addresses

Well, things in the clans Fenner/White are still sad, but we're starting to get our senses of humour back .. at least a little bit.

I am consoling myself by thinking about Nova Scotia and getting back there again and opening up my arts retreat/media institute. And giving Cindy a job working with me. Tony's studying Library Science and we're going to need a media librarian too. And we're going to raise chickens and puppies. And a horse or two. (No rabbits, though. They're pretty dumb. So are chickens but eggs are good.)

Got it all figured out how we're going to have a happy future. So I've been doing what I usually do every day, which is combing www.mls.ca (the online real estate site). There are some funny things to be found there.

Like, how's "0 Victory Road" for an address?

Don't think I'll move there. Or Lake Despair either (actually that's one in Northern Ontario -- Barry and I encountered that one when we were in a big 25 foot yellow Ryder truck with all of our possessions in the back. Right about the time we were convinced we were lost in the bush. That was the same trip we went 20 miles offroad in Manitoba, also in our 25 foot big yellow truck, because somebody told us there were buffalo back there.)

Ah, the sadness of life is oft offset by the absurdity ...

Our Baby From the Sea - in Memorium

As quickly he came into our lives, he left us.

Less than a month ago, my sister Cindy phoned from Nova Scotia to say that she and her partner Tony were having a baby. Surprised, yes we were. So were they. And as initial shock turned into happy anticipation, she came home to Ontario to have the baby here.

He didn't even breathe his first breath. His name is William Adam Fenner White. He was born and died early in the morning on April 6, 2006. A fully formed, beautiful little boy.

Before now, I had no idea how intensely someone who isn't even in this world can grip a heart so tightly. And to think of those tiny fingers that will never grip his mother's hand, or mine either for that matter .. is too heartbreaking for words.

Goodbye, sweet Adam. The baby I knew and didn't know ...


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A couple of days later, after the shock has dulled .. but only a bit. A lot of going back and forth .. Tony was in Nova Scotia. He's now here. The baby will be buried at Bow's Cemetery on the shore of Eagle Lake. We can see the cemetery from across the lake.

The best I can do at time like this is write. So I wrote this for Adam

You were conceived of salt water
ripening Annapolis shiny red apples,
from fertile farmland
stretching to the bay,
Of lobster claws and sea shells,
seaweed and fine sand

The rough salt breeze
absorbed into your mother's skin
Your mother danced on the beach
Your father watched, he knows.
he understands the breath of the sea.

You were born not there, not on the ocean.
You were born in your mother's water-world,
the scent of pine trees,
no smell of salt ..
rather, the fresh water aroma of algae and hidden trout
a tiny protected lake
ever filling up from eternal underground springs

Sweet baby,
We will sing you to sleep on the shore.

We will bring you both of your worlds
two worlds that live in your bones, your eyes, your feet

Here by this fresh water shore,
we will bring you scallop shells,
we will pour salt sea water
mixed with salt water tears
onto your tiny place
protected by the rock and shield.
You are home here.

Sweet Adam,
the scent of the pine trees
travels on the winds
all the way to your other home
To the tall pine tree outside your grandfather's house.

and the Maritime breath
of your grandparents, cousins,
aunts and uncles
will travel on the wind to the place you sleep

Sleep gently, sleep peacefully
In the arms of our love
In the arms of the earth

Our baby from the sea, our baby of the lake.



Cyndy and Tony say goodbye ..

Moths to Flames

This from my friend Roxanne --

"a writer is a device for turning alcohol into words."

How true -- some days more than others. Reminds me of yet another quote from my friends Sarah and Kevin in the upcoming podcast, upon reflecting that most of their songs contain references to alcohol, because they say "alcohol contains the best metaphors". It's like moth to the flame, they say, and the piper always needs to be paid.

Maybe I like these ideas because I want to identify with Dorothy Parker.

Curious.

Gathering No Moss

Well, time to move on again. It's been a very good winter .. got some new things under my belt -- teaching university, modelling for art classes (which I'm almost out the door to do today), some new radio programs and sound pieces, lots of reading, lots of blogging, connecting with old friends ... it's been a full few months.

And now I'm starting to pack up and move out of Windsor ... boxing up things to take back to store at my friend Ellen's place in Hamilton. I'll be back and forth a few times in April and May. Come mid-June I'll be going out to housesit for my friends Hildi and Peter in Vancouver.

Two months on the Pacific coast ... those glorious mountains and salt sea breezes off of English Bay. Takes me back to my mid-twenties, arriving with practically no money and waiting and waiting and waiting for my UI cheques. And every day walking to the UI office to see if my money has arrived, frustrated, yet looking up at those mountains and saying to myself, thank god I'm here.

And ya, it's bound to hurt that this is where Barry lived the first part of our lives together. But I'd been there for a while before I met him, and there was a me out there that was not him. There have been very few places since where I can honestly say I've experienced my separate self and been so happy with her.

And I've got lots of friends to visit in really wonderful places all up and down the coast. And then in the fall, over to India, Sri Lanka and Thailand for an undetermined amount of time. I don't have to be anywhere at any particular time.

You know, my life would be darn near perfect right now if my heart wasn't still so sore. You think you're getting over it, and then it comes back to land another punch in the gut yet one more time.

To put it in some kind of perspective -- my friends Sarah and Kevin have this song that Kevin wrote (I'm working on a podcast right now with a conversation with them and five of their really great songs ... the CD will be out in the summer.)

The chorus of this song goes:

And the preacher is preaching salvation
And the judge and the hangman agree
But the point of this whole sad narration
Is the pain that will set us all free

And then there's the Epilogue, which sums it all up

And the preacher is playing piano
And the hangman is drinking the gin
And the judge is in bed with a barmaid named Fred
Too busy to save us from sin

So ultimately I guess that means we can experience our pain without fear of judgement ... because everybody's all wrapped in their own lives. There's something good in that.

You really have to hear the whole song, and all the others. Great album. (I'll let you know when the podcast is posted) Inspires me to start writing songs again too. I'll have a piano all summer in Vancouver. It really is all good.

Even the painful stuff -- it will set us all free.

Happy Birthday Dad

Seventy three years. He was born in 1934. Thankfully, too late to get shipped off to World War 2 -- he was too young. And early enough to enjoy the southern Ontario booming economy -- after many long years of a secure job (balanced with running a 124 acre farm), both he and my mom have a good pension and have a wonderful life living on the shores of Eagle Lake near South River, Ontario.

On April 9th, mom and dad .. Helen 'n Bill .. will be celebrating their 51st wedding anniversary. There are five of us in the next generation .. Marianne, Dianne, me, Lori and Cindy (yup, five girls). Two grandchildren so far, Emily and Elizabeth (yup, two more girls) and another one on the way the end of June (surprise!)-- THIS JUST IN -- IT'S NOT THE END OF JUNE. IT'S THE END OF APRIL.

One night, Barry and I were having a bottle of wine with my mom looking out over the lake late at night in the old cottage (the one where they spent summers before the new house was built). And I asked my mom what attracted her to him way back when. And what has kept them together all these years.

"Because a nicer man never walked the face of the earth" was her response. Amen to that.

The Next Digital Frontier - part 1

I went out and bought an MP3 player yesterday. I figured I'd better get some personal experience with this method of content delivery to expand my knowledge of podcast and internet audio delivery.

I am discovering a whole new world in the process. And yes, I am looking/listening to my work much differently just in the 24 hours that I've owned this little gadget. It's a whole new world out there. There's a lot I could say about the medium being the message and how I need to change the way I work to adapt to the new universe. But let's start with the practicalities and discuss buying an MP3 player.

First discoveries: There are so many players available with so many features that it's hard to choose. And there's a big difference in models, probably based on price point, I would guess. First of all, I chose the RCA Lyra because it had a line-in jack. Which I hoped was compatible with a condenser mike (they sometimes are, but not always, worth a try) so I could hopefully use it as a recording device too. Well, no, got it home and found out that the line in jack is not a standard line in jack. So it will only work with the cable they provide. (Which works fine for some applications, but what happens if you lose the special little cable?) I was thinking about keeping it anyway, but I figure it's not a good thing that it seized up many times and I needed to remove the battery to reset it. Nope, not good.

And no manual. I am starting to make a lot of purchasing decisions based on whether or not there's a manual included. In this case, I had to go to a website, use up a whole bunch of paper and ink to print it out, and now I have a manual I don't need.

So I took it back, and got an IRiver. Which I like. I had to make the difficult choice between a model without a radio, but which had a line-in jack (right size this time). They didn't have a model with both. Since I already have a bunch of recording devices I chose the 1 GB T10 Model.

I'm glad I exchanged the Lyra for the IRiver. The difference in sound quality is truly amazing. Truly a pleasure to listen to. And it came with a manual. And it's heftier and sportier -- a pretty blue and it comes with handy things like an armband so you can wear it. You can also look at photos on it (if you really need to look at a postage-stamp sized picture).

Downside -- no line-in. I really wanted that line-in. And it is so tiny that the controls are hard to work with adult sized hands. But that's true of all of them. Cramped hand muscles are the price we pay for the tiny size of the thing. And it was about $40 more than the Lyra, but worth it for the improved quality.

Oh, the other downside. IRiver is solidly in bed with Microsoft, so the only software that will synch to it is Windows Media Player. More about software tomorrow after I accept the reality that WMP is what it's going to be -- I wouldn't mind so much if the software was as easy to use as the software that came with the Lyra. And WMP has a lot of built in features that constantly link to the internet to sell me music I don't want. It's very intrusive.

More about that tomorrow ...

Oh heck, here's one more

Victoria and Arleen Swimming with Frogs 

I've been going through my pictures and I just can't quit. This is another cool place at Au Grand Bois -- known as "The Spa" -- bathing suits optional (why bother, eh?).

Of Coffee and Compromises

Breakfast at Au Grand Bois 

Further to my post yesterday about the beauties of Au Grand Bois, here is another favourite story of mine. (By the way, the picture above is Doug, Darren and Lorne waiting for their morning coffee)

Arleen and Lenny, who are the stewards ("owners", for those of you who prefer the more familiar Western capitalistic jargon) of Au Grand Bois, came to me with a really funny dilemma after we'd all been camping there for a day. The problem was coffee. Serious problem.

Arleen and Lenny are not coffee drinkers. Arleen had made the choice to go with Fair Trade coffee. I drink fair trade coffee almost all the time myself, so this was a decision I supported wholeheartedly (wish Tim Hortons would pay more attention to this issue).

So, about a day into our week, Arleen was running out of coffee. She was absolutely astounded at the amount of coffee we were going through. Not only that, the amount of talk about coffee was something else she had never experienced.

So, what to do .. she had only budgeted for two cups a day per person. No, no, no, this would not do ... these are media people .. and one thing you don't do is limit the supply of coffee to a media person. I mean, how are we going to meet deadline? And even out here in the bush, we had deadlines to meet.

Arleen's first choice was to have me encourage all of us to drink less coffee. Not just for economic reasons, but because she sincerely believes that caffeine is an addiction that we can all kick with a little loving encouragement. Not gonna happen, Arleen. They'll shoot me at dawn. After they've had their coffee, that is.

Or she could buy more Fair Trade coffee and send the bill to us. But I was the organizer and budget-keeper, so I made the typical decision which is made in the hard-hearted North American economy. No extra financial cost.

My compromise -- we will stay in integrity for the morning, I told Arleen, and drink Fair Trade Coffee. I would go out and buy the ethically-compromised coffee for the afternoon. At least we can start the day with a sincere effort to support the impoverished coffee growers of the world.

I reassured her that I would take full moral responsibility for the decision. So to mitigate my on-going guilt about my decision having possibly harmed the Workers of the World, here's a word to all of you -- think of the farmers who grow your coffee. Buy Fair Trade.

And it has the added benefit of being shade-grown, which means they aren't clear cutting the forest to build mono-cropped plantations of coffee plants (trees? Can't remember if coffee is a tree or a shrub). And it's organically grown, so no nasty chemicals. And just about all the Fair Trade coffee I've had has been wonderfully good.

Yes, better than Tim Horton's. Even if it doesn't come with a Roll Up the Rim cup. That new car would just cause more pollution anyway. (note to my puzzled American friends -- you gotta be Canadian to understand that reference).

Reconnecting

Au Grand Bois in the morning 

Had a wonderful day yesterday full of connections from my recent and not-so recent past.

My first connection was a long phone call with Lenny and Arleen Proust, of Au Grand Bois in the Pontiac Region of Quebec (on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River close to Ottawa). I love the Pontiac -- it's where we had the audio art camp in 2002, and it was a fabulous time. They own 545 acres of woods - owning that much pristine land is pretty close to heaven on earth these days.

Lenny and Arleen used to run a children's camp until they decided they just didn't have the energy for 600 kids every summer anymore. Now they are looking for a new purpose, and they are thinking that they want to develop an eco-village. Which is a nother way of saying sustainable living, cohousing, people living together gently upon this earth. I like the term Intentional Community. I think that sums it up nicely. With 545 acres, there's a lot of room to spread out.

In recent years, I have thought many times that living in community is the way I want to live my life. It makes so much more sense from a lot of perspectives -- economically, socially, environmentally .. after all, we humans are pack animals. I don't think we were intended to live in our own little cages in high rise buildings made of concrete. Even if we do have a balcony garden and a great view.

Whether it's at Au Grand Bois, or in Nova Scotia or wherever, there's something calling out to me.

Oh, I need to get back to the woods ...

Waiting for the Ships

I don't see one yet ... 

The St. Lawrence Seaway opened this week. Ursalla and I took a long snowy walk this morning to see if we could spot our first freighter. Having driven a long way down the seaway, all the way to Riviere de Loup, I'm liking this big bit of water even more. I've always wanted to hop on a freighter and go all the way from the Gulf all the way to the Lakehead.

No boats today, but I know they're down there somewhere. My sister Lori called me from the middle of the Ambassador Bridge yesterday to tell me she'd seen her first one. I'll just have to go for more walks.

The riverfront is one of the best things about being in Windsor. I used to have an apartment right across from Dieppe Park where the Hilton Hotel now stands. It was a really colourful place -- home not just to me, but also a whole bunch of drug dealers, hookers and cockroaches of many shapes and sizes. At 20, I wanted to live where life was really happening, you know, not in some comfortable suburban building where everything is so ordinary. I needed to gather material to be a real writer. I needed to get down there in the gutters of humanity and experience that life was more than watching the soybeans shrivel up and turn brown in the bucolic farmland of Essex County. Yes, there are many stories from my days in the Alvin Apartments.

Je digress .. my point was going to be that I had a fabulous view of the river in that apartment. Best view in the city for $115 a month (lots of onshore entertainment in the apartment building too for no extra charge).

Back to the boats -- focus on the main story, Vic.

The ships were so close you could read the names on the bow. Windsor is the only place I've lived where you get to see a steady parade of ships going somewhere. In Vancouver, they sat in the Harbour. In Hamilton, only a small percentage of the traffic even entered the harbour. I've always felt energized by going places. If I can't go, I still get a real kick out of watching trains, boats and places even if I'm not on them.

And back in those days, I could look at a Canada Steamship Lines boat (which is just about all of them these days) without going, yuck, Paul Martin. Whoops. I forgot. He sold them to his sons when he became Prime Minister. Blind trust and all that.

I'm getting a tad cynical here. Back to thinking about pure pleasure, about sitting on a blanket next to the river reading a book, and seeing if I can decipher what country the ship is from.

I'm probably shipping out from Windsor myself the beginning of June. So I'm hoping we'll have a sunny May and that the trees leaf out real fast. That's another nice thing about Windsor, it's summer down here before the leaves have barely budded in Ottawa.

I'm going to enjoy the last couple of months here.

Car-free living

Wow, those cognitive distortion busting and anxiety management lessons I've spent so much time on are really coming in handy this morning.

I'm just laughing. There's nothing else to do about it (except for political action, more on that later). My insurance broker got back to me and told me they would insure me but would raise my rate from $77 a month to $425 a month.

I laughed at my broker when she told me. And laughed and laughed. The idea that I would give an insurance company $425 a month when I don't have to is just absurd. And said, I guess I'm going to be living in the city then and bike and bus and take cabs and rent cars when I want to get out of town. And then I gave her a lecture on how not having a car was going to keep us alive longer anyway. And how the insurance companies wouldn't be able to get away with this if more of us decided to give up our cars.

I was nice to her, though. Really I was. It's important to depersonalize these things a lot of the time.

And then I told her that, since I won't be driving anywhere I'll have lots of time to lobby for public auto insurance.

I'm just glad I have the choice in this.

The larger picture does bother me, though. My insurance agent is in South River, an area not known for availability of public transit. And an area where many, many people are barely scraping by just to support their families. One accident (and a minor one at that) has the potential to impoverish a family.

When visiting South River, I have heard many people refer to South River as the "welfare capital of the north". Well, hell if people can't afford to go to work, what choice do they have? I know, this isn't a problem that's limited to South River -- I am only using them as an example. And I'm not picking on my insurance agent because their only control over this is to go into another line of work .. But this was also heavy Mike Harris/Ernie Eves territory, and we know that neither Harris or Eves really cared all that much about the plight of the welfare mother who can't get auto insurance. And somebody voted them in. So in that sense all the South Rivers in the province and the people who voted for them are responsible.

As for me, I am fortunate that I have the choice. Maybe I'll move to Halifax and just rent a car every now and again to get out to the shore. Or maybe I'll move to Ottawa which is a cool city with great bike paths. I have options .. if I do decide to go further with this, it will be mostly for the benefit of those people who don't.

And of course to blow off some steam in a socially productive way.

Nationalize the Buggers!

I haven't done a political rant in a long time. So please indulge me.

I've been looking at my various options, figuring out where I want to live for the next little while. Still want to go to Nova Scotia and live a life of rural bliss. I may end up in the city, which I'm not totally adverse to as long as it's a liveable city. Rural Nova Scotia would be my first choice.

Here's the obstacle -- I schmucked my car in December. My fault, I admit it. But nobody was hurt (except the insurance company's bottom line, that is) The other woman's car only had a paint smear on her pretty white SUV. My passenger doors got punched in (the picture in on a previous blog entry here). They wrote me a cheque and said "your first accident won't have that big an effect".

Well, I'm not so sure. My own insurance company isn't even getting back to me. And on-line quotes are ranging anywhere from $2200 a year to $5700.

Well, I will be damned if I am going to allow myself to be held hostage to these thieves. One accident. And not even a big one. Come on.

On the other hand, this hands me an opportunity to put into practice one of my beliefs -- that if more people found alternative ways of living, like going car-free, we would have a cleaner, more sustainable environment. And a car is also a very expensive habit, both in terms of money and our health (so much healthier to be biking and walking)

And if more of us said "No, that's fuck YOU" to our insurance companies and said, hey, we can live without you, maybe they couldn't continue these extortionate rates.

Well, that felt better. I'm now going to walk the dog .. it's a beautiful day. And then I'm going to call my MPP to ask "hey, time to put public auto insurance back on the table".. (no high hopes here .. my MPP is an NDP, but the NDP did wuss out on public insurance when they were in government, so ...) But at the very least, taking political action does make me feel less powerless.

oh, ya, another thing. The accident will come off my record in ten years. But then they'll continue to be able to charge exhorbitant rates because I haven't had insurance for ten years. Under the current system I can see no immediate way to win this one. So I'm going to have to look long term and do some political action if I want to see any changes.

The State of the Airwaves

This is a repost of a message I put on Airdaily, the listserve of the Association for (of?) Independents in Radio in the States. This is a good read for anybody who is interested in radio, music and/or cultural nationalism.

******************************************

Hey folks -- if you're interested in finding out how commercial radio is faring in Canada, the latest submission by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters is a fascinating read.

"That Was Then .. This is Now" can be found here.

Even if you're not specifically interested in Canadian broadcasting, the summary of how all the different kinds of audio delivery are affecting commercial radio can be applied to other national contexts as well.

In terms of the language of this report, you will find a lot of similarities to the position and tone of the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters, the lobby group for the commercial stations in the States). I am very thankful that up here in Canada, the CAB and commercial radio does not have a lock on the airwaves like they do in the US. They're still trying, though.

The CAB's position papers always start with the premise "the sky is falling". And if it's not already falling, well then, it's about to fall. And of course they resist any kind of regulation .. unless of course it's to their advantage and then hey, save us Big Mommy Government.

Fascinating reading, even if the whiny tone is real annoying ...

Vive la Canadienne,
Victoria

Soft Focus

Self Portrait 

Some would say this isn't focussed clearly but I really like this picture ...

Lots of snow

Snowy days in South River 

This is my dad. My mom took this picture to try to entice us to come up to visit them. It's the snowiest year since they moved up there in 1992.

I love snow and snowmobiling, so this is a good idea. They've got a nice place that's almost like a resort up there on the lake and it's really beautiful. And I can let the dog off the leash and she really likes that too.

Hope it doesn't get mild before I get up there.

Looking Upriver 

Dog and Ice Floes