Archives for March, 2008
Goodbye Yankee Stadium
One of my regrets in life is that I never got a chance to see a game in Yankee Stadium. Today the New York Times gives and audio and written tour of the parts of the stadium that aren’t normally seen.
Charter for Compassion
This comes from Karen Armstrong at the 2008 TED. via OneHouse
Contextless Links
- Interesting comment on Metafilter on day labour conditions in parts of the United States
- For McCain the key is policies, not biography
- Was Hillary’s “Sniper-Fire” lie a watershed event for her campaign? You can see the trip on YouTube. Not a lot of sniper fire from what I can see.
The blog thing is confusing a lot of people
I have been getting weird comments and e-mail all day on my TSA post. People are following the backlink on the TSA blog to my blog and leaving comments thinking that I am the TSA which I find funnier each time I read them.
My Sunday
Instead of church today, my Sunday is being spent as the After Hours Emergency worker from 10:00 a.m. to midnight. Yeah, that is 14 straight hours which I haven’t done in a while. When Social Services is closed, all emergency calls come to me where I am in a tiny windowless office that seems warmer than the surface of the sun right now.
While the office lacks atmosphere, it does give you a nice feeling to know that you made a bit of a difference at the end of the shift and Wendy was nice enough to drop off some Tim Horton’s coffee.
The TSA Blog
The TSA has a blog. A pretty good blog written by employees who are actually engaging those other travelers. This is a great illustration on how a government department can use a blog and YouTube to communicate. You will want to check out this post on the problems some checkpoints have had with MacBook Airs and how the TSA is responding to it. via
Documentary Technology
A bunch of you have asked what technology I am using for the documentary that I am working on. I posted a link to the camera before but here are the rest of the setup.
- Canon ZR-800 | Spencer Burke had an Sanyo Xacti that he used down in Soularize that I loved it. Recording to SD cards is a wonderful feature. When I got the idea for this project, one of the things that a Saskatoon police officer said, “Make sure you can walk away from your camera. I would hate for you to get hurt over it.” The ZR-800 met that requirement. It also has an external mic jack which eliminates the need for the internal mic and the horrible motor noise it picks up (the main weakness of the camera). It also shoots in 16:9 format.
- Sima Video Bracket | This came from Amazon.com and was a little frustrating to buy. I tried to get one here but Don’s Photo and several other stores told me that they didn’t exist and had to be bought for a specific camera. Ummm, they don’t. It screws into the bottom of the camera where the tripod mount goes. It also allows for some steadier camera shots.
- AUDIO TECHNICA ATR-35S Lavalier Microphone | Audio-Technica ATR25 Stereo Condenser Microphone The before mentioned external mics.
As for editing. I won’t be doing that much of it is but Adobe Premier is pretty much the only option. I am still looking for a good bag but I haven’t found anything I like yet. If you have any suggestions, leave them below.
Station 20 West
Much has been written about the Government of Saskatchewan canceling Station 20 West. Much of that has come from the competing rationale of the Government ministers themselves. The final word seems to come from a bunch of rural MLA’s, including Premier Brad Wall which had this to say, “basically a mall development, where we’d be competing with grocery stores, competing with others who are already renting now to community clinics in the area.”
The problem is that there isn’t any grocery stores in the area. The closest grocery store is the limited selection of food at Giant Tiger (really inexpensive but limited selection), 33rd Street Safeway, or the Safeway/Superstore in Confederation Mall. As for competing with other mall owners, they obviously don’t see the benefit of a centralized service complex which would hold the following services.
- Community Clinic-Westside: cooperative primary health care services
- Saskatoon Health Region: primary health services may include public health, mental health and addiction services
- U of S College of Dentistry: outreach education clinic
- U of S College of Medicine: outreach clinical services
- SWITCH: Student Wellness Initiative Toward Community Health
There would be some other organizations housed here.
- CHEP Good Food Inc: essential food security programming—community kitchens, children’s nutrition, Good Food Box, local food
- Good Food Junction Co-op: neighbourhood-owned grocery store with good food at reasonable costs
- Quint Development Corporation: affordable housing initiatives, small business development and loans, employment and educational support
This seems to be an decision based on ideology rather than anything. The idea that the government should not be providing services it feels that private enterprise can and should. Of course this ideology doesn’t work in reverse as seen my Royal University Foundation looking for private money to bring Saskatoon’s main emergency room, ICU, and other facilities up to date.
Is it a good project? On the government’s side, the Westside Clinic is already operational and I assume isn’t going anywhere and they house SWITCH. While I agree with the idea of an affordable food co-op but from it’s inception, I have questioned if they are going to be affordable (which may be secondary to availability). Some friends have been involved and the questions on affordable pricing remain unanswered. It isn’t a flaw with the business plan but a volume and distribution question. Also some would argue proximity to St. Paul’s Hospital. So there are some questions of whether or not the government should be funding a project like this.
On the Station 20 West side is availability. In my job one of my biggest challenges right now is providing health care and in particular, mental health care to the men who call the shelter home. In terms of health care, emergency room health care is not a good solution for the system (cost) or to the patient (lack of regular checkups). While it can be hard to get accessible health services for all of us, it is a lot harder to find a doctor if one doesn’t have car. All of us in the house drive across town to see our doctor which would be a couple hour trip if we had to use a bus or incur a $40 bill if we used a taxi. That is a HUGE obstacle to those that I serve at work.
Speaking of availability, that is the main advantage of the co-operative grocery store. As I just said, I am not really convinced that it is sustainable. At night the Shopper’s Drug Mart on 22nd street often has one clerk and two uniformed security guards to stop robbery and to stop shop lifting. One can’t tell me that it is making any money at all under those conditions. There is also another reason why Safeway, Loblaw, and Super Valu has all pulled out of the city centre.
Despite that, affordable food is hard to come by. Wendy and I shop at Safeway (primarily at 33rd Street where we live and Wendy picks up stuff at the Centre at Circle and 8th where she works), Co-op, and Costco. We save a lot of money by being able to pick and choose. For the poorest in Saskatoon, there are not grocery stores in close proximity and if you would like to join me at the 7-11 on 22nd Street on days when government checks are sent out, it looks like a riot hit it by midnight (There is evidence that Scott Reid was somewhat correct when he made his quip about beer and popcorn). People are spending an incredible amount of their checks on food from a 7-11. Is it a great decision? Of course not. There are people with a very, very, limited food budget spending it in a horrible location (price wise and healthwise - don’t get me wrong, I love a good 7-11 burger but it isn’t a lifestyle I would recommend). The alternative is having to get a cab to go to a grocery store which is another huge budgetary issue. The people that most often who need to take a cab to a grocery store are often those that can’t afford to. It is the reason why I was asked to drive people home from the warehouse when the Salvation Army handed out Christmas hampers. If we hadn’t, the burden to get a FREE hamper may have too much for people to receive one.
If you drive through Riversdale, Caswell Hill, and Mayfair, you see a bunch of homes that used to be corner stores and small grocery stores. Jane Jacobs wrote extensively on what happened to them but we abandoned them for the big box stores. While it made life better for some, it hurts those that can’t make it to the mega malls. It is one of the reasons why I take Mark as much as possible to the Roxy Theatre and not the Galaxy. I don’t want to lose something that means so much to the community.
Of course this isn’t a fight about movie theatres, it is about providing a place for healthy food, medical services, affordable dental care (even if it is done by students… shudder…), and more mental health providers in a place that desperately needs them. It is only $8 million dollars out of $9.1 billion dollar budget (wow, do we know how to spend money in Saskatchewan, where is Janice MacKinnon when we need her). It is also about investing in a part of the city that has seen so little investment over the last 40 years. Yes Meewasin and the Farmer’s Market is nice but Riversdale has been ignored for much of the last several decades despite being represented by a New Democratic Premier since 1991. Investing in that part of the city also sends the huge message that we believe that we are not willing to leave behind some of the provinces poorest.
I’ll leave the last word to the editorial writers of the Saskatoon Star Phoenix.
Gantefoer believed the grant was cut because there was little chance the proponents of the project could raise the “$12 million to $14 million” needed to come from private interests. By next day he was admitting he was in error, and the necessary private funds were a minuscule portion of that amount.
Even more incredibly, McMorris suggested the money had to be pulled from a project that would make it easier for inner-city residents to access timely health care because the funds were needed to buy a fire alarm for St. Paul’s Hospital and to ward off a mould attack. The decision, he assured us, had nothing to do with politics.
At least Wall’s weak excuse was credible, if only because it illustrated an ideological basis to the ill-considered decision. The premier suggested the grant was killed because his government saw the inclusion of a co-operatively run grocery store within Station 20 as a threat to private industry.
But to cancel the entire project rather than deal directly with the situation is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
When the NDP absurdly castigated Wall for giving his 14-year-old daughter driving lessons on a publicly owned rural gravel road, it demonstrated just how far out of touch with rural Saskatchewan that party has become.
But Wall’s clear lack of understanding about the dire needs of core neighbourhoods and the history of Saskatoon demonstrates just how out of touch he remains with urban Saskatchewan. Considering the role the province’s largest city is playing in the economic revival of Saskatchewan, such ignorance could have dire consequences.
The proponents of Station 20 want a grocery store not because they want to compete with private industry but because many people in core neighbourhoods don’t have the wherewithal to keep hiring cabs to go shopping. The last of the downtown grocery stores left more than a decade ago.
To ignore such realities for the sake of political partisanship and ideological reasons is an inauspicious beginning for a government that Saskatchewan people hoped could lead them to a prosperous future.
If you have strong feelings about this, contact your MLA and let them know.
Contextless Links
- Down and out at Heathrow Airport
- Sask government cuts most Social Workers in Saskatoon: The goal is to deliver social services via a call centre. That sound you hear is a lot of Saskatchewan’s best social workers being recruited in Alberta and Manitoba. UPDATE: Apparently the Minister didn’t make that decision and there will not be serious job cuts. Good to here, there are some really dedicated and professional civil servants who do a good job serving Saskatchewan’s most vulnerable. That has stopped the turmoil to be felt throughout the department according to the SP.
Sask government cuts funding to Station 20 West, an important affordable housing development in Saskatoon. Station 20 West is envisioned as a community service centre, joining a multi-unit affordable housing development with a co-operative grocery store, a dental clinic staffed by U of S college of dentistry faculty and senior students, a medical clinic, a public library branch and other services - all at one site :: The government’s reason is that it isn’t in the mall development business.
- Hillary Clinton’s former pastor defends Obama’s former pastor Wright
City vs. the Activists = Homeless Lose Out
An article in the San Francisco Inquirer suggests that as the city and activists feud over what to do with the homeless, they are frozen out of the services that can help. via
“I could care less about their vigorous representation of the homeless,” Henderson said. “At the end of the day, we all want to get them help.”
Isn’t that true? Yet there seems to be such a disconnect over what’s happening on the street and the perception, it is a wonder anything gets done. Local attorney Jim Haas wonders if it might be worthwhile for local law firms, many of whom provide pro bono attorneys for homeless causes, to meet with representatives from the district attorney’s office to discuss what is being accomplished.
No one doubts the motives or intentions of pro bono efforts. But what is the best use of the time of idealistic, well-educated attorneys? To get public-drunkenness citations dismissed? Or to help the down-and-out homeless work their way through the complicated system to get monthly Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments? Or to guide homeless veterans through the process to get their benefits and medical plans?
Draggins Rod and Custom Car Show
Every Easter weekend, the Draggins Car Club hosts the Draggins Rod and Custom Car Show in Saskatoon and several thousand of us turn out to see the old cars. On Good Friday, Wendy, Mark and I went over and looked around and took a couple of photos.
Mark’s favorite, the SpongeBob SquarePants car.
Mark and I loved the Legend Car Racing. The bodyshells are 5/8-scale replicas of American automobiles from the 1930s and 1940s, powered by a Yamaha motorcycle engine. The rule book committee for Legend car racing is called INEX, which stands for “INEX”pensive. Of course INEXpensive is still to expensive for me, other than as a fan (they race in Saskatoon on June 14th)
It wasn’t as good as previous years but we did enjoy seeing some of them. It wasn’t a bad way to kill a couple of hours even if there wasn’t the jaw dropping cars of years gone by.
More photos can be found over at Flickr.
North
Ben Saunders is heading North. An attempt to set a new world record for the fastest trip to the North Pole.
The current record was set in 2005 by a guided team using dog sleds and numerous re-supplies in a time of 36 days 22 hours. Ben’s expedition will be solo and unsupported and on foot. This route has only ever been completed once solo and unsupported, by Pen Hadow in 2003. Ben aims to halve his time and complete it in 30 days. More than geographic exploration, Ben is exploring the limits of his own human potential.
Here is some of the gear he is taking with him.
Housing homeless could save taxpayers hundreds of millions
The Canadian Press points out the obvious
A study says providing shelter for the homeless with severe addictions and mental illness throughout British Columbia could save taxpayers millions of dollars.
“Addiction is the most prevalent mental health problem in both the street homeless and at-risk populations, followed by concurrent disorders and, less frequently, mental illness alone,” says the Simon Fraser University report.
The paper - entitled “Housing and Support for Adults With Severe Addictions and/or Mental Illnesses in British Columbia” - says providing non-housing services for such people costs the public system more than $55,000 per year per person.
It says providing adequate housing and supports could reduce this cost to $37,000 per year.
The same idea was previously written about by Malcolm Gladwell in his article Million Dollar Murray.
McCain advisor tells off religious right
From Lawrence Eagleburger
On the Christian hard right, I live in Charlottesville now and I can’t tell you I’m surrounded by it. I must tell you we fought it there, fought hard against it. There’s no question that in the Republican Party it is a serious problem … Among the hard-right conservatives in the Republican Party John McCain was, shall we say, less than enthusiastically received … What you see is what you get. You are not going to see him moving to assuage the concerns of these conservatives.
The issues that have concerned the far right I don’t see and I don’t expect to see any changes. I know there will be some people in his entourage who will want to advocate for those changes, and again, I don’t believe he will shift on those fundamental issues. For example, on abortion, he’s clear, he’s opposed. On one of the issues that upsets the far right, stem cell research, he is prepared to accept some of that, and that’s something that upsets the far right. I could go on with these issues.
Resonate E-mail Updates
I am moving Resonate’s e-mail newsletter server to new software this weekend. It is working today so if you want to sign up, click on this link to receive mail about Resonate, Cultivate Gathering, or upcoming events across Canada.
Our Cabin Weblog- Recently listened to music
- David Gray – Be Mine October 19, 2008
- David Gray – December October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Knowhere October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Real Love October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Last Boat To America October 19, 2008
- Recently additions to my library
- Rediscovering Church: The Story and Vision of Willow Creek Community Church by Lynne Hybels October 26, 2008
- The Teeth of the Tiger, A Novel by Tom Clancy October 26, 2008
- The Agenda Inside the Clinton White House by Woodward Bob October 26, 2008
- The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell October 26, 2008
- The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy October 26, 2008
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