March 2009 – Page 2 – A Good Beer Blog

Either Really Healthy Or Really Weird

One thing that I think the internet may have done is tempered local weirdnesses about bad things. When I was a kid in the Annapolis Valley, the local AM radio stations would broadcast the fire alarm announcements as paid advertising. So, thirty four years ago, right in the middle of hearing the theme to The Greatest American Hero or “Island Girl” there would be the sound of a wind up fire alarm, the statement “the fire alarm in the Middleton Area is brought to you buy Smith’s Chev-Olds” a little ad and then the news that Mrs. Muldoon’s chicken shed burned down due to little Johnny playing with matches. If the fire news was good enough, people would get in their cars and go have a look see. When the Greenwood mall burned, the gawkers packed the highways and byways, likely impeding trucks providing mutual aid from outlying communities.

I thought of that when I heard about the new French-language obituary channel that is starting up in Quebec.

A Quebec businessman believes he has the perfect business to suit ageing, Baby Boomer viewers – an obituary channel. The country’s first television channel dedicated to funerals and mourning could start broadcasting as early as this summer, after the CRTC granted a licence for a regional Quebec cable channel called Je me souviens. The French-language station would broadcast obituaries, notices of hospitalization and messages of thanks and prayers.

It may come to English Canada, too. What a boon for the disaster mongers currently stuck cursing the sunny days on the weather channel. Guaranteed negative news to cluck over. Apparently the developer of the concept “the idea of putting obituaries on television came after he attended several funerals over the years that left him longing for more.”

There is something odd about this. And not just the obvious oddness. Does anyone think this is actually a bad plot of a sci-fi show and that somehow somewhere this will trigger the undead to be walking the streets?

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One Thing That Happens When A Movement Collapses

Are the profiteers all that are left? Ben relishes the self-promotion of one who will go nameless or the other who will go nameless but US conservatives seem to have fallen to the point that these are all there is left. In late 2004, I posted a few half based things about recovering the moral majority and one of the key points was to a regain a communications strategy on message. Obama may have done that with the hope, with the change and now well see how all that plays out in these the days of just the spare change. But those who go nameless are now pinching the last few coins, an echo of the departed, the voices of the hollowed hollow men, those who gifted the globe economic collapse. Having been built up by the cause they have nothing left once the cause is gone – and aren’t they, in fact, now more a barrier to the cause? The Flea doesn’t see it yet but no one would imagine Bush debating Michael Moore in 2003 out of some confused idea that promoting another’s self-promotion equates with national debate. The converse, especially after the collapse, is far less appealing. As Cheney would know, no one debates clowns.

So, how will they be asked to leave? When will their inertia leave them bound to Newton’s first law, still drifting along but slowly further away, receding after the tack turns the boat around? Who will be the spokes-folk for the next conservative agenda?

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Adam Dunn Apparently Does Not Suck So Much

It was one of the best games I have ever attended in any sport. Bizarrely, this morning Canadian sports media are not covering it as their lead story. Had Bay hit the run and Canada gone on to win, the nation would have gloated for years. But the outcome was immaterial to the quality of the game. Perhaps Canadian sports fans can’t appreciate the glory of achievement even in a close loss. If so, that wouldn’t be the case for those who were there. Conversely, the New York Times appreciated the moment the US reliever Putz faced in the ninth: “From the start, though, Putz could tell this game would be different from any he had experienced in a decade of professional baseball. The Rogers Centre throbbed with noise — it was the loudest crowd Putz said he had ever heard.” That is the big moment up top in the ninth – a man on second, two outs and Jason Bay at the plate fighting off pitches only to fly out in the end. The place had been going crazy for an hour up to that point after Canada’s minor league relievers twice got out of bases loaded situations. Heroic moments.

My children learned new words and new ways to use words. Many of those words were directed at USA right fielder Adam Dunn who spent the first half of the game parked in front of us before sending the game reeling with his three run homer. But I knew he did not suck as I saw him at Cooperstown in the home run derby in 2006 jack more than one out of the park. I have a deep belief that seeing sports live in a crowd is a very good thing and an important part of childhood. Fodder for character and an education that your classmate junior peewee “elite” soccer players are pretty much being led down a path.

Seeing a fan of the other side slagged by your crowd mates and then seeing him turn on them victorious and finger pointing is a life lesson. Seeing ultimately good natured but rough talk between adults should be shocking spicy thing. Watching reactions to great achievements and huge disappointments provides a foundation for future personal experience.

“This Column Is By A Finance Crime Convict”

Why doesn’t the National Post point that out as part of the byline on Conrad Black’s musings? I mean at the end of my fellow blogger Stephen Taylor‘s NP posts on the same “Full Comment” feature it states in sort of a footnote:

Stephen Taylor is a scientist, political analyst and a Fellow at the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, an institute founded by Preston Manning. Read more at his blog, stephentaylor.ca.

If that is the right thing to do – and it is – should Conny’s at least state that he is n the hoosegow for corporate finance crimes the sort of which were indicative of and generously larded the years leading to the current worldwide economic collapse? Seems only reasonable to me.

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Praise Be To The Circling Of The Sun

Previous celebrations: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008. Spring happens this month. Baseball happens this month. Plants will poke their heads out of the ground. I might even BBQ. March good. The bad months are past. Woot.

These Too Be Sun Worshipers Update: While one may quibble as to the point, UMPI plays ball:

Because winter can last until May in northern Maine, Presque Isle routinely plays its entire season on the road. With their campus 400 miles north of Boston, the Owls have not played a home baseball game since 2005, when there were two. “You can either complain that the baseball field is buried under six feet of snow, or you drive to where you can play baseball,” said Tyler Delaney, a junior infielder. “We don’t complain.

Here is their schedule in case you want to catch a game.

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