Category: Uncategorized

Totally Dad

When I worked in the Wool Sweater Outlet in Halifax’s Historic Properties in 1985, all the junior-high south end Halifax kids wanted the 48″ chest oiled wool sweaters to wear with their shorts and woolly socks as the Halifax cool uniform. Although I told them (and sold them) the 40 inch to let the sweater sag, it was (and is) a cool and identifiable look – and I thought if I ony had the money, skill, will and immagination I would create a line of clothes built around the idea called “Totally Dad”.

Now I use “Totally Dad” as the upside of “Oldie Olson” – the guy or gal in his or her forties or fifties who is actually almost able to not embarrass him or herself a group less his or her age. “Oldie Olson” is what is said behind “Totally Dad”‘s back…if they are kind. Otherwise – “old fart” seems to cover it off well. Better than smelly old fart, I guess.

Unless you are Black Cat bookstore on Argyle cool. Then smelly old fart is really Halifax cool.

Update: controversy breaks out at casa Gen X with the assertion by herself that, in fact, it was she who was praised at the bar in the Seahorse circa 1992 for a particular sweater she was wearing with a stranger’s comment “that sweater is totally Dad”. I am stunned. This all sounds like the “vitamin K” episode which I am sure I coined for Keiths draft in around 1986 at the Seahorse only to hear it used a few years later by the tarbender there back at me. We clearly need an institute of ale-house slang to verify and trace the origins of such usages.

Atlantic Canada is Right II

Today’s Globe and Mail (subscription required for access to the articles so they are not linked) contains two facts that confirms that, especially for the case of Newfoundland, the national perception that Atlantic Canada does not need a new deal is just wrong. These two facts are in addition to the current call for equality in tax sharing on resource revenue placing Newfoundland and Nova Scotia on a equivalent footing with the idle shieks of Alberta who lecture us on fiscal responsibility from the spewing tap of oil revenue which they sit upon solely through fluke of natural history.

The first fact is set out in a chart at page A4 of today’s edition. It shows that in 2002 the Federal Government sends $2.485 billion into Newfoundland while $2.187 is sent from Newfoundland into Federal coffers. The difference of 298 million is less than the transfer from Ottawa to PEI, is half the amount pledged for tsunami relief in another country, is roughly less than the annual budget of the City of Kingston. Hardly a national shame. Further, it is a 2002 figure which, following the preceding decade’s trend, might actually be no longer in deficit at all now into the third fiscal year after the chart’s end.

The second and more important point is made in Rex Murphy’s column in one sentence: “Churchill Falls alone nullifies the equalization ‘debt’.” In terms of gross provincial product, Newfoundland suffers from a legal falsehood, a valuation of the price of the electricity it exports through Quebec due to a sweetheart deal more imposed than negotiated soon after the nation of Newfoundland merged with the nation of Canada in 1949. Generally, throughtout the North American electrical grid, power generated in one place is “wheeled” though the transmission lines of others for a fair price to reach the customers of the generator. Under the Churchill Falls deal, there is a contractual deeming of the value of Newfoundland’s electricity which is vastly below fair market value. Hydro Quebec (I believe it is HQ) then sells the electricity on to New York state, Ontario, etc., effectively as if it generated itself and sells it at market value. It is a windfall to Quebec which Murphy values at over a billion dollars a year. Ottawa saves on that effect as Hydro Quebec is owned by the Porvince of Quebec and its windfall revenues off-set otherwise required transfers fom Canada. It is a loss to Newfoundland that swings it from a have to a have not province.

What is the effect? This chart shows one of them: Newfoundland lost 2.9% of its population from 1991 to 1996 and another 7% of its population from 1996 to 2001. Depopulation of those who are able to go. The capable. Without respect for the value of the resources, those who are able to run the province leave creating a vicious circle of dependency and creativity export and a perception that you have to leave to get ahead. What other province would put up with an economic situation which undermines its ability to continue itself?

Danny Williams is right.

Kingston Brewing Company, Kingston, Ontario


Readers in the local area may have noticed I have yet to write about the Kingston Brewing Company, more commonly called the Kingston Brew Pub. It’s just that I have not got a set of photos that capture the place more than anything but I popped in mid-afternoon today and made a start.

I have been going to the Kingston Brew Pub for more than a decade. When we lived three hours drive away, during LBK (Life Before Kids) we planned long weekends around meals there. Now I work a block away and am happy because of it, even to pop in for the lunch special or a cup of coffee mid-afternoon. The beers on tap are mainly their own but they do have McAuslan Oatmeal Stout and Guinness – based on the belief, I think, that now one can improve much on these examples of the styles. There is a bloggers meet up tomorrow evening there at 5 pm so I will have more thoughts and notes on a couple of ales after that.

Later: Ok. I never took any notes. I blabbed about blogs and failed to note the Winter Whallop or the Dragon’s Breath IPA. But I did get a couple of pictures of the upstairs.




Royalty Dork

I can recall, twenty odd years ago, at a Kings College fancy dress up during undergrad telling the jerk to leave who thought dressing like a Nazi was funny. The bar refused him service, no one suggested there was any excuse and it was done. Why did no one assist Prince Harry with that simple truth?

Second Third in line, eh? A republic is looking better and better.

Sadness

I do not write much about work because I quite like my work and it is usually not that good an idea to write about your work. But I would be missing a great sadness not to note the very surprising passing of the CAO of Kingston, my boss’s boss’s boss, Bert Meunier, whose obituary in the Whig-Standard this morning captures many of the qualities I got to know in working with him. Here is the Whig’s take on his career, much of which is a noting of events before my time. If I was to add anything it would be that, as set out in the articles, the principles that he clearly fought for have been adopted and are being brought into day to day action.