Clothesline Part I

Today is what my mother would call a good wash day -- sunny, dry, breezy and perfect for drying laundry on the clothesline. I've put out several loads of bedding on mine.

When I bought my house almost 11 years ago, the clothesline was the deal-clincher. Apart from the savings on electricity, and the opportunity to stand out in the garden chatting with the neighbours about how great air-dried sheets smell when you go to bed on them, I gradually became semi-conscious that hanging clothes on the clothesline is a role-playing exercise for me, where I get to pretend I'm a real grownup woman with a family to take care of -- in other words, I get to play at domesticity without having any of the responsibilities. As a childless single woman, there's still a part of me that doesn't feel entirely grown-up, and using my clothesline feels like playing dressup with my mom's old taffeta gowns and satin pumps used to. I guess I've never felt as though I measure up to the standards for what a woman is "supposed" to be (meaning, I suppose, that I could never match my mother's femininity) and while I think I've come to terms with the gap between society's expectations of me and the kind of woman I turned out to be, clearly there's a part of me that still pays attention to that imprint.

But -- surprise, surprise -- my self-image mirror reflects infinite layers. "I feel like I'm pretending to be you when I hang clothes on the line," I said to my mother recently.

"That's funny," she replied. "I feel like I'm pretending to be my mother when I hang clothes on the line."

(Here's what being a woman who puts out the wash means in reality: I hung up a cream-coloured fitted sheet from my bed and was horrified to see a large, rusty-looking stained patch. It was dye from a cheap nightshirt I bought at Zeller's, transferred to the sheets with my menopausal night sweats. I'm now worried my neighbours will think I'm incontinent...)

Favorville.com

My brother Paul, who's in website management, keeps saying he'd like to see the Internet used to connect people who are close to one another geographically, rather than only forming communities of people who live far apart. He sees it as a perfect tool to bridge the gaps within neighbourhoods. We were both intrigued by a new website that's been getting some media coverage lately, called favorville.com. Two young men in Toronto put it together with the idea that people could share advice and expertise, sell items, give things away -- much like Craigslist -- with an emphasis on connecting people who live near one another.

In memory of Jane Jacobs, who died a couple of days ago, I signed on to favorville.com, admittedly mostly looking for favours (I spell it the Canadian way, but I can understand why they don't), though I have given away my dehumidifier to somebody who needs it more than I do. I tried a wacky idea -- I've posted a request for a gardener, somebody who lives in an apartment who misses gardening and can help take care of mine. We'll see what happens. Jacobs believed that urban neighbourhoods work when they are constructed in such a way that (among other things) people are physically close to each other -- aware of and acquainted with one another but not necessarily intimately involved in one another's lives. Perhaps my request will end in disaster.

Virtual classroom

I'm about to begin a master's program in adult education at the University of Calgary that can be pursued entirely online. I think I've got over the association of distance learning with acquiring your education through the back of a matchbook -- it's a sensible option for mid-career teachers who can't pick up and move or study full-time. And, since distance delivery is becoming so popular, especially for adults, the program gives me an opportunity to learn more about a method I'll undoubtedly be called upon to use in the future. I've always been skeptical of the whole online-learning thing, but I'm prepared to have my bias toward sitting in a classroom challenged, I guess.

In any case, tonight I "attended" a virtual orientation session -- my first experience using software called Elluminate, which allows a class to take place in which people who are physically in farflung places view stuff onscreen and hear each other using a mic and headset. Little icons on the screen allow you to put your "hand" up, mutely applaud, boo and text message.

When I asked a young man in my local Apple computer reseller for a headset with a microphone, he sold me one that I think is intended for kids on PlayStation -- it's sized for a 12-year-old boy's head. It was singularly uncomfortable and now I have a headache. As I expected, I found communicating this way a bit intimidating (it reminded me a little of talking on the CB radio when I was growing up in the north -- I wanted to say "10-4," or do my best Jack Bauer imitation: "Copy that.") The absence of people's body language, facial expressions, etc., made me feel self-conscious. And it also made me bored and sleepy. I'm not one of those students who needs to be doing "hands-on" stuff all the time. I like being lectured to. But at least when you listen to a prof drone on in a classroom, there's something to look at. I found it hard to focus in the virtual setting. I hope a real class will be more interesting. Too bad we can't use web cams.

What was interesting, though, was listening to everybody in the session sign in. There were people in B.C., Saskatchewan, Abu Dhabi and Russia (where it was 4 a.m.). One guy was an officer at a Canadian Forces Base. There was somebody who trains air traffic controllers in Newfoundland. The variety of participants will be the program's great strength, I'm sure -- that's what I always tell my adult students.

Uh...peaches? asparagus?...

Though there have been a variety of opinions over the years on what age a woman should stop taking birth control pills (notwithstanding a CBC Radio interview I heard today with a doctor who says nobody should be taking them at all), I figured nature had its own rule: I stopped taking them when my my eyesight was so bad I couldn't see the little letters on the package indicating the days of the week, and my memory was so bad I couldn't remember to take them anyway.

I recently concluded that I also had too few brain cells to ensure I bought healthy foods -- I had read that some fruits and vegetables tend (for various reasons) to carry more pesticides than others, and tried to commit to memory which ones were which, but damned if I could call to mind that list when I was in Loblaws.

But I found a handy wallet card at the Environmental Working Group website that will do the job for me.

Now I just have to create a filing system for my handy wallet cards. And make sure I have my reading glasses with me at Loblaws.

True Blue?

Is it just me, or did President's Choice redesign many of its prepared food packages to incorporate a blue background at the same time that it introduced (more than a year ago, I guess) its Blue Menu line of low-fat, healthier packaged foods? I do now associate that colour with the healthier stuff, but a lot of the time I pick up a blue PC package and later realize it's not actually Blue Menu, it's just blue. Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky.

Toronto Life catches on

The cover story of the May issue of Toronto Life is about dating and being single. The cover itself features the usual bland-looking woman, which it apparently must do to sell on newsstands, but the inside is a pleasant surprise. There's a trenchant, brave essay on being single by Anne Kingston, which is surrounded by first-person mini-profiles of various single people in the city, with good-sized black-and-white photos. What's so surprising is that in addition to white male and female 30-somethings, the people profiled include a lesbian, a Muslim woman in traditional garb, another young woman whose last name is Singh, and a white man of 79. Not one of the women is skinny; two are reasonably hefty-looking. (Kudos to Denise Balkissoon for these choices).

Contrast this with the cover story of the February issue, "The Condo Generation: Living Large in 700 Square Feet," which featured only condo owners in their 30s, all of them in media-related fields. A friend of mine who's in her 50s and is thinking of buying a condo downtown said she was initially intrigued by the article but upon reading it felt that it displayed a world she didn't belong in. I know a couple who are 71 and 75, who lived in a non-descript (not to say bleak) suburban neighbourhood in Scarborough, with an enormous yard and beautiful garden, and gave it all up to move to a tiny condo at Bloor and Church a couple of years ago. Both lively jazz fanatics and amateur musicians, they're ecstatic about the change, the easy access to theatre and concerts, the ability to walk wherever they want to go, the fact that they don't have to garden anymore. Are seniors and empty-nesters presumed not to be readers of Toronto Life? Is that a demographic editorial choice the magazine makes (not in keeping, incidentally, with their sometime contributor David Hayes's article last year, I can't recall where, that suggested marketers ignore the spending power of boomers at their peril).

The editorial staff members at Toronto Life are mainly under 40 (I know most of them, and respect their intelligence and skill). But as a former employee there myself, a longtime reader and occasional contributor, I often despair of the isolated, youth-centred, too-cool-for-school tone that creeps in, not to mention the WASP-ishness. They've redeemed themselves with this issue.

Post-modern and green

Further to environmental tipping point: How do you preach to people about the importance of saving the planet while remaining hip, ironic and cynical, the required characteristics of any self-respecting media person today? How do you attract an audience with a scary message they'd rather tune out?

CBC Radio One's hip Saturday program Go! made a clever attempt to address what they called "Earth Day apathy" yesterday, which was Earth Day. In between various segments in which the audience did things like compete to see who could identify which items didn't belong in a blue box (on the theory that kids would do a better job at this than geezers, although the geezer won), they ran taped clips that sounded like public service announcements. Each began with lugubrious music, leading to a man intoning glumly that this was your "Earth Day Downer." The announcer stated a couple of examples of impending global doom. "If that's depressing," he'd say, "Think of this," and he'd list another one. Finally, he'd end saying something like "That was your Earth Day Downer," and the sombre music would close out the clip.

At one and the same time, the items succeeded in making fun of environmentalism and still getting across some arresting and important facts. I thought it worked, although I believe media theorists have suggested that this kind of subversiveness in the entertainment media ultimately does nothing to effect social change.

Climate warrior

Tim Flannery, Australian author of The Weathermakers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change, has been promoting his book in Canada and conferring with policy makers in Ottawa. The book has been touted by British prime minister Tony Blair -- at the anti-Portlands energy plant rally I went to recently, NDP leader Jack Layton said he'd pressed a copy on our prime minister, and keeps bugging him to read it.

This morning on CBC Radio Flannery said that his generation asked their dads, "What did you do in the war?" and honoured their contributions in the fight against a clear enemy in the '40s. But our kids, Flannery says, will ask us, "What did you do in the war against global warming?"

That's it. I'm giving up ironing. Well, at least I'm going to read Flannery's book. And I think I'm going to see if I can rouse folks at Ryerson, my only workplace besides my house, to turn off their computers at night and on weekends. The Green Tips book by Gillian Deacon says that "a single computer, left on nights and weekends, can cost $95 a year in wasted energy" (typically we frame threats in dollars, as if our pocketbooks were all that mattered, but, sadly, that's the most effective motivator).

Kids on Stage

Last night I attended a production of Cole Porter's Anything Goes at Rosedale Heights School of the Arts, formerly Castle Frank high school. My young friend My Anh Tran was in it; she's been acting professionally and training as a dancer since she was about 8. Despite the sometimes dated (read: racist) details, which bothered My Anh, it was entertaining and well done. Not only am I always impressed by what the school does with these kids (because so many of the students are involved in drama, music and dance, the productions have huge casts), but I'm excited by the support the students show for one another -- the cheering sections in the audience, the shouts of "good show" in the hallway, the acceptance of different sexual orientations. When I was in high school, it often seemed that calling attention to oneself in any way invited only disdain.

My Anh is heading off to theatre or dance school in the fall (I can't believe she's 18; sigh). Although she didn't have a big role in Anything Goes, she was the best dancer in the bunch, and the stage presence she displayed as a little girl is still remarkable.

All the kids were great; a standout was A.J. Stewart as Billy Crocker, who has a tremendous voice, and Jessica Willis as Reno Sweeney; and Zebedee Serranilla played Moonface Martin with an understated comic touch that was lovely. I especially liked the opening, in which two hip-hop dancers did their moves to loud contemporary music, but then deferred to an old lady with a Victrola, who led a segue into the world of the '30s musical. It was a bit Titanic-ish, but sweet. Later there were pop culture allusions, including to Titanic, that were tongue-in-cheek and cleverly done.

The school's upcoming concerts include: Music Night, May 10, 11 and 12; Circo della Vita (with over 300 students dancing), May 24, 25 and 26; and the Fringe Festival, a collection of 16 student-written, -directed and -produced plays, June 6, 7, 8 and 9 (My Anh is one of the directors and performers).

Some of my best friends are...

Twice today I've heard/read somebody in the mainstream media use the phrase, "You don't have to be a tree-hugger to [attend Earth Day celebrations, buy a hybrid car, whatever]." Further to my "tipping point" point three posts ago.

And Brian Mulroney was honoured as Canada's greenest prime minister yesterday!

Hearing guys like him, and George W. Bush, make even the most grudging concession to concern about global warming makes me feel both relieved and terrified. Finally...but...yikes.

The Real and the Fake

Yesterday on CBC Radio One's "The Current," there was an item on Stephen Harper's new plan for giving $1,200 a year to parents for child care (in place of the former Canadian government's plan to put money into public daycare spaces). Anna-Maria Tremonti interviewed a spokesperson from Real Women of Canada, Diane Watts, about the topic. A lot of what Watts said sounded sensible. She mentioned polls that found a majority of women state that they'd rather stay home with their kids than work, which doesn't surprise me, though the numbers don't go very deep in explaining why. But she even mentioned what to me is the important part -- that many other women polled would rather stay home with their kids part-time and work part-time.

I don't know anybody, no matter how much they love their work, who wouldn't prefer to do less of it. Personally, I think couples who can raise families and sustain two careers (not necessarily jobs) and not buckle under the strain are unusual (that means you, Bonnie Fuller). But they do exist, and more to the point, there are many more families who would like to work out some combination of work, career and child-rearing (not to mention extended family and community lives) that allows both mother and father to lead a balanced life and not go broke. Watts even conceded that men might want to stay home with their kids. She tossed around that Conservative word "choice," which always sounds great.

But how can you trust an organization called "Real Women"? Right up front, the name implies that there are "fake women" out there. (Which reminds me of the offensive name the online magazine Salon used to give to one if its opinion sections: "Mothers Who Think." Implying that most mothers don't?)

And who would the fake women be? Those of us who choose careers and don't have children at all? Those who do manage the admittedly difficult feat of raising a family and having a career without wrecking their kids' lives or their own? Those who want a combination of work/career and child-rearing but can't manage it in a society that's so materialistic we've priced life right out of our range -- or who do manage it by opting out of the consumerist treadmill that fuels capitalism? Those who have husbands who are willing to take on child-rearing tasks previously thought to be unmanly? (Are they fake men?) Those who have no choice but to work? Choice may be a Conservative buzzword when it comes to daycare, but a Manichaean phrase like Real Women doesn't allow for any choice at all, it seems to me.

Ryerson Review of Journalism

Tonight I dropped by the launch party for the new issues of the Ryerson Review of Journalism at the Hotel Boutique Lounge -- always a pleasant little do that's well-attended by the usual suspects in the Toronto magazine biz. The newly minted School of Journalism grads, who produce the magazines in their final year at Ryerson University, get to hobnob with the Ken Alexanders, Ian Browns, Antonia Zerbisiases and Allan Fotheringhams, and the journalists who've been profiled scurry off with the fresh-off-the-press copies to read about themselves in the dim corners of the room.

Aside from numerous Canadian National Magazine Awards, the Ryerson Review of Journalism has also won quite a few awards from the Association of Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication in the United States (competing successfully with the likes of the Columbia Journalism Review), as well as a couple of Rolling Stone Magazine College Journalism Awards and a glowing citation in Utne Reader. It's always an interesting read, and one of the only places you can find long-form articles on the state of journalism in Canada. The students also produce regular coverage of the scene on the RRJ website (and a blog) throughout the school year.

I taught most of this year's crop of students in my Magazine Fundamentals course last year, and they were an exceptionally great group. I've read most of the "spring" issue (two issues come out about 10 days apart), and I especially recommend Joe Castaldo's piece on Ken Whyte's takeover of Maclean's. I was also impressed by Barry Hertz's profile of Globe and Mail columnist John Ibbitson in the "summer" issue, and I look forward to reading the rest.

The summer issue's cover line is "Is Journalism Dead?" Hmmm...a number of the grads told me tonight that they were going into public relations...

You can subscribe to the RRJ online, and it is available on some newsstands (Ryerson's bookstore being one of them).

God bless Graydon Carter and his SUV

Media types are snotty about Vanity Fair's special green issue (May, "A Threat Graver Than Terrorism: Global Warming") -- evidently editor Graydon Carter doesn't drive an environmentally friendly car despite his call to eco-arms, and I must admit that Julia Roberts dressed like a wood nymph on the cover alongside Al Gore, George Clooney and Robert F. Kennedy seems a bit of a stretch. "Making the environment glamorous," sniffed an editor of my acquaintance. But she agreed that the issue is extremely well executed, and after reading it from cover to cover on a long bus trip yesterday, I was ready to run out and join the Sierra Club, or at least buy a solar-powered battery charger for my curling iron.

Yes, perhaps caring about climate change (or climate crisis, says one scientist in an attempt to subvert the customary understatement) is just fashionable at the moment, but it's equally possible that the topic's appearance in the forefront of the mainstream media in recent months means we are starting to take the situation seriously. The first time I saw headlines like "Ozone hole over Antarctica twice as big," or "Polar bears drowning by the dozens," it astounded me that they were buried inside the newspaper instead of being splashed above the fold in huge type. The lassitude of the frog-in-boiling-water analogy seemed trite, but apt.

Now another phrase that's become trite comes to mind: the VF issue feels like a tipping point, because the frogs who buy the magazine have a measure of control over the boiling water. True to its mandate, VF profiles some eco-celebs and, through photo manipulation, shows the wealthy what their homes in the Hamptons will look like under several feet of water. Carter and his team have managed to strike just the right balance of doomsaying and hope to keep readers' attention, particularly in Al Gore's carefully crafted essay (can you imagine George W. Bush writing an essay, carefully crafted or otherwise?). Gore tries not to preach to the converted; he appeals to the bottom-line interests of the non-tree-hugger, invoking Scripture ("Where there is no vision, the people perish") and Abraham Lincoln ("We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country") as well as the new jobs and profits that could result from finding ways to halt the crisis.

Michael Hertsgaard explores how politics and money succeeded in perpetrating the idea in the U.S. that global warming is "a liberal hoax." Of course, Michael Moore-like, he applauds Canada for ratifying the Kyoto Accord -- in contrast to the impression left by Canadian media during the climate change conference in Montreal last year, which was basically that the U.S. has actually been more successful in cutting emissions than Canada despite not getting on board with Kyoto. Hertsgaard pokes holes in that argument. Although he castigates the U.S. media for insisting on presenting "balanced" stories by giving equal credence to the arguments for and against the existence of global warming, he sits on that knife edge himself for parts of the article. Still, his conclusions are arresting. And Michael Shnayerson's piece about the rape of the Appalachian mountains, which he lays in the lap of one coal tycoon, is utterly depressing.

Like many, I'm sure, I've been confounded by the conflicting opinions of scientists, and probably hoodwinked by various media reports. Whom to believe? Steve Maich writing in Maclean's during the Montreal climate change conference insisted that Kyoto is not practicable, ignores toxic pollutants other than carbon dioxide and focuses too much on immediate emission cuts and not enough on long-term alternative-energy plans. But you get the feeling that Maich just really, really wants to find something to write that's contrary to the opinions of David Suzuki and his ilk. If Maich has to admit that global warming is real, he'll be damned if he'll concede anything further. (This is the new Maclean's, after all.)

Somehow Vanity Fair manages to seem well-researched and reasoned without insisting that the jury is still out. As an example of magazine editing, the issue is masterful. They hooked me. Still, most of the frogs-in-boiling-water don't read VF.

Restore Reason Project

A couple of weeks ago I received an e-mail from an organization called United Families Canada, containing an appeal for the “Restore Marriage Canada Project.” Among its claims: “You are receiving this invitation to join in this effort because you have participated on the marriage issue in one or more of the projects or activities that United Families Canada has sponsored in recent years.” There followed a lot of nonsense about same-sex marriage being a threat to democracy, blah, blah, and the hope that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will, as promised, revisit what should now be a closed issue.

My reply to them (forgive the overuse of exclamation points) attempts to appeal to reason (perhaps a fruitless tack):

First of all, I most certainly have not participated in any of your activities. Yes, I do believe in strong families. But since you are so worried (as I am) about the disintegration of families and communities in today’s world, I can’t for the life of me understand why you would not want to *strengthen* these institutions by encouraging previously marginalized populations to form families and communities! Your goal is simply not logical (apart from the fact that it violates the human rights of your fellow citizens and shows little compassion for adults and children who are not very different from you). Can you explain to me why you want fewer people to form loving, solid, supported and (culturally and legally) acknowledged families? I would think you’d want to see more families, not fewer! When you force homosexuals to live their lives unconnected to family or the larger community — perhaps (though not always) lonely, childless, and unable to benefit from the sense of belonging and support that straight people are granted as a birthright — how can that do anything but harm not only the individuals, but also families and communities?

I am not married, nor do I have children, but I am a daughter, sister, aunt and neighbour, and I take my family and community connections very seriously. I do not believe that single or gay people have nothing to contribute, and I do not believe that their lifestyles necessarily weaken the fabric of society because they are selfish, sexually promiscuous, and drifting around outside of the “normal” world. However, if they were such anti-social beings (and I’m guessing that’s what you believe), wouldn’t you achieve your goal of creating strong families by bringing them inside the tent and encouraging them to be like you?

Puzzled,
--
Cynthia Brouse

So how did I get on their mailing list? As it happens, I have probably replied to e-mails from Egale Canada in support of same-sex marriage (which I am so proud of Canada for permitting). Who’s poaching whose e-mail list?

Clueless

I recently discovered Sudoku puzzles, and they have me stumped. I'm no genius at puzzles, but I was attracted to Sudoku because it seemed orderly and logical, easily (though not necessarily quickly) solved by the process of elimination. But I can't get any further than the obvious eliminations. While doing a puzzle in the newspaper, it seemed sensible to jot down little numbers in pencil to indicate which numbers COULD go in each square, and erase them later, and I was delighted to find that the online Sudoku puzzles actually allow you to do the same thing electronically. Still, once I've settled on a few numbers that display only one possibility, I can't get past the many others that seem to have multiple possibilities. Surely one is not intended to fill out the rest using mainly guesswork? It seems to me that it must be a more orderly puzzle than that, and I'm just not getting it.

Young life

This morning I was standing in my backyard admiring the miniature red tulips that have so far escaped the jaws of the squirrels (I spread blood meal liberally around the plants, making a mental note to buy a bag of cayenne pepper instead -- blood meal gives me the creeps, though it seems to work). Suddenly I realized I could almost see the house in which the child who will always be known as little Jeffrey Baldwin died four years ago. The trial of his grandparents concluded last week with their conviction of second-degree murder, and the case has been much in the news, especially the revelation that the Catholic Children's Aid Society managed to place this child with a convicted child abuser. (Does this feel like dejà vu?)

I was shocked some weeks into the trial news not only to realize that Jeffrey had lived on the street just behind me, but also to learn that he'd been starved and neglected to death four years ago and I'd never heard the story in all that time. Neighbours didn't even know he existed, let alone that he was being abused, locked in a filthy room, sleeping in his own excrement. Staff at the local school didn't know his older siblings had a little brother.

I'm known to crow about the community-mindedness of our working-class neighbourhood, and to denigrate the aloofness of suburban and upper-class districts. But we have nothing to be proud of in this case. A woman who doesn't even live in Toronto and never knew Jeffrey arranged for a memorial to be dedicated to his memory in a nearby playground. I didn't make it to the ceremony.

CBC's The Fifth Estate is broadcasting a program on the case tonight.

Further to the power plant post

I did pick up a flyer at that anti-Portlands power plant rally (it was lying on a table, not widely circulated or announced, that I noticed anyway) about a St. Lawrence Centre forum on the issue, which takes place Wednesday, April 12, 7:30 to 9:30. For more info, go to stoptheplant.ca. Unfortunately, I have choir practice that night and can't attend.

McProfs

Ryerson profs are talking about Marusya Bociurkiw’s article “Toiling at Sweatshop U," which appeared last week in NOW magazine, with the cover line “Your Part-Time Prof Makes Less Than You Do.” (I'd provide a web link, but I can't seem to log onto the NOW site.) As a part-time teacher at Ryerson I, too, was asked by my union to keep a log of my hours, but I regret that I was too busy trying to make a living to fill out the forms. Perhaps I was afraid of finding out what Bociurkiw discovered -- that I make less per hour than my students do in their part-time jobs. Describing the reliance on part-time teachers in the university system (which is remarkably heavy) as a threat to academic freedom, Bociurkiw quoted a Ryerson spokesperson who said that part-timers censoring themselves isn't an issue because they “don’t as a rule do research.” In the next breath she said that the university hires part-timers “to expose students to [teachers with] real-world experience.” In other words, they get our research for nothing. (And without disrespect to my colleagues on the full-time faculty, at a career-oriented university like Ryerson, a teacher's real-world experience is a big draw for students, as it was when I was in the Radio and TV Arts program at Ryerson 30 years ago. When a teacher breezes into class a couple minutes late, muttering about having just had to solve a real-world problem in the field her students aspire to work in, they sit up and take notice).

This Ryerson spokesperson may assume that part-time teachers have full-time salaries somewhere else, but many of us are self-employed and must spend our own money on computers, office supplies, books, periodicals, conference fees. These expenses cannot be written off against our earnings from the university. Some benefits are available to those who surpass a certain threshold of teaching hours. However, I’m not the only instructor who teaches (pretty much the same subjects) in both an undergrad program and a continuing education program; both jobs fall under CUPE, but because they’re completely separate bargaining units, I cannot combine the hours to be eligible for benefits.

I’m grateful that Ryerson provides me with some office space--the folks there are really pretty good to me--and I recently received some much-needed professional development funds from CUPE (20 applicants receive $500 each semester). Ryerson’s part-time teaching rates are higher than those at most other local post-secondary institutions, particularly in Continuing Education. But they still don’t cover the amount of work that goes into delivering a university course, in my opinion.

While writing this -- on a sunny Saturday afternoon, taking a break from grading papers -- I received an e-mail from a student I taught two years ago containing a long list of questions on how to find freelance work in our field. I get about one of these a week, and I’m happy to help out, as people have helped me out when I needed advice. Full-time professors get e-mails like this, too, and they also work on Saturdays. But while their salaries don’t go up if they decide to take a half an hour to help out a former student (or read professional journal articles, or attend a faculty meeting), if I do those things, mine goes down.

Fight the Power?

Today I went with my neighbour Diane and her son, Jupe, to the rally to protest the power plant that the McGuinty government wants to put up in the Portlands, not far from where I live. The ratio of politicians to community members was sadly a bit lopsided at times; though the fire academy hall on Eastern Avenue was fairly full at one point, there should have been a lot more residents there, especially on such a lovely spring day (maybe that’s why they weren’t there). It was a cheery event, with local musicians (Robert Priest and the like) and the CBC’s Jian Gomeshi (a Riverdale homeowner), who introduced federal NDP leader Jack Layton, entertainment for the kids by the firefighters and the Zero Gravity Circus guys, etc. All the pols (Layton, local councillors Sandra Bussin and Paula Fletcher, MPPs Michael Prue and our recently elected NDPer Peter Tabuns) gave rousing speeches about the east end’s successful past efforts to shut down the various noxious stacks that have belched out enough pollutants over the years that we east-enders evidently harbour higher levels of toxic elements in our bodies than people in other parts of the city.

BUT…none of the speeches followed the golden rule of persuasive communication: end with a call to action. There was a lot of talk about banding together and holding hands, and the hard work that will be required to convince energy minister Donna Cansfield to look at conservation and non-renewable energy sources instead of this mega-plant. But nobody told us precisely what we could do to help. Though there were some clipboards with sign-up sheets, it wasn’t clear what they were advocating, and some of them seemed to be at cross-purposes (no plant? a smaller plant?). None of the speakers provided us with the addresses of politicians to write to, websites to go to – the flyer being handed around said nothing more than Stop the Plant. Peter Tabuns did finally say something vague about petitions.

I’m on their side, and I will check out the website that one speaker mentioned, where I hope I can find out more. John Barber in The Globe and Mail suggests that there may still be some life in the proposed alternatives to the plant. The letters that came to my door in the recent byelection from the Liberal hopeful, Ben Chin, were written in that exasperated “the NDP doesn’t know what the hell it’s talking about” tone that indicates either Chin is arrogant…or he’s right that a new gas-fired power plant on the waterfront is the only thing that’s going to ensure we can still turn the lights on in a few years.

But that choice seems so short-sighted. Especially, if, as Paula Fletcher mentioned today, Toronto wants to host the World's Fair down at the Portlands in 2015 (a prospect I dread, but that’s another matter).

By the way, Paula sang a mean version of Ride Sally Ride with the band (Mike Tanner and the Circumstantialists). As an exercise in feel-good community organizing, the rally certainly made me feel good. I’d feel even better if I knew how to help.

Virgin post

I'm still trying to figure out how this works, so this is an experimental post. Perhaps I'll begin by explaining the name I chose. Everything else I tried was taken, more or less. Thought I was pretty clever when I came up with Canadian Idle, My Back Pages and Wordier Than Thou. I wasn't. Toyed with Massey Lassie (Massey is my hometown), Shaking Off Futility (I'm a Joni Mitchell fan) and Idiot Wind. In keeping with the Bob Dylan theme, I chose his song title (with The Band) "The Clothesline Saga" because it's the funniest song I've ever heard, and because I love my clothesline.

Why a blog? I read very few of them, and find most of the personal sort to be remarkably boring and self-indulgent; perhaps this one will be no different. But the intention is to record observations I think are interesting, to pose questions about the things that puzzle me and to impose some discipline on my daily writing practice. I don't kid myself that this is real journalism or writing, though I believe it can be the groundwork for it; but neither will it be a catalogue of the boring details of my day or a spew about my personal life (which won't be a hard promise to keep, since I don't have one) or my emotional ups and downs. Mainly this blog will be about my take on the world around me, both the momentous and the minuscule. If you want thorough and well-researched analysis, you should be reading elsewhere, of course, but I hope to include in my blog recommendations for magazine articles, etc., that inform my thinking.

If a blog seems more akin to talking than to writing, I expect mostly to be talking to myself, but the blog may help me keep in touch, in an admittedly impersonal and one-sided way, with the many people I don't see or talk to nearly as often as I'd like.

If nobody reads it, it will still be a useful tool for me in working out ideas. If anybody wants to add to the discussion (or answer some of my questions), I'll be delighted. I hope to explore "Why a blog?" further in the blog.

What am I likely to write about? The environment (why can I put tampons in my green bin but not makeup pads?), health (why do I Run for the Cure, instead of running to prevent the damn disease in the first place?), language (I do correct spelling and punctuation for a living, and my educational background is in linguistics), education (I'm about to start an M.Ed. in workplace and adult education -- completely online), community (I try to live by the Gospel according to Jane Jacobs) and what's so funny about peace, love and understanding.