Stephen Harper must be looking over his shoulder

I told myself I wasn't going to post on politics anymore. Yeah right.

It's Michael Ignatieff's fault. A speech he gave in Regina this week really underscored how dangerous he is to the Conservatives.

Michael Ignatieff says it was western Canadian rage which -- in part -- convinced him to back away from a proposed governing coalition with the New Democrats and the Bloc Quebecois.

...

"You are, after all, looking at someone who turned down the chance to become prime minister of Canada, and I did so, in part, because I felt that it would divide the country," said Mr. Ignatieff. "I want to be someone who unites the country, and that includes the West."

Westerners probably had trouble believing their ears. After Pierre Trudeau's open contempt for Westerners sunk the Liberal boat for decades anywhere west of Thunder Bay, the concept of a Liberal leader who actually cares what they think (or at least says he does) must be positively intoxicating.

Now, Ignatieff is probably making a virtue out of necessity, but having been raised in the West, I can imagine how delighted his listeners must have been. A Liberal Party that is intent on becoming a national party in fact and not just in name is a real threat to Harper's Conservatives, and I'm sure they know it. Western alienation is a force that they've tapped very effectively and if Iggy can compete in that arena, they risk seeing one of their strongholds crumble.


Technorati tags: Michael Ignatieff

Quote of the day

"Political partisanship is closely allied with absolute stupidity."

Sir Robert Borden (Eighth Prime Minister of Canada)

And this from a politician, no less. I guess he had to live with the reality daily.

Hat tip to The Lotusland Soapbox


Technorati tags: Sir Robert Borden, Political quotes

I never would have thought of this on my own

but it's so true.

KFC’s Colonel Sanders Logo Totally Looks Like Environmental Activist David Suzuki



In case you're not Canadian, David Suzuki is a virtual institution in Canada. He's been hosting TV shows longer than most of us can remember. And the resemblance is such a delightful irony.


Technorati tags: David Suzuki, Colonel Sanders

Facebook backs down [Updated]

Ever since Colleen Lindsay's blog gave me the heads up, I've been following the Facebook saga with some interest.

For those of you who aren't in the loop, Facebook quietly changed its Terms of Service (TOS) a couple of weeks ago, and basically granted themselves full rights in perpetuity to anything you post on Facebook. In theory, that means they could lift any of your content - photos, poems, your name, your essays - and use them in any way they saw fit. It even sounded like they wanted in on anything you linked to that streamed in from another website. (Not too sure about that - that's my amateur reading of the legalese.)

Mark Zuckerberg must have been shocked by the uproar. Several Facebook groups opposing the new TOS sprang into existence, and the major media took an active interest also. Zuckerberg's claims that Facebook would never do anything nasty with your data, that they just wanted to make formal the fact that even if you delete your account, your pictures and such will still be kicking around your friends' pages for a while. In essence, "trust us, no matter what it says, we won't really use it." This made a lot of people legitimately nervous, particularly anybody doing creative work. We're not too keen on granting rights to Facebook - in perpetuity no less - for our fiction, our music, our artwork, our photography.

The ruckus was loud and global and Zuckerberg caved. He went back to the old TOS. I, for one, am not so sure I want to reinstate my blog feed on Facebook. I've only ever posted one piece of flash fiction here, but it's the principle of the thing. I'm going to double-check my privacy settings there too.

I sure hope Blogger isn't next. Are you re-evaluating your online practices as a result of the recent brouhaha? Or have you always been ultra-careful?

[Update] And here is a wonderful link that explains Facebook privacy settings and how to customize them.


Technorati tags: Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Privacy rights

Confidence and the writer, continued

I am not the only person that has confidence on her mind right now. (Click here for my recent post on this subject.)

J.A. Konrath, author of police thrillers, has a somewhat provocative post on this subject, called "I'm Better Than You". You might enjoy the comment trail, as there's a bit of dissension among the ranks. While I do get his point, I also think he's overstating the issue. I don't have to think I'm the best to feel confident enough to persevere. I do have to think that I'm pretty good, mind you, but I can sincerely think that somebody else writes better than I do, and still feel I can produce quality work. There's a lot of room out there, and I don't have to feel that I'm at the top of the heap to believe I have a place on that heap. Mind you, I want to get as high as I possibly can, not for bragging rights, but just because I love good work. My second response to a really good book, after "wow", is "what can I learn from this?"

J.A. does believe in a lot of hard work, both to improve your craft and to market your work, so he's not one of these starry-eyed types who thinks that merely believing will make it so. He just thinks that believing will help keep you motivated to put in the necessary work.

Editor Alan Rinzler also addresses the question of how authors can keep their confidence up, but in his case he is proposing concrete measures to take to keep your morale afloat.

Most of this has applications to a lot of people other than writers. But since writers work mainly in solitude, with no physical audience to provide immediate feedback, they have to be a lot more pro-active in maintaining a positive mindset.


Technorati tags: Confidence, J.A. Konrath, Alan Rinzler

The cat came back the very next day

Anybody who raised kids during the era of Fred Penner remembers that song. (Do listen to it. It's wonderful.)

The Cat Came back - Fred Penner

My cat just boomeranged back too, although it took her much longer than a day. She left home with my daughter and came back with my daughter. She has snowy white, fluffy, baby-soft fur. If you miss it on the cat, you'll get plenty of chances to experience it throughout the rest of the house. She's a very furry cat.

Those members of the household (which has magically expanded from 1.5 to 3.5, not even counting the cat) who are not too excited about having pure white cat hair all over their black clothes are not amused.

The cat, on the other hand, fit right back in as if she'd never left. Every other time she's been moved in her life, she cried and grieved, but this time it was clear she knew she was coming home. Funny, I really didn't think she was that smart. But her memory obviously extends well over a year and a half. Amazing.


Technorati tags: Cats, The cat came back, Fred Penner

Confidence vs. humility

Almost everybody struggles to some degree with achieving the balance between confidence and humility (although the latter is less fashionable than it used to be). Confidence tips so easily into into arrogance, presumption, and even delusion. If you doubt this, watch the early episodes of American Idol, any season. We all know how charming an arrogant jerk with an over-developed sense of entitlement is. There are few things more satisfying in life than watching him do a face-plant in the muck.

On the other hand, humility can tilt into discouragement, self-abasement, and even self-loathing. Misguided religious types have often failed to make this distinction and presented such unpretty things as an ideal to aspire to. Well, no. There is a world of difference between unworthy and worthless. Whiny self-hatred is not only unattractive, it's pretty much a guarantee of uselessness.

The sweet point in the middle of all this is evaluating yourself realistically, which is admittedly rather difficult. It's particularly difficult if you want to be a writer.

Why is that, you ask? (OK, so you didn't ask, but humour me a minute. I appreciate it.)

Because for every open spot on a publisher's list, there are probably at least 100 completed manuscripts out there, trying to elbow their way into position. Those are intimidating odds. That means if you're writing, and you have any serious hopes at all of being published, you have to believe somewhere deep inside you, that you are better than 99% of your fellow aspirants (all of whom believe the same thing). That's got to be something close to hubris. And in most cases, delusional hubris.

Of course, a lot of them are unaware of the odds, so if they're talented, they toil in blissful ignorance, and if not, they live in a fool's paradise. The rest of us, well, we keep teeter-tottering between the feeling that we can actually do this and the opposite feeling that we are out of our minds. We can easily go through the cycle from elation to despair and back again several times in one day.

It gets better. Almost every successful author went through a string of rejections before hitting paydirt. So even if publishing professionals keep saying "thanks, but no thanks" that doesn't necessarily mean you don't have what it takes. Perseverance becomes a necessary part of the equation. But wait a minute, isn't the definition of insanity repeating an action and expecting a different result?

Maybe you have to be insane to aspire to authordom.

So, writer or not, how do you find the sweet spot where confidence and humility are in perfect balance?


Technorati tags: Confidence, Humility, Balance

Stick a fork in it

It's done.

In a Dry and Weary Land weighs in at just under 102,000 words. Now I get to write a query letter and a synopsis and start trying to sell it all to literary agents.

I have a bad case of stage fright, but I'm determined to put myself under the lights anyway.

Wish me luck. Better yet, pray for me.


Technorati tags: Writing

I hope this idea is contagious

The Outaouais transit corporation is going to ask those annoying bus riders who bellow into their cell phones to pipe down. In extreme cases, they're even prepared to apply fines.

Now can they do something about the people who have loud prolonged conversations in movie theatres and churches? Please?

Apparently Australia has prohibited cell phone use on trains altogether. A bit of overkill there, it seems to me.


Technorati tags: Cell phones, Public transportation

We are going to have so much fun eating when you leave home

That's what I kept telling my kids as they were growing up. It was so hard to prepare anything that everyone was happy with, and some things were guaranteed to generate squawks from just about everybody. I dreamt of pizzas with onions, black olives, and mushrooms, seafood of almost any description, anchovies, asparagus, and artichokes, capers and, well, you get the idea.

Grown-up food.

As threatened, I had some fun this weekend. Fettucine Alfredo with shrimps and mushrooms and partially disguised as pasta primavera with zucchini and yellow bell peppers and broccoli. To swoon over.

It was, however, my first experience using raw shrimp in the shell, and I realized once they were in the pan with the onions and garlic, that I had only partially shelled them. I had to pick every single one out, let them cool, and remove the rest of the shell. You experienced shrimp cooks can stop laughing now.

We still had a lot of fun eating it and hubby managed, for once, not to get any errant bits of shell in his helping.

Technorati tags: Cooking, Pasta, Shrimp