Taking the blog on the road

On blogging: When I started blogging I said I wasn't going to do any belly button gazing but it's been a little more than a year since I took the buyout from The London Free Press and a lot has happened.

First, I got to blog about a lot of stuff that is important to me and I've met a lot of people who have opened my eyes to a world I had only an inkling existed. It's been a year of growth.

When I check my e-mail in the morning I may find a message like this: "Have a wonderful day,
greetings from Paris." It is a very pleasant way to start the day and I like it.

On photography: I have taken pictures all my life; It was how I earned my living. Now I take pictures for fun and I do it with just a simple point and shoot camera. No zoom lenses. No motor drive. But I get pictures. I am now moving my favourite shots over to Artwork Portfolio where keen amateur shooters make helpful comments on my work.

I have had as much fun taking pictures for my blog as I had shooting for the paper. Check out my portfolio, think about the camera I use (a simple point and shoot), and get out and shoot some art. You can do it. If you have any problems, drop me a line. I'll try and help.

On my sister: A number of you have asked about my sister: She's coming along quite nicely, thank you. It has been three weeks since she took a tumble in her kitchen, breaking her hip. The operation was a success with the surgeon finding good solid bone. The break is knitting well and she is up and walking about with assistance. Today she's leaving the rehab centre and heading home.

Her family rallied beautifully to the crisis with her five children taking turns returning home to assist their dad and spend time each day visiting their mom. A broken hip is always a disaster for older women but somehow the loving reaction of my sister's family muted the pain. I'd even go so far as to say their actions washed a heart-warming patina over it all.

On newspapers: When I worked at the paper, I was always upset at what I perceived as decisions that weaken the franchise. Stuff like the ad on the right.

This is the Nov. 21 2001 ad introducing zero interest purchase financing. The claim is made that you will pay no interest. The interest will be 'Null', 'Nada', 'Zero', 'Zilch', 'Nothing' -- "0%."

I tried to buy a Pontiac with a 0 percent loan. The dealer would not do it; McMaster Pontiac Buick on Wonderland Road refused to sell me the car for the advertised price unless I paid cash. The advertised price was the cash purchase price. If I wanted the car at 0% financing, I had to pay $1500 more.

Not only would the editors at the paper not run a story on this scam, they ran articles on how the loss of interest income was damaging the automobile industry. Huh?

Later ads carried small print giving the equivalent interest rate. This was calculated by looking at how much more it cost car buyers to buy a car with a "zero interest loan" over what they would have paid for the same car if they had paid cash. (In some cases it was cheaper to pay the cash purchase price and take out a bank loan, rather than taking the 0% interest deal from the car company. My wife bought her car that way and saved a bundle.)

The paper continued to run stories on zero interest loans for years as if all these offers were on the up and up. (I slid in the word all as there were a few offers that actually delivered as promised.)

Forgive me, but when editors-in-chief like Paul Berton run what amounts to lies in their paper simply because they are paid it brings to mind a famous remark often attributed to George Bernard Shaw.

Shaw, according to the story, asked a woman at a dinner party if she would go to bed with him for a very large sum of money. She gave it some thought and said yes, for that kind of money she would. Shaw then asked if she would go to bed with him for what amounted to spare change. Shocked, she sputtered that she was not a common prostitute. Shaw replied, "Madame, we have already established what you are. Now we're just haggling over the price."

The newspapers don't even haggle over price.

Since leaving the paper I've finally been able to tell the other side of the story. And it feels good. It feels the way it should feel when one is working for a newspaper. Ah, for the days of Gord Sanderson, backed as I recall by Sue Greer. This team was responsible for The London Free Press Sound Off column for many years.

Today the paper runs the ads for Miracle Heaters rather than running the Sanderson/Greer-type consumer warnings. The paper leaves it to bloggers to warn the public.

It has been a busy year. But this one will be just as busy if not busier.

Come late May, this blog is hitting the road. I'm taking my little camera, a notebook computer and my 40-year-old Morgan and heading off for California with my wife. I just have to run Highway 1, the Pacific coast highway south of San Francisco. If I wait, it will be too late, they are closing a small part of the famous highway to automobiles in 2011. If you want to run the whole route, you've got to do it now.

Judy and I will be seeing small town U.S.A. as we are taking scenic, two lane roads most of the way. We'll hit some tourist attractions like Yellowstone Park and Mount Rushmore but we'll also do some small stuff like seeing the twistiest street in the United States as we did five years ago.

Just so you know, the twistiest street is not in San Francisco, California, but in Burlington, Iowa. That is Snake Alley on the left. And that's the Morgan enjoying the run.

Sorry about the belly button gazing; We'll try and keep it to a minimum.

Correction:

I have problems with "it" and "they." A company is an "it." If a company does something, "it" does it. The pronoun "they" must refer back to people. I must watch my antecedents.

I received an e-mail correcting me. The e-mail read: Back a few items ago, on your attempt to buy a Pontiac, you said: "Not only would the paper not run a story on this scam, they ran articles on how the loss of interest income was damaging the automobile industry." The "they" is incorrect. The proper pronoun is "it," referring to the newspaper. Had you referred to the editors, "they" would have been correct. Is this clear?

Visit Menton

Years ago my wife and I spent a day in Menton in Provence. In fact, one of the table cloths that we use daily came from Menton.

It is one of the warmest places in all of France, nestled into a little nook in the coastal mountains just a short distance from Italy. Menton is famous for its lemons and once a year actually celebrates them with a Fete du Citron. (Now where did I place those French accents?)

I'm off to visit my sister in the hospital where she is recovering after breaking her hip - thank God for the Canadian medical system. You should visit the Menton Daily Photo site and if you're still curious about Menton you should check out the official Web site.

If you're ever in Provence, and trust me you should make it a goal, be sure to spend a little time in Menton relaxing with a nice bottle of Rose and whatever cool food you can find. (I was introduced to pissaladière one night in Provence, and what a night that was . . . ah, the memories, the food, the good people, someday I'll blog on that night.)

Must go,
Cheers,
Rockinon

. . . and les villages perches: Roquebrune, Gorvio, Sainte-Agnes . . . If you've got the time, Google these. I had one of the best omelets of my life in a little restaurant hanging over a mountain village. Go in the off season and meet the folk who actually live in the little towns and I guarantee and great time. These people know more about "placemaking" than all the pompous city planners hired by London, Ontario, where I live.

If you're interested in English...

I have one visitor to my blog who teaches English and I have a few others who are newspaper editors. Oh, they're retired editors but once an editor always an editor. I have learned from one and fixed some embarrassing errors thanks to a couple of others. (When talking about a company I have learned do not say 'they' when referring to the company; You must say 'it'.)

I found a copy of CP Copy Talk while cleaning my basement this afternoon. It's an old copy but an entertaining read nevertheless. Finding it got me to wondering, is CP Copy Talk still in production? And the answer, amazingly enough, is yes!

CP, Canadian Press, is in trouble. The all-important member papers are leaving. CanWest left over a year ago, I believe. You know the CanWest newspaper chain. It made news itself recently when it came out of the closet to reveal that it was bankrupt, and this time it's money they're lacking and not ideas.

Quebecor, CanWest's competitor, is taking all the SunMedia and Osprey papers out of CP sometime this year. That explains the QMI credits running in these papers. QMI stands for Quebecor Media Inc.

It's a shame to see the once strong Canadian news service rendered almost impotent. But that is a post for another day. But all cannot be lost if CP Copy Talk is still going. Something is right with the world.

There was a time when newsrooms were filled with folk discussing word usage. I can recall going for a beer after work and sitting quietly listening and drinking (and drinking, and drinking) as a couple of editors and a reporter engaged in a heated exchange over the use of a word or phrase in the day's paper.

The people who work at papers still care but their bosses don 't.
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From the Dec. 2009 Copy Talk

Eagle-eyed reader Michael Boulet caught a mistake in a Canadian Press story that used the word barter to describe negotiations by travellers who had to pay their own hotel bills when their travel company went bust. Barter "does not mean negotiate, it means to trade goods or services for other goods or services. Therefore, unless the Canadian tourists abandoned by Conquest Vacations in Mexico were attempting to pay for their stay at the Golden Parnassus with goats or back rubs, they were not in fact 'trying to barter down the charges.' "

I didn't believe it, nor did my wife, but I checked and the Canadian Oxford Dictionary agrees that this is correct and this fact is not open to barter.
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Would you believe that it is not accurate to refer to the Yukon Territory? Joanna Lilley, senior communications adviser for the Yukon government, pointed out that the territory's official name has been, simply, Yukon since 2003.
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From the February 1997 Copy Talk I found in my basement.

A CP editor Ross Hopkins spotted the word parametres in a story. It is parameter, derived from the Latin; not to be confused with metre, derived from French. Hence the spelling difference.
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And then I came across this in the October 2008 Copy Talk: Canadian spelling takes a blow. It seems that Oxford University Press announced it was laying off the entire staff of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary. Future editions will be published with the assistance of freelancers and the lexicography department in Oxford, England.

Our one truly Canadian dictionary is done. It is back to reprints of U.K. or American books, with a few changes added for a Canadian audience.

If you've gotten this far, please go on. You can explore the Copy Talk PDFs without me. I'm going to go and crack open a Brick beer in memory of retired editors, bought out reporters and laid off Canadian lexicographers.

Cheers,
Rockinon

Children have fingertips severed!

In an attempt to make as many people as possible aware of the recall, and to alert folks to potential serious injury, I've posted to the Digital Journal Health Canada's recall affecting baby strollers.

Five children in the States have had fingertips amputated after catching them in the canopy hinge.

If you have a Graco stroller or any stroller from Elfe Juvenile Products of Toronto/Montreal, please click on the Digital Journal link above.

This is the appearance of the hinge in question.

What is happiness?

I was raised in the Anglican Church in a parish in Canada. As a teen I taught Sunday school. But the Anglican Church was not for me. When I left my teens, I left the church. (Although I did return for a number of years when I discovered that the young man who had been a curate at my original church was now the minister of a local Anglican church. When he left, retired, I left, also retired.)

Last year I attended a Buddhist ceremony in a temple about ten minutes from my London home. I find Buddhist koans and Christian parables have a lot in common. Each Christmas, kind of odd when you think about it, my wife gives me a small Zen Buddhist gift - a book of koans, for instance.

Now that my granddaughter of four months is starting not only to smile but to laugh with little shrieks of pure joy, it makes me think of the story of Han Ong.

Today's post is inspired by a talk given by Zen Master Seung Sahn entitled: What is Happiness, What Is Sadness?, given in London in 1978. This talk has become quite famous. My version will never be so well known or oft quoted.

What is Happiness, What Is Sadness?

Han Ong was a student of Zen Master Ma Jo. Everyone, on learning that Ong's master's was Ma Jo, would tell Han Ong, "You're lucky; You must be happy." He would reply, "What is luck? What is happiness?"

Han Ong had a horse which he rode every day and everyone said, "You're so lucky." He'd reply, "What is luck?"

One day the horse was stolen and everyone said, "You're so unlucky." They asked, "Are you unhappy? Are you sad?" Han Ong replied, "What is luck, or happiness or sadness?"

Everyone agreed, "This man has no feelings.''

A week later Han Ong replaced his lost horse with a much better steed for which he paid a very fair price. Everyone said, "You're lucky; You must be happy." He replied, "What is luck? What is happiness?"

Han Ong's son also liked the horse and he rode it every day. Then one day the horse balked and threw Ong's son hard to the ground, badly breaking his leg. Everyone said, "We're sorry your son broke his leg. How unlucky." Han Ong only shrugged his shoulders.

Soon after this, there were a string of wars between North China and South China. All the young people joined the army but for Han Ong's son who had a lame leg after having broken it so badly. He could not go; He had to stay home and help his parents. His leg was not so bad that he couldn't work in the garden and help his parents. Everybody said, "You're so lucky. You must be happy." Han Ong replied, "What is luck? What is happiness?"

But many who heard his words thought they saw a smile --- a twinkle in the old man's eyes --- as he turned and rode away on his horse, his son holding on tightly behind him.


I've messed with this story but then I'm not a Buddhist. For an accurate telling try the blog, Handful of Sand and scroll down to A Day of Mindfulness.

Little Fiona is only four months old. She still has a clean little mind, unencumbered with language and the labels that come with language. She appears to feels happiness and sadness. But she doesn't appear to have much memory.

She seems to take life as it comes. If it's good, she makes the most of it. She doesn't let the horrors of a recent bath sully the quiet pleasure of being held in grandpa's arms. She lives in the present.

And they asked Fiona, "Are you happy?" The little girl couldn't reply but many thought they saw a smile - a twinkle in the little girl's eyes.

And they were right; She was laughing at the question and thinking: "Happy? What's happiness?"

Destroy that old crib!

If you have a young child using a crib which was made before September 1986, destroy it.

Crib design has changed a lot since '86. Even with the improvements one still hears of recalls of poorly designed or poorly made cribs.

What is wrong with the picture on the left? The side bars on the crib are too far apart. The maximum space allowed by law is 6 cm (2 3/8 in.). Also, it is possible for an infant to trap a small hand in the space between the bottom and the side.

Health Canada has a crib safety booklet online. If you have a baby, or a crib in your home for that matter, please take the time to read this booklet.

You have to very diligent when it comes to buying products for a young child.

Consider the Amby Baby Motion Bed which Health Canada is advising parents and caregivers to immediately stop using. This is a hammock advertised for use with infants up to 12 months of age.

Health Canada and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (US CPSC) are aware of two infants suffocating in the United States while using these products. In the United States, along with the two fatalities, there have also been three other incidents reported.

The product's inclined sleeping surface increases the risk of the infant rolling and becoming wedged in a position where they can no longer breathe.

The yo-yo man

Sunday evening I caught a PBS special on the evolution of comedy in the United States over the past decades. There was Lenny Bruce, George Carlin and others, such as the Smothers Brothers. This sent me to YouTube searching for a Smothers Brothers clip. I found one of the brothers doing their yo-yo man routine.

Did the yo-yo man visit your school when you were a kid? Yes? No? If no, that's too bad, a shame.

In the '50s the yo-yo man would wander school yards at recess, but only once or twice a year, performing those oh-so-impossible yo-yo tricks. He made it all seem so easy; Anyone could do them: Walk the dog, rock the baby, round the world. Ah, the memories . . . and the frustrations.

We all fell for the yo-yo man's spiel, year after year. He was just so cool with pockets bulging with yo-yo's. The girls always bought pink yo-yo's circled with rhinestones. The boys favoured the black yo-yo's or the dark blue ones. At first the yo-yo's seemed to work. We all could make them sleep; waking them up was another matter. We could all walk the dog, but only a few of us could make rover return.

Soon all our yo-yo's had tightly tangled strings. If you could get your yo-yo to drop to the end of the tangled mess, it would simply sit at the end of the extended string and slowly twirl. Its yo-yoing days were over. Some of us would buy replacement strings but they too would soon fail.

We all took responsibility for the destruction of our yo-yo's. We never blamed the yo-yo or, even more unthinkable, the yo-yo man.

Now, watch this YouTube video of the Smothers Brothers doing "Yo-Yo Man." (It takes a moment to get into the fun but be patient. Tommy is one heck of a yo-yo man. He could have performed in my school yard anytime.



Cheers,
Rockinon