Moving over…

I’m moving my posts for this blog.  From now on you can find updates at:

http://cracksinmycranium.wordpress.org.

Same blog host, different URL.

Ready to Po my Blo for the entire Mo…

Last year, KEL took on the challenge of writing a blog a month for the entire month of November.  Within a week (if you check out her blog you’ll see this) she was struggling.

This year, much against my better judgment, I’ve elected to do the same thing.  (Yikes?!?)  I use the term “elected” intentionally, because my decision was based upon the theme of the month.

As you may be able to tell (both of you, dear readers) my rants tend toward the issue oriented.  As you may also be able to tell (my lone American reader) there is also an election campaign going on in Canada.

So the October theme of “VOTE” is also appropriate for Canadians, at least until the election day.  Which is October 14.  Then we can talk about the outcome, and maybe about what is happening “south” of the border…

I’ll write more October 1.

The politics of short memories

So there is an election going on.  On both sides of the border.  As an historian, I am flabbergasted by the manipulation and reconstruction, if not outright fabrication, of history in these campaigns.  And as a citizen, I am insulted.  And saddened. Because it appears that many citizens have the sort of short-term memory that politicians hope they have.

Let’s take the example of Stephen Harper, the current prime minister, overseeing a minority government.  In his campaigns, during what are fast becoming turbulent economic times, he keeps telling voters that his government is the only one fiscally responsible enough to weather these storms, and that the Liberals are irresponsible.  What he fails to mention, and what it seems he hopes that voters conveniently forget, is that he has been in power for three years, the three years leading up to these tough economic times, and that prior to that we had a long-running Liberal government that balanced the books and created a budget surplus.

On the strength of this surplus, Harper could enact deep tax cuts to consumption taxes (the GST), which most reliable economists have noted are not nearly as important as other, less obvious, taxes (like income taxes) but which are the sorts of cuts that have immediate, tangible and politically popular effects, but are not necessarily saving “working people” money the way, say, graduated income tax cuts would do.

In other words, had you been doing something that was really looking out for the finances of the individual, Mr. Harper, you would have cut other taxes and left the GST alone, but by cutting the GST you looked like you cared about the poor people who had to pay it.  And you know this, because you’re an economist.  But you’re also a pundit, and a party guy, and willing to do whatever it takes to gain a majority, so that you can then introduce socially conservative policies that are anathema to the vast majority of Canadians.  I digress.

Meanwhile, these tax reductions cut into the surplus that the Tories had inherited, but which the Tories had decried because a surplus meant the government had taken more money from the people than was necessary to balance the books.

Maybe, technically that is one way of looking at it, but the alternative to having a surplus is to ride the wave of the economy as things change.  So when you have no surplus, and take only what you need for the moment, you then end up needing to raise additional revenue (that means taxes) whenever any sort of crisis, unexpected or expected, occurs.  The alternative, which the Liberals espoused, was to have a nice buffer of a surplus that can help to bolster the economy in economically challenging times.

So who is more able to govern in tough economic times, someone who does not plan for tough economic times, to garner support from a fickle slice of the electorate, or someone who does, and risks alienating that slice of the electorate?

Honestly, I still go for integrity over politicking.  I am not a Liberal, but I have a lot more respect for someone who is willing to stand on principles and ideas than one who make cynical ploys for the attention of the electorate, while setting them up to get screwed.

I’m not going to dig into the contours of the US election, because that’s a complete joke. Watch the Daily Show or Colbert Report for some honest perspective on that.

For a fair and balanced media?

I subscribe to the Globe and Mail.  I do so reluctantly, mostly because there is no equivalent to the Guardian in Canada. It’s intelligent, but subtly right-wing, and I tend to the left. Just a little bit…

I had a conversation recently with a family member, also a Globe subscriber and also progressive in her views, who was surprised at my comment of how conservative the Globe is.  It’s subtle, but it’s there.

Let’s take an object lesson.

On Monday the federal Liberals released their platform document, the main platform on which they are running in this election, and which, if they are elected, should motivate their policies.  It was a complex, well costed and I would say reasonable document, which if nothing else, deserved some consideration and analysis.

On Tuesday morning, I picked up my Globe from the front porch, pulled of the elastic band, and opened it up, prepared to learn more about the Liberals’ platform.  Well, there was nothing on the front page at all about the Liberal platform release.  The only article on the election was a rather small one about how the Tories want to create a two-tiered young offenders’ act, thereby (in my view) denigrating the human rights of a certain slice of the youth offender population.  this was at the top of the page, and titled with not-so-large type, suggesting that it was a slow news day, and certainly slow on the election front.

Yet the Liberals, the main opposition party and one that is most likely to form a government if the Tories do not, had just released their entire platform!  I know, I know, this is nothing nearly as important as catering to the law-and-order paranoid urban readership characterized by a small policy announcement about punishing those nasty kids, but it was a complex policy statement that deserved some consideration.

Oh, but of course it did get consideration.  On the comment section, Jeffery Simpson (a sort of centre-right columnist)  lambasted the policy.  It seems that he assumed the reader knew about it, since he didn’t give deep details, and so maybe he, too, expected that the editors would have SOMETHING, ANYTHING about the policy on the news sections.  And Margaret Wente, the warm and fuzzy paragon of right-wing reactionary journalism (and, I might add, the most published columnist in the paper) wrote about how Dion was a weak leader.

Now, if journalists are going to accuse someone of being weak, perhaps they should consider what makes them weak.  I suppose that in politics (as opposed to, say, in superherodom) being invisible is a weakness, so if Dion is weak, it may be because we don’t see much of him, and get many of his ideas, because the Globe is virtually ignoring him, except when publishing articles about his weakness, dissention in the ranks, or so on.

And if you consider a strong leader to be a demagogue, then yes, maybe he is weak and Harper is strong. Yet in a democracy, which do you want?  Someone who pushes boldly forward without consideration of the complexity of issues (see my post later this week on Harper’s economics) or someone who considers the issues, varying perspectives, and a broader picture of the impact of what government does and should be doing.

I don’t know, I think strong leadership is willing to take risks.  And Dion is taking them.  Making a policy that may not have the best optics, but will certainly have a better outcome than the ignorant and myopic vision of Harper.

I’m not yet sure for whom I’m going to cast my vote, but I do know that if someone could offer us an alternative to the two conservative national newspapers we’re stuck with, I’d at least buy their paper.

Violated!

A few years ago, KEL and I went to Atlanta, Georgia.  As we wandered around the core, we visited the usual touristy suspects, like the Coke Museum.  When I tried to pay for our tickets to get into that shrine to all that is fizzy, dark, sweet and caffeinated (not to mention formerly cocaine-laden) my credit card was rejected.  How embarrassing.  Fortunately, I pulled out the backup, and off we went.

When I called the CC company, they told me that they had new security in place that tracked usage and would block any odd usage, like suddenly appearing in Atlanta when you live in Niagara.  It seemed tremendously inconvenient, and I groused about it for a bit.

A few months later we crossed the border to Buffalo and I bought KEL a rather expensive birthday present.  Again, the same card was frozen, for the same reasons.  We live about 45 minutes from Buffalo, so that was odd.  I told asked them if there was any way to loosen the geographic restrictions, and maybe they put a note on my account, because it didn’t seem to affect future purchases across the line.

Yesterday, I tried to buy something on line and couldn’t get my card to be accepted.  I figured it was something to do with the password (“Verisign” or something like that) that Mastercard requires on certain online transactions.  When I called their office, the guy said “we need to clarify a few purchases you’ve made recently.”  “Oh, here we go again” I thought, knowing that, having just come back from a trip to the UK, they might be suspicious at my lovely $155 purchase of whisky (see earlier post).  So they guy began to list my recent purchases:

Him: “Did you spend $130 at the LCBO at 3:30 today?”

Me: “Um, while that sounds like something I’d do, not this time.”

Him: “Did you buy gas at such-and-such a gas bar in Markham?”

Me: “I haven’t been in my car in weeks.”

Him: “Did you make any purchases at Canadian Tire in Markham?”

Me.  Nein.

Him: “Did you spend $150 at another LCBO?”

Me: [getting thirsty and paranoid] Nay.

Egads.  I’d been breached.  The water was over the levy.  The barbarians had stormed the gates.  The white witch had returned to Narnia!! (too far?  Okay).

Apparently, someone got ahold of my precious credit card number and went on a bender.  this is not so unusual, and it could have happened over the last year–they make a bogus card with my number, but their name, sign it and off they go.  And they must have known my purchasing habits, because buying liquor and gas in Markham is SO me!

Suddenly, those annoying security measures were my best friend.  After tracking a few odd purchases, the system cancelled my card.  Someone buying White Stripe Rum in Newmarket just got found out.  I am on the hook for nothing, although I have to wait before I get a new card, and go through the rigmarole of changing all of my automatic debits (bills that I pay with my credit card).  But really, that’s far better than having to deal with hundreds of dollars of liquor purchases made by someone else.  And let’s face it, they probably bought 2-4s of Bud, Curevo Gold tequila and those jello shooters you get at the checkout, so I’m definitely not subsidizing such reckless spending!

Now I know a few things I didn’t before.  One of them is how vulnerable we are. It’s good to know where you are with your finances.  It was fortunate that I had just looked at my credit card bill that morning, because I was quite aware of the most recent purchases.  I have no idea how someone got my credit card info, but if it’s something I did, it was very clever on their part.  I shred my bills, and I try to be quite cautious when spending with the card.  But I do use it often for purchases. (This is because I also get airmiles with the card.)   But that behaviour will now change.

There is a silver lining (there always is).  I have been wanting to rely less on the credit card for months now, and just as the high gas prices have made more of us bike commuters, this episode has enabled me to move into a more credit-card free life.

Here’s the trick:  Use cash.  Don’t even use debit cards if you can avoid it.  Cash. It cannot be hacked.  They cannot make a replica card of it.  And when your cc bill comes in at the end of the month, you won’t choke on your granola.  Who cares if you don’t get a few extra airmiles.  It’s all a big ploy to have you spend more money anyway.

I just wish that I got to keep the airmiles gained by the purchases those thieves made….

Qué chachalaga!

I just read through my last few posts, and realized that I really can ramble on.  Thank you grade 10 typing class, and grad research that had me typing pages of files into my computer so I didn’t have to live in the archives.

So for a change, I wrote this post.

QED.

Being heard can be tasty

A long time ago I took a workshop in Service Excellence (I think this link goes to the company that created the program). I hated it.  I’m a cynic, and so sat there mumbling to myself, being disruptive and, to be honest, quite unfair to the instructor, who was a work colleague and something of a friend (though more of an acquaintance).  Ever since I was young, when I get bored I get disruptive.  And I get bored easily, because I tend to grasp concepts easily, and then wait while everyone else catches up.  (I’m not bragging: “It ain’t bragging if it’s true”)  In this course, in front of my other colleagues, I reverted to school-aged behaviour.  Of course, to most of them it was an “it’s just Dan” moment.  (That, of course, is a ubiquitous get-out-of-jail-free card, but it shouldn’t validate being an asshole.)

Anyway, here on my little blog, to pretty much nobody except those who probably still shrug off my antisocial bhaviour, I beg forgiveness of my instructor/colleague Ildi.  Because, here’s the thing, I have since realized that this course in service excellence has had a tremendous impact on my quality of life.

You see, the other dark part of my personality is that I’m a little, shall we say, hyper-critical of stupidity.  And Service Excellence gave me the tools and the language to unleash my criticism upon the huge incompetent sector of the service industry.  (Corporations who say they value customer input, but then hire a very few “customer service agents” to essentially block you from actually getting any satisfaction when complaining.  Tom Wolfe called these people “flak catchers“).

Moreover, it taught me that something like one in eleven people who are dissatisfied complain; in other words, when one person complains about service, that means at least another ten were dissatisfied.  It may have been more than that, but you get the point.

While I like to be grouchy, I also think that I like to be fair.  So I think it’s only fair to tell someone when their service is crappy.  I don’t generally take this out on servers, unless it is them, rather than the company’s policy, that is frustrating me.  Usually in the case of servers at restaurants, I will give a smaller tip and write on the bill what was wrong (I also don’t like confrontation).  But when it’s a corporation whose service is shoddy (and it usually is), I fire up the old Computadora, and write a letter.   I am respectful, but straightforward.

Now, sometimes these letters go unheeded.  More often, though, I do get some kind of feedback from the corp.  We have even received free things, usually coupons for free meals at restaurants, or so on.  Generally these complaints are in relation to a particular incident (bad food, messy restaurant, general dissatisfaction, long waits that sort of thing).  Rarely is it about a general policy.

But recently Swiss Chalet got rid of their veggie burger, and I wrote a letter.  To me it was ridiculous.  The veggie burger was a way of those of us who don’t eat animal flesh to accompany our carnivorous friends to a restaurant they like.  I hadn’t been in a  S.C. for years until I met KEL, who loves the place and informed me that they have a veggie burger.  Problem solved.  She gets the Quarter Chicken Dinner, I get the veggie burger.  Usually, we both get fries.  True love.  And the veggie burger was good, too.

Then they decided to cut it out of their menu.  No explanation from on high, though our server told us that they didn’t sell many of them.  I concluded easily that you don’t sell them if you don’t advertise, and yet this was a great way to appeal to vegetarians whose friends ate meat, thereby reiterating the ideas in the paragraph above.

Then I wrote a letter to corporate Swiss Chalet, telling them it was a dumb idea, reiterated the ideas above (again) and told them I won’t be back.  I got a “thank you for your letter we’ll pass it on to our product development team” and I expected nothing else.  (You know, now that I think about it, SC is owned by the company that owns Harveys, and they have an awesome veggie burger.  So what the hell?)

Today I got an email with the following graphic.  Sweet justice!

(I’ve blocked part of it out to avoid a run on the Swiss Chalet from people who did not complain)

That’s all I have to say.  Except that I know where I’m going for supper tonight, and, well

IT WORKS!  IT REALLY WORKS! YOU CAN CHANGE CORPORATE POLICY!

Now if only the people at Swiss Chalet could teach the management of the CBC some lessons in customer service, we’d be getting somewhere…

Where do we go now?

So the mothercorp is rapidly becoming the mothercorpse.  The CBC Radio management decided a while ago that they were altering formats of their Radio 2 to reduce significantly the classical music, and increase light (or should that be “lite”) pop, jazz, blues and so on.  The justification was “this is a Canadian station, yet there is so much Canadian music that is not being played anywhere.”  There was also something about being more reflective of the broad range of music in the country.  It is certainly a noble cause, since I agree, many musicians are not being played (except on CBC’s Radio 3 feed, and much of the Radio 2 programming from 6pm until 6am).

Now, I was not looking forward to the format change, but I try to have an open mind.  I enjoyed the addition of Tonic and Canada Live, and really like The Signal.  But I also love the classics; waking up to symphonic music is a sublime experience. Waking up to pop music is just jostling.

I once saw an ad for a “Zen alarm clock” which chimes once, then is silent for  some time, then chimes twice, and is silent for less time, the increases the number of chimes and decreases the interval between, so that it slowly draws you out of sleep.  This is a great idea, and was sort of how Radio 2 used to function.  Mild, relaxing, ease you into wakefulness.  Now, it’s just pop music.

But beyond simply the personal aesthetic of my enjoyment of classics in the morning, let’s re-evaluate the justification.  Cdn music that is “not being played” should be heard, I agree.  But what Canadian music is being played on TheNew2?  Let’s see: Neil Young.  Blue Rodeo.  Spirit of the West.  Joni Mitchell.  Bruce Cockburn.  You get the picture?  Clearly, these are Canadian artists that are not being played elsewhere, representing the broad range of musical talent in Canada.

Not exactly.

These are established artists, who don’t need the boost of the CBC because they’re being heard elsewhere.  Don’t get me wrong, I was sitting singing along to several songs this morning, because I know them already.  They are (or were) HITS.  They do not fulfill the description of “are not being heard” because, hell, they are fundamentals in the CanCon list.

Because the pop music is full of cliches, I’ll use a few of my own.  Let’s call a spade a spade, say that the emperor wears no clothes, and recognize that, like our politicians, the CBC management are simply duplicitous.  I don’t know why they changed the format, but I don’t believe their justifications now.  I suspect it’s because they have no sense of obligation to their listeners, and maybe they failed music class in highschool and have a grudge against violins or something.  It could be in anticipation of the cuts to the arts, recognizing that there will be fewer classical musicians out there, so why would we want to support them.

I never took classical music classes, except those held on the CBC in the years Before the Change.  Heavens save us from the mothercorpse.  And I thank goodness that I live close enough to the USA to tune into National Public Radio.

Gimme a zingy 18-year old any day…

So I just got back from the UK.  As I mentioned I think.  I’m not looking for sympathy, just bragging.

Anyway, I was in Scotland.  i’ve been there a few times, and have even given some of my opinion about how much I like Edinburgh on Virtual Tourist.  But I hadn’t spent a lot of time in Glasgow.  This time I did; it was great.

Owing to the new rules about carrying fluids onto a plane (basically: forget it), I was reluctant to buy scotch whisky in Scotland, because I had to get it home, and didn’t really want to pack it.  Listen, I’ve packed many bottles of liquid in my bags in my day–I think my record is about 15 bottles of beer in a suitcase.  But with the new “security” regime under which we live, I cannot be confident that those bottles won’t be scrutinized and then poorly re-packed, thereby leaving me open to a spiritous mess…

So I went to the duty free in Heathrow, on my way back through London, and checked out the stock.

Preamble: while in Glasgow, I met a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend (four degrees of separation) named Robert, who used to work at Highland Park distillery.  HP as I will call it (not to be confused with HP Sauce) is one of my favourites, considered by many to be the best in the world.  Robert recommended highly their 18-year old whisky.  I said I’d get it on the way home.

I did.  But what also happened was that I was marked by the staff at the duty free.  Several of them tried to convince me I wanted to buy this or that really expensive whisky (including one who tried to sell me some sort of Gold Plated Jameson whiskey.  After being patronized long enough by her, and her telling me it’s so good that the whiskey ordering folks all came down and ordered cases, I said “it’s nice for them that they like Jameson.  I am looking for something else.”).  But finally, with my energy drained and my will sapped, one guy noted to me that the Isle of Jura 18 year old was excellent, and that it can’t be bought anywhere else but the EU.  I tried it, it was okay, but since I have friends who really like Isle of Jura, I got it anyway.

So there I was, over my customs liquor limit by 300ml, and having paid £80 for the two bottles (about $155), I headed home.

Now, I was fully aware that I would probably pay duty and excise.  That’s the rule and frankly, if I couldn’t get it in Canada, I might as well pay to get it in.

According to the guy who sent me through, however, 1.4L is not enough for Canada’s whisky market to worry about.  I sailed through customs.  Thanks, guy-in-uniform.  R-11 me anytime.

Oh, and what about the whisky, you ask?  Well, the Highland Park 18 which I had last night after getting home made my knees buckle (though it could have been the sleep deprivation). Today, the Isle of Jura 18 is better than when I tried it at the airport, and since I’m sitting down I can’t say it makes my knees buckle.  But it is certainly a very nice purchase, and something I’m sure I’ll brag about for years.  (and really, isn’t that what whisk[e]y buying is all about?).  Slainte!

Fly me to the moon, Alice.

I just got back from the UK.  Again.  Second time in about 6 weeks.  As I told my students today, I’m really jetlagged.  But I’m not asking for sympathy, I’m bragging.

I go to the UK alot.  Well, I’d say it’s pretty frequent.  I did the calculation of how many times I’ve been there and had to go to a second hand for the counting.  1989; 1994; 1996; 2005; 2006; 2008×2. That’s a lot of flying.

So today’s blog is a rant.  Because this past time I went via Air Canada instead of my usual British Airways.  Let me tell you: this is not going to happen again.  There are a lot of bargain airlines out there, and I’m betting they probably keep their eyes on Air Canada, and say “if they can be that bad, we can be just a little better and still make money.”  See Zoom Airlines for more on that strategy.

I wish Air Canada would take my country’s name off their name, because let’s face it, it’s a disgrace.  Vile meals, staff who don’t know how to manage people, small seats, chaos.  I don’t know, there was a whole bargain basement cattle car feeling to the entire experience.  Maybe they appeal to people who have no social graces at all.  People who are constantly twitching in their seat, bouncing around, reaching behind them, smacking my legs and spilling my water.  Or people who lean over me to get at someone else, acting as if I’m not there; people who try to push their way past other people, reach up and pull their bags onto other people’s heads, ignore the other human beings around them.  As we left, I noticed that the place looked like a pack of wild dogs had been through it.  No, I’m sorry, that’s not really fair to the wild dogs.

I could go on.  I was thinking of beginning a blog called “Getoutofyourownbubble.com” or “whaddyathinkyouowntheplace.com” to give me a space about my general frustration with people who act as if there are no humans around and they are the most important people in the world, so screw the rest.  the problem is the rampant, me only culture that is fostered by our rampant consumerist “YOU can have whatever YOU want whenever YOU want” culture.  But guess what: we are all stuck on this little rock together.  We’ve got to get along because we’re not about to go away.  We should support and look out for each other.  Or, at least, to put it in the “me first” language: the next time you push past someone, they might push back, trip you, kick you in the ribs or the head, or otherwise mess up your pursuit of self affirmation through ignorance and consumption.

I guess it’s unfair to Air Canada to expect them to vet their customers for decent human beings, although it would make for more room on each flight.  But if they could only do something about the vegetarian meal, I’d at least consider flying with them again.  No I wouldn’t, actually.