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2015 Metro Vancouver Transportation and Transit Plebiscite

May 28th, 2015
by Craig.
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I finally delivered my ballot yesterday, choosing to deliver it directly to a Plebiscite Service Office rather than entrusting it to the useless Canada Post Corporation at this late date. To get there I drove a car; I suppose I should have caught a bus, but there are only so many hours in a day.

At this late date I won’t be the first to pontificate on this subject but, if the “no” vote wins, the powers that be need to be aware of the fact that a no vote is not a vote against all (or any) of the wonderful goodies that are listed on the ballot. The greater Vancouver area certainly does need all of those things; we absolutely should have a “world class” (a term overused to describe the rather self-centred provincial town of Vancouver) public transit and transportation system. What we also need — conspicuous by its absence on the ballot — is intelligent and accountable management of our regional transportation system and the funds needed to run it.

This plebiscite is a boondoggle for several reasons, not the least of which are:

  • It is an abrogation of the responsibility of the officials we elected to make these decisions for us. (I’m looking at you, Christy Clark and co.) I am all in favour of democracy (even some measure of direct democracy), but we’re already paying elected politicians to run our cities, region and province, so why are they spending the money required to mount this plebiscite to offload that responsibility onto the people that elected them? I know why: It’s so that they can blame us (like Jim “Look in the Mirror” Prentice of Alberta fame) when we complain down the road about something to do with regional transportation or transit. The fact that this is being presented as a “take it or leave it” proposition by these shirkers is particularly galling.
  • We already pay taxes. The trend in recent years has been to make government “smaller” (or so politicians claim) by introducing “user pay” schemes — e.g., bridge tolls — so that those people who don’t use bridges don’t have to subsidise those of us wastrels who do. However, taxes still stay the same. (Someone should run that simple mathematical formula past your average numerate child and see what he or she has to say about it.) The fact is that governments take taxes from us. It adds up to a lot of money, and the citizenry needs to see some collective benefit from these taxes to feel that they’re justified. Increase the tax rate by half a percent here and half a percent there and you’ll soon find out at what point there’s a tax revolt. What service that we’re already paying for will the next plebiscite be about?
  • Taxes don’t go away. We all know the apocryphal story about how the first tax was a “temporary” measure. Even if the politicians promised that this tax would end on some specific date in the future, if nothing else a yes vote simply shows the politicians that there is room to increase taxes, and on that date (or shortly after it to allow a cooling-off period of unrestrained joy amongst the populace) the provincial tax rate would be raised to equal the former combined rate. What pet project would we be paying for then?

So, yeah, it’s probably not difficult for you to determine which circle I selected on my ballot.

Posted in: Opinion.
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Amateur hour hits a new low at Global News BC

May 25th, 2015
by Craig.
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I have a very different view of what “news” on television is supposed to look like than (apparently) many people, and I have criticised TV news anchors and reporters for calling their news broadcasts a “show”. I’m sorry, a “show” is something that is supposed to entertain me. I do not watch television news to be “entertained”; I watch to see who has been bombed, blasted or burgled in the last 24 hours. OK, that’s not really my motivation, but I certainly don’t watch to see dog-and-pony shows between the glorified teleprompter readers (“anchors”) and the sports and weather talking heads. I appreciate that people at the Global BC TV station like Kristi Gordon, Chris Gailus and Robin Stickley look pretty and (as far as I can tell) have senses of humour, but really? Do we really have to watch them and Squire Barnes (whom, you will notice, I did not include in the list of people who “look pretty”) tell inside jokes to one another, live on air? Give me a break.

At Global BC my heroine on the news desk is Samantha Falk. She just delivers the news … just the facts, ma’am. No emoting (just a slight lowering of tone when delivering news of a death or deaths), no hand gestures, no sad faces, no big smiles, no snide or under-the-breath-type editorial remarks after a news story. She may or may not be the most fun at a party but, as far as I’m concerned, she is the consummate professional journalist on air. Bravo to you, Samantha. Please don’t give in to anyone who might tell you that you need to project more feeling when you’re reporting. Don’t even get me started on her diametrical opposite: Randene Neill (who seems to have taken on the heart-tugging role of the now-departed Deborra Hope). How is this woman higher in the pecking order at Global than Samantha Falk? It boggles the mind.

But back to the point of this post. Anyone who watches the News Hour at 18:00 on Global BC (and probably their other news broadcasts too, considering this is their “flagship” news programme … er, “news show”) is aware of the fact that first year journalism students at BCIT could do a better job of producing the programme than the jokers at Global BC. You know, I hate to be gratuitously critical — and lord knows I am not in the business and wouldn’t do a better job myself — but come on, there are some days it’s a complete gong show. However, the gong show doesn’t usually extend to the actual journalism. I’m not saying that the journalism at Global BC is top notch, that’s for sure — the aforementioned little editorial comments by the teleprompter reader … sorry, “anchor” … at the end of a story really irk me — but on 19 January 2015 there was a particularly puzzling incident.

Watch for yourself and note the second story (which comes after the first weather interlude) which starts at 3:51. At the very end of the story, at 5:19, the reporter (John Daly) concludes his report (presumably filed sometime before the start of the broadcast) by saying that the subject of the story (a man wanted for failing to return to a Vancouver halfway house) has been arrested in Parksville. At that point I reflexively asked out loud, “So, what was the point of the big build up? In fact, was this really news if they got the guy?” I suppose I answered my own question above: this is a “show” (after all), and it’s all about the suspense, which was broken in the final seconds by revealing that this guy isn’t, at this very moment, roaming the streets of Vancouver looking for his next victim. This should have been several reports down the list on this broadcast.

But that’s not the bizarre part. About twenty minutes later the teleprompter reader (Chris Gailus) interrupts the broadcast with “breaking news”! Seems that the missing con has been located and has been arrested in Parksville! Stands back in amazement!

Now, either this is utter incompetence on the part of the journalism staff and the teleprompter reader, or it’s a blatant attempt at misleading sensationalism. Leave the sensationalism to the American news stations, Chris; they have more helicopters buzzing the city chasing every emergency vehicle than Global BC has. Oddly, that “breaking news” is not in the online version of the News Hour, but then they have managed to compress an hour of “news” into less than sixteen minutes. Imagine how much less time we could waste in front of the boob tube if they could just get it over and done with (minus the advertising and dog-and-pony nonsense) in sixteen minutes! (I usually turn it off after the first half hour anyway.)

But one more complaint about “news” that doesn’t (at this point) merit a separate post. Read my lips: Weather is not news! The fact that it rained hard, or snowed heavily, or blew strongly in some part of the world today is not news. It is if a state of emergency has been declared as a result in the area where the news is being broadcast, but if some other part of the world is having weather, it’s just not news. At the very least, please don’t lead with a weather story, for god’s sake!

This has been an editorial. It is not an attempt at journalism!

But I will admit that I find this kind of stuff highly amusing, even entertaining!:

Posted in: Opinion.
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Happy birthday Elizabeth!

Feb 19th, 2015
by Craig.
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Dear Elizabeth,

I hope you had a really happy birthday yesterday.

Love, Uncle Craig

Posted in: Family.
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Happy birthday Melissa!

Feb 4th, 2015
by Craig.
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Dear Melissa,

Wow, what a special birthday for you! I hope you have a great day.

Love from, Uncle Craig

Posted in: Family.
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Can I have a DF steer?

Nov 30th, 2014
by Craig.
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The old DF steer came onto my radar today (if you’ll excuse the irony), so not having flown for far too many years I thought I’d look it up, just out of curiosity. Seems they are being or have been decommissioned in a lot of places.

But what really struck me in the few discussions I read about them was the incredibly narrow view of some of the pilots discussing them. Sure, as we all know, the USA is the centre of the universe in many ways, not the least of which is aviation, but the ability to fly is supposed to broaden your outlook (and particularly your world view), especially if you can talk about zipping a couple of hundred nautical miles away (or over to the next continent, depending on your equipment!) to have lunch and be back in time for dinner. And yet, here were all these pilots (most of them US-based) talking about DF steers and radar coverage as if the former are no longer available anywhere on the planet, and the latter covers every square centimetre of the planet.

Weird.

Posted in: Aviation, Opinion.
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Fashion

Nov 28th, 2014
by Craig.
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Boring. Boooooooring! That one word pretty much sums up my fashion sense, if you can even call it that.

I vaguely remember — in the seventies — having a “parachute jacket” that I thought was pretty cool. All I can remember now is that it was bright yellow (probably not quite as bright in reality as it is now in my memory, or maybe it was brighter!), had zips and press studs and the texture of the material out of which they make parachutes — hence the name. And I think I probably bought (or had bought for me by my parents) a few pairs of jeans that were probably fairly cool back in their day … flares, stovepipes, pockets galore with flaps and/or zips, etc.

But these days — and for most of my life from my teens onwards — my attire has been pretty utilitarian. Truth is, if the law and the weather permitted it and I had somewhere to put my wallet (a sporran perhaps?), I’d walk around buck naked all day. So my default attire in public is shorts (I mean real shorts, not those stupid “short trousers” that go all the way down to your knees, or further!) and T-shirts and slops in the summer, and jeans, T-shirts and shoes & socks in the winter. In the winter I’ll take a jacket if I’m driving somewhere (I’ll actually wear a lighter one if I’m walking), but it will likely stay in the car until my return home. (Friends are always asking me, as I leave their places after an evening, “Didn’t you bring a jacket?!”) My use (or lack thereof) of jackets is a topic unto itself for another time.

I do own khaki pants, golf shirts, plaid shirts and other long- and short-sleeved collared shirts, dressier black Oxford Brogues than my current, everyday, brown Derby-type shoes, a sports coat, suits (double- and single-breasted), about two dozen ties (ranging from plain black for funerals to far more ostentatious and whimsical ones) and half a dozen bow ties. However, the dressier things get the fewer the opportunities I have for wearing them, especially considering I work from home. Actually, I really do lament that as I do like to dress up (and I think I rock a well-fitting suit, even if I do say so myself), but I can’t make up events that don’t exist and I’m too practical to put on a suit just to go and visit friends for the evening.

I do care what I look like when I leave the house, but I don’t care enough to go to ridiculous ends and spend ridiculous amounts of money and time on my appearance. And I mostly will not wear what mainstream fashion tells me I should wear, so I’m a bloody-minded contrarian to boot.

The reason I bring this up is an article on “lumbersexuals” on The Daily Beast. One paragraph really spoke to me:

But the rough-looking, dependably butch lumbersexual, despite his honest-guy uniform, is a drag queen, just as we all are. On go our costumes every day, and so it especially is with those whose uniform is dedicated to looking like they care least of all what they look like. The lumbersexual is the biggest drag queen of them all.

Now, I have never until today heard the term “lumbersexual”; I own two plaid shirts that I rarely wear (and only one of them is flannel) and it is quite clear to me that the guys I have seen pictured in articles I have now read about them spent a lot more than “20 minutes of [their] morning[s] delicately trimming [their] beard[s] in the bathroom mirror“. I have also grown full beards, although I’m not that fond of them. But I squirmed uncomfortably at the thought that maybe the attire that results from my “studied disinterest” (to quote my father) in fashion is, in itself, a fashion statement.

If it is, I may as well pull out my wallet and head to the nearest trendy clothing shop and ask someone there to dress me properly in some hip new threads. (Irony intended.) The problem is, I just can’t stand waste, and I’ll still be wearing in five years what is trendy today. I can’t win!

Posted in: Opinion.
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Deleting files under Linux/Unix

Nov 26th, 2014
by Craig.
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Today I came across a comment on a blog post related to deleting files on a Unix/Linux system that was a clear case of bullshit. I tried to post a comment to that effect on the blog in question, but the comment feature was broken. So, since I had already gone to the trouble of writing my response, and since I don’t post nearly as much to my own blog as I would like, I’ll just post it here instead.

To PoorMe, who claimed to have “just lost all of [his/her] files and folders on [his/her] server in just 2 seconds” by running the suggested command, I call bullshit!

I actually intentionally tried this a few years ago on a server that I was decommissioning. First of all, you have to be in the root directory for the dreaded “rm -rf *” command to try and remove everything (unless you craft the command explicitly to remove everything under the root directory), and you’re almost never in the root directory unless you place yourself there for some specific and very unusual reason.

Secondly, in my test (which I did run as root) I ran into many files and directories that threw up errors and interrupted the process, even though I used the “-f” flag. In fact, I ended up having to delete individual directories off of the root to do what I was trying to achieve, and even then I gave up trying to remove anything but directories I knew contained user data.

Thirdly, even without those errors the process would have taken minutes, if not hours, not “2 seconds”. Anyone who thinks it takes two seconds has obviously never tried it. Besides, assuming you’re connecting over SSH, how are you still connected if you deleted everything, including the SSH server?

Bottom line, don’t run commands on your system that you find on the Internet without first understanding and checking them. But even if you don’t take that advice, the chances of you erasing every file and directory on your server in the blink of an eye are close to zero. Sure, you might erase a whole lot of stuff you didn’t want to erase that you may never get back and which may destabilise your system requiring you to reinstall the operating system (and it may happen in as few as two seconds), but what PoorMe claims happened almost certainly didn’t happen.

Posted in: IT, Opinion.
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Happy Birthday Christopher!

Nov 9th, 2014
by Craig.
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Dear Christopher,

Happy birthday.

Love, Uncle Craig

Posted in: Family.
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Seventy years ago today

Jun 7th, 2014
by Craig.
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On 7 June 1944 my great uncle, Corporal Leslie John King — of the 6th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry, son of Fred Josiah and Lydia Ann King, of Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, and brother of my grandmother Gladys Lydia Marshall (née King), later of South Africa — was killed in Normandy the day after landing on Sword Beach on D-Day. He is buried at the Bayeux War Cemetery in Bayeux, Normandy, France. He was just 24 years old.

Thanks to The War Graves Photographic Project I have photographs of his gravestone and the cemetery where he is buried. However, I hope to obtain and post my own later this year.

Posted in: Family.
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Come clean, Christy Clark

Jun 6th, 2014
by Craig.
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As a tax-paying British Columbian, I should love Christy Clark. I should. But I don’t.

She is a divisive character in BC politics. She’s not the first, that’s for sure, but you’d think that people would learn. Not “we the people”, but the politicians themselves. Nobody likes a divisive leader. They didn’t when Bill Vander Zalm was around, and they don’t now, so what does Clark think she’s gaining by her divisive style of leadership that Vander Zalm didn’t back in the late 1980s? If she’s gaining anything, it’s only with her cronies in the BC Liberal Party, not with any members of the voting public. Is that really putting “[BC] Families First”?

I’m moved to write about this at this time because of the dispute between the BC Public School Employers’ Association (BCPSEA) and BC’s public teachers. I could point fingers at both sides in this dispute for various reasons, but Clark particularly stands out for rebuke. I say that because no member of the British Columbian public really sees this as a labour dispute between a monolithic employer that doesn’t actually employ any teachers (the BCPSEA) and the BC Teachers’ Federation; it’s Christy and her sidekick of the moment in the education portfolio (Peter Fassbender as of this writing) versus the teachers. It’s an open secret that sealed court proceedings accidentally revealed by the NDP show that the current BC government — strongly led by Clark, so there’s no doubt who is driving this — has a policy to provoke a strike by BC teachers. Imagine! Any thinking leader — especially one with an alleged “Families First” agenda — would not set out to “provoke” anything, never mind the total disruption of the lives of BC’s families!

This won’t be a long post because I really want to get to what I believe is the crux of the matter here. This won’t address issues such as liveable wages in one of the most expensive places to live in the world, and a little thing called inflation. It also won’t address Clark’s contempt of the courts and her preference for fighting and defying their rulings on the legality of her actions dating back over a decade, actions that would get you and I thrown in jail!

Let’s look at Clark’s record with the education system. As Education Minister in the early 2000s she implemented changes that were unpopular with school boards and teachers. While it’s not my contention that popularity is the measure of success, popularity is the basis of democracy. And here we are, over a decade later, and the school boards are still struggling to provide services that are expected by the public and the provincial government on the pittance provided by the latter. Quite frankly, if it wasn’t for the dedication of those people on the ground — teachers, administrators and school board employees — the BC public school system would collapse. With her own child in a private school — a privilege affordable for only 11% (2012 figures) of BC pupils — one really can’t help but wonder if this is actually Clark’s intention.

But enough about that. It’s widely known that Clark’s father was a teacher, and one can reasonably assume that she herself attended at least some school. And here is where I get to the crux of the matter as I see it, and it’s the seldom asked question (at least publicly) on the tips of the tongues of just about anyone I talk to about the war between Clark and the teachers: What formative experience did Clark have — either with her father or one of her own teachers — that seems to put her at perpetual odds with educators? (By “educators” I include more than just teachers.) I’ve heard the term “daddy issues” used often enough to wonder if this premier’s divisive style of leadership — if you can call it “leadership” — is personally-driven rather than based on arguable ideology or coherent policy.

Is it, Christy? Is it time to come clean and excuse yourself from any involvement in the negotiating strategy with the BCTF or, for that matter, any of your government’s education policies that so negatively affect families and the education of their children? Is it time to put your son in a public school — like 89% of your constituents in this province, who feel their children are being used as pawns in a fight between grown-ups who should know better — and suffer with them through this labour strife that you have intentionally provoked?

Posted in: Opinion.
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