Baby please don't go

AC/DC's very first TV appearance. I love the contrast between Bon's schoolgirl tunic and the tattoos.

Sparing the children

The Halifax Regional School Board uses a ridiculous computer filtering system -- one that blocks so many sites that teachers have a hard time finding sites their students can use. (Another absurdity is that exactly the same filters apply for all grades. What's unsafe for Grade 1 is unsafe for Grade 12, apparently.)

One of my kids, for example, says his teacher recommended a science site, but the filtering software won't let students access it. It's classified as "gaming." An unintended result is that the high school kids are learning more about computer science, as they access the forbidden sites they need to do their schoolwork through anonymizers and proxy servers.

Of course there are some sites that are so evil children must be protected from them. This one, for instance -- yes, the good old Muddy Hill Post. Try to access it from a computer within the Halifax Regional School Board and you will see this message: "Access denied. This site has been categorized as occult."

The company that provides the filtering software claims to offer the "most advanced proprietary global filtering and categorization service." That must explain why -- in addition to dangerous blogs that offer commentary on freelance writing, Halifax and Nova Scotia news, music and other satanic topics -- they also block access to certain government web sites, teen health sites, dangerous publications like Harper's and the Village Voice, and anything that will let you check your email. And don't even begin to think about researching a paper on the Second World War. Because Hitler, you know, was anti-Semitic. So sites referring to him are a no-no, apparently.

I wonder if the folks behind this software really think living in a CNN world with other viewpoints considered too extreme for young minds will make for a better society.

NSELC: Leadership in editing needed

Last week, I got a letter from the Nova Scotia Education Leadership Consortium.

The NSELC is... well, I'm not exactly sure what it is -- because when I visit their website and click the link that says "About The NSELC" I'm greeted with this:

Historically, the NSELC has targeted educators already in positions of senior leadership (principals, vice principals and central office personnel) and/or teachers who were aspiring to move into an administrative role. The NSELC is now expanding our Modules/Workshops specifically with teachers as the audience i.e. classroom teachers interested in becoming curriculum leaders, student teachers and beginning teachers who want to learn how to be more effective classroom managers, seasoned teachers who want to develop their instructional strategies to better meet the needs of their students, teachers who are fulfilling the role of coach/mentor in their schools or board. This expansion of our audience is very exciting for us and certainly supports what we have learned about effective schools being those that develop and foster leadership from within the school.

The NSELC was writing to me because I chair the local elementary school's advisory council. In their letter, the name of the school was wrong, the address was a mish-mash of my home address and the school's address, and the name of the road was misspelled. (In an email I just received, I'm told that the Nova Scotia Department of Education is to blame for this.)

School administrators keep talking about excellence in schools. How about some excellence in writing (or even decent basic skills) from those preaching it?

The most annoying cliché strikes again

According to the Globe and Mail, the today's Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce is "not your grandmother's CIBC."

Considering that one of my grandmothers lived much of her life on a mountainside in Greece with no electricity, I'd say the headline writers are correct: it's not her CIBC.

Scott Bateman on Tom Cruise

Scott Bateman offers some pretty funny commentary on the creepy Tom Cruise Scientology video.



This is not your Aunt Gertrude's animation. (Read the post below, if you don't know what I'm talking about.)

Not your mother's, or your aunt's

Of all the journalistic clichés -- hell, of all the writing clichés -- one of the worst has to be the one that snidely refers to your parents, or aunt. It's typically an aunt (and only occasionally an uncle -- usually when he borderline fondles you at family get-togethers).

You know what I'm talking about.

• The MVP TV series is "not your mother's CBC."
• Thinking of going south for a holiday? It's "not your mother's Florida" anymore.
• Hitting the hills? It's "not your father's skiing" now.
• Businesses need to recognize that their customers are "not your father's customers."

As for the aunts, Gertrude is in for a particularly rough time (especially when it comes to those mythical sweaters she doles out as Christmas presents).

• Aunt Gertrude's memory problems make her unreliable.
• Google Reader's share feature could allow her to see what blog posts you're reading.
  
• At holiday dinners, she wants to talk about her digestive system.
  

We own a cookbook that has a recipe called "Not your mother's green beans." My partner looked at the recipe. "These are my mother's green beans," she said. A local bar advertises that "Your father never rocked like this." Given their target demographic, there are probably decent odds their customers' fathers rocked a hell of a lot harder.

This is lazy, lazy writing. And worse, it's offensive writing too. It makes assumptions about the readers, which is generally a poor technique because it alienates them. It also seems to assume that all family members are stuck in a cliché of 1950s family life, and that everybody (except of course these hip not-your-parent places) conforms to some -- again, mythical -- notion of bland mainstream life and entertainment.

And Aunt Gertrude? Not too many of us have an aunt Gertrude. The name's popularity peaked in the 1890s, when it was the 24th most popular girl's name in America. It went into a steep decline after that, ranking 939th in the 1960s, and dropping out of the top 1,000 names altogether after that.

Squeezing more money out of grocery shoppers

Two case studies.

1) Atlantic Superstore (and the rest of the Loblaws chain, presumably) introduces a new pasta. It sells for $0.99. The price, you know, is too good to be true. But instead of pitching it as an introductory price, after about a month they put the pasta on sale for $1.49, with signs that say "Save $0.40!"

So you're not paying 50% more than the original price, you are saving money off the soon-to-be 100% higher than original price. (OK, not quite 100%, but close.)

2) There's nothing new about the old trick of keeping the price the same but making the package smaller (that's why it's an old trick). But I love the liquid laundry soap scam. The package claims the contents will wash, say 36 loads. You pour the liquid into the cap provided to measure out the soap for your laundry. I suspect most people more or less fill the cap. But the one-load measure is a barely perceptible line about 1/3 of the way up the cap. In other words, if you're filling that cap, you're getting 12 loads, not 36. If you're half filling it, you're getting maybe 20. Nice.

Michel Rabagliati's Paul Books

I discovered Paul thanks to Free Comic Book Day in 2005. I picked up a small comic called Paul in the Metro, and read a lovely story about a young Montreal teen visiting his dad at work and taking public transit out to La Ronde, the amusement park on the site of the Expo '67 World Fair.

I loved it. Part of the reason I loved it was how familiar it was. I grew up in Montreal. I'm a few years younger than Paul, but close enough that his experiences seemed awfully similar to mine.

I'd forgotten that little comic until I recently ran across Paul Has a Summer Job (Paul's first full-length graphic novel, set in 1979). and Paul Moves Out (set in 1983).

The creator of the books is Michel Rabagliati, a graphic designer turned comic-book writer and artist, and Paul is his semi-autobiographical creation.

Rabagliati has a talent for telling slice-of-life stories that are funny, touching and moving, without being sentimental. There is nothing that extraordinary about Paul. He's just a normal guy, doing normal things -- like painting a new apartment, babysitting, and studying for his career. What makes these books work is how Rabagliati tells these everyday stories within the context of crucial periods in his character's life.

After I finished my second Paul book, I found myself wondering how he does it. In the hands of someone less talented, these books would be dull. But they're not. They are true-to-life and delightful, and what makes them work, I think, must be their sincerity and simplicity. Their strength lies in their sincerity, and that sincerity is reflected in the clean lines of the artwork.

Besides, you've got to (or at least I've got to) love a graphic novel that spends a whole two pages paying tribute to Captain Haddock, ending with the words, "Hergé was a genius."

Recent comics reading

I've been reading some excellent graphic novels and comics. I'll write a bit about them over the next few days.

Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip, vos 1 and 2
Tove Jansson was a brilliant writer and artist, and for five years she produced a daily comic strip about the Moomins and the other residents of Moomin Valley. (She had already been writing books about them.) The comic strips are now being collected together in what is going to be a series of five books, published by Drawn and Quarterly.

I picked up these books without knowing anything about them - and they were great. I enjoyed them, and so did two of my kids (ages 14 and 11 -- my eight-year-old was not crazy about the Moomins).

The stories centre on Moomin, his parents, his sort-of girlfriend Snork Maiden, and a cast of characters who come in and out of the stories. There is Snufkin, a quiet wanderer; Little My, who causes lots of mischief; Sniff, who is always looking for new ways to make money fast -- and many others.

The Moomins seem most interested in eating, sleeping, and pretend and real adventures.

I think what makes these stories work so well is the combination of simple drawings, characters who are childlike, whether or not they are children, and humour based on misunderstandings that build and build -- like the time the Moomins stay at a fancy hotel, but have no idea they are supposed to pay. They think the suite is too big, and they build a tent in their four-poster bed. They order oatmeal for breakfast and pay extra for it because it is not on the regular men. And when it comes time to pay, they use Snork Maiden's casino winnings, which up until then were so unimportant to her, she had forgotten where she put the money.

One of my favourite characters only appears in one story. His name is Mr. Brisk, and he arrives in the valley full of energy and enthusiasm for winter sports. The Moomins are roly-poly characters who like to sleep a lot. Mr. Brisk organizes skating parties and ski competitions, and tells them that the "time for leisure is over Moomins!". I love that idea. That participating in sports is different from leisure.

Why I love Christopher Hitchens, Part II

Because he writes sentences like this:

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois is the current beneficiary of a tsunami of drool.

Link.

Does the prison offer counselling?

This guy has problems another nine months in prison ain't gonna solve.

SUPERIOR, Wis. - A Wisconsin man convicted of having sexual contact with a dead deer has been sentenced to nine more months in jail.

Bryan James Hathaway, 21, of Superior had his probation revoked last month for using alcohol and marijuana, lying to his probation agent, and having unapproved contact with a minor child and sexual relations with another adult.

This after

he was found guilty in April 2005 of felony mistreatment of an animal after he killed a horse with the intention of having sex with it

Full story (if you really need to know more).

It's all about me, baby

I recently saw a book about global warming that took a different approach from most of the others out there. It wasn't about how dire the environmental situation is; it didn't take the opposite tack -- that climate change fear has been overblown; and it didn't offer any suggestions for collective action or policy that would improve things. None of that. Instead, it was about how to ensure your own personal survival in an era of climate change and extreme weather. Kind of an update of those bomb shelter books of the 1950s and 1960s. Who cares if the world is going to hell, as long as you (and your family, of course) are safe.

Later, I turned on the radio to an ad for a Ford truck. The pitch? That the ride in the cab is so quiet, you won't believe how powerful the truck really is. But if you need a reminder, just open the window, so you can hear the engine roar. No consideration, of course, of whether or not anyone around you wants to hear your engine roar. As long as it's nice and quiet in your cab, it's all good.