I excahange ideas often at work.  There are a few of us who discuss current events, science, religion, politics and human relationships regularily.  It seems that we just have a group of interesting people who have interesting ideas in my department.  I guess I lucked out because I'm usually too busy taking my son places to get out much.

Hi Graeme,

Honest Ed's Used Ideas and Antique Ideology Emporium.

It is on route 96 jut past the beltway.

Grace and peace to you.

John

This is on my mind because in New Brunswick the papers are so bloody awful there is little information to discuss. I just learned today the province has been negotiating the sale of its electric power company to Quebec, and doing it for months. Not a word about it has appeared in the NB press. I learned it my reading a very full story today in The Toronto Globe.

It's really quite an experience to live in a province in which all the newspapers are owned by the Irving family, who make sure we don't learn anything. The only thing they will cover in detail is an outdoor concert by geriatric rockers on magnetic hill with beer served in paper cups. that will get us a solid week, no exaggeration, of newspaper headlines and picture supplements.

For a democracy to function, people need information, and they need to exchange ideas. That sure does not happen in NB, and I'm beginning to suspect it may not be all that common in most of Canada.

I should be on crosscountry checkup tomorrow, and I'm trying to think of a nice way to say this. The topic for tomorrow is ful vaccine. We just got information on it today, and I was shocked to realize that the schools will not be finished until close to Christmas. And they can't even start on adults until the schools are done. With cases already on the rise in Ontario, I would like to see some informed discussion of the implications of all that. But I sure as hell am not likely to find it in the pages of the Moncton Times Tribune - or any other paper in this province.

I get some information from CBC radio.  It is hard to find people who actually want to talk aout things that I think are important though.

I'm finding that to be very much the case in Atlantic Canada. It was quite different in Montreal, though the difference was largely in the Jewish community.

 This is why I miss Glasgow pubs and GU's postgrads club.

 Graeme... about the flu' vaccine... I can't help wondering whether there's not a dimimension of scam to this. Health professionals are turning down because of their concerns about its efficacy. But there are truckloads of the stuff about and on order and it has to be got rid of. Hyping the danger of the flu bug is about the only way to move the stuff, even if it does reveal weaknesses in the delivery system. There seem to be to be too many cost effectiveness issues at play here, it makes me... not uneasy so much as a aware of a a little synaptic sctivation in my bullshit detection system.

I agree, Graeme, that it is a gap.

I think that is why Five Oaks has been so important to me when I have taken the time to reserve time for it.   The evening dialogues would fill me for a long time.

My sense is at our church, there is a rush out...to our busy lives, and so, coffee & conversation doesn't get time for it.

I have thought about runnign saturday night sessions...movies that matter, wondercafe, etc...but, critical mass..and to be honest, that whole challenge of finding committed volunteers is a problem and there is no room for more in ur current loads in our current staff positions..  over-extension isn't good, you know?

I love Rev John's comment and Mike's last sentence -- it's a treat to read fun, pointed, creative uses of language.  As for discussion groups, try getting involved in one of the constituency organizations of a political party, or wander over to the student gathering area at Mount Allison.

Shalom,

Jim

I would have reservations about a political party. I want discussion, not propaganization.

As to Mount A, the students might be interesting, though the faculty are a pretty dead lot. Not sure what's wrong with that place. I can remember their Canadian studies prof in residence informing me in that lofty way many academics have that Canadian Studies is a discipline quite different from others. I didn't bother telling him I been chairman of Candian stuidies for three  years at Concordia, had been three more on the national executive, and was a good friend of the founder of Canadian studies. Nor did I bother to tell him that because of this, I knew he was talking academic nonsense.

It has surprised me in general that the universities down here - expecially mount A, don't reach out to be useful to their communities very much. Town and gown are very separate, and professors clutch their gown hems tightly for fear they might touch a common person.

that sounds interesting but mysterious. where is here?  why and what do they want to sweep under the rug? make money out of? or just make money in general?

Being in university, and in Halifax, discussing ideas comes quite naturally and does so everywhere.  I particularly enjoy exchanging ideas with my debate team and during debate tournaments because you oftentimes end up arguing ideas you don't necessarily agree with or haven't really considered. 

"I can remember their Canadian studies prof in residence informing me in that lofty way many academics have that Canadian Studies is a discipline quite different from others."

I love it when a prof in one particular discipline makes this claim.  Lots of them do, from all across the board.  It's like being on a sports team, and you have to cheer for your team no matter what.  This kind of tribalism is particularly strong among new disciplines. 

I'm beginning to suspect that a lot of canada is just like Calgary. The difference may not be in the location. It may be in the cultural group and its values.

What I hear being talked about is tv shows.

History all the way.  I was planning to add German or Philosophy as a minor, but my plans to do a semester of study-abroad at Cape Town or Rhodes in South Africa next year are going to make that a lot harder, so just history. 

Particularly interested in the history of SA, Africa and the Cold War. 

so the classroom is the place for yu - and the seminar.

In Montreal, within the Jewish community, you could put together substantial groups for such a discussion. But I haven't seen it anywhere else.

Scratch that - I discuss ideas pretty much anywhere, depending on who I'm with.  In bars, on the way to the grocery store, on the bus, even during dates.  I had an excellent conversation about Uganda this past weekend at a concert during the interlude. 

I don't think the discussion of ideas is something you have to do in a formalized setting.  One thing I notice about my parent's and their Bulgarian, Ukrainian and Russian friends is that they regularly discuss ideas when they get together during parties, dinners or other social occassions.  I guess that's because under Soviet authoritarianism, discussion at official venues was very tightly orchestrated, so people who wanted to talk about ideas did so around the dinner table with people they know.  

It's a very healthy habit that I don't see enough of in Canada.  There's this notion that you don't discuss serious ideas around the dinner table, only trivialities about the weather. 

Certainly, in the city I live in I don't see serious ideas discussed anywhere - and one gets the feeling that discussing them would be regarded as bad form, something like listening to Wagner on your Ipod while standing with the crowd at an outdoor concert by geriatric rockers.

I keep looking back at revjohn's note. There was a time when the world was young, and I was in toronto a good deal. So I know of Honest Ed's - or at least of the one that was there forty years ago. But the reference to the beltway and rte 96 blows by me. Is that a reference to York U?

always disliked toronto.

today, the government of NB announced a deal at sell NB Power, our electric utility to Hydro Quebec. This came after months of secret negotiations throughout which the NB government said it would never sell the utility. This was our company. They sold it - without bothering to tell us what they were doing. I cannot think of a similar incident in the history of this country.s

But the public reponse has been muted, to say the least. Even theh opposition party has raised no objections except a fatuous wish that jobs will be protected.

Everybody with half a brain knows this could not have been done with the consent of Irving industries and, more likely, at their demand. But nobody says a word,

I understand now why there is so little discussion of public affairs in NB. They know who runs the province. And they're scared to say so.

graeme,

I am not in the least informed about the East, but am picking up a thread in the discussion and think it is a cultural trend or development.  TV and computer (games) and sports have pretty well consumed the nation, and it's hard to find a good intelligent conversation these days.  (Saw a Bill Maher program Thanksgiving evening? that was excellent, an actual, civilized exchange--more civilized than he used to have, anyway--with some bright minds.) But most of TV is a wasteland, and so many folks have slid into the sloppy habit of trailer-park-boys type stuff. I fear we have fewer and fewer truly articulate speakers as time goes on. Even our beloved CBC folks are drifting into "y'know" language from constant exposure to sports reports.  Last night I listened for half an hour to an MLA with several years' experience, and a background in teaching, and I thought: if I got into the pulpit and spoke that poorly, I'd lose my job very soon. Then you might hear someone like Stephen Lewis, and be refreshed again.

I envy you the experience you had in Montreal--what a feast!!--and grieve with you at the loss of such evenings.  My husband belonged for a time to a group grandly called The Institute (?) for Society & Humanities in Saskatoon, and they made an effort to engage some great topics with some excellent speakers.  But they folded, too.

But to your original question, besides hashing over the news with my husband, we get to occasional events like Epiphany Explorations in Victoria or the Winter Refresher at St. A's in S'toon and there is room and time for conversation.  If we're really lucky, even our Conference AGM might provide some opportunities for good conversation.

Blessings,

weeze

you may well be right. I have several hundred TV channels, mostly for the kids. With all those channels, there is so little on that I usually don't even try.

One programme has a sort of fascination for me, though. Dog the Bounty Hunter is a reality show about a bounty hunter who chases down people wanted for skipping out on bail. It's mostly in Hawaii. And what catches my attention is first - the extent of poverty in Hawaii and second - the very high proportion of the poor who seem to be native Hawaiians.

there is a group that meets at our church...ninjafaery attended a session recently...and my guess is they would fit into your classification, graeme...and that is what appeals.  the focus does tend to be spiritual matters; hwoever, i don't htink any of those folks would ignore current affairs...and so my guess the conversations within and around the theme are likely of that nature.

i would like to have a "movies that matter" night at our church once/month..but i can't commit, already too overextended.  I would love to just attend.  need to find someone who wishes to organize..but...again, the point is to have those conversations.