Graeme talks on You Tube - Shale Gas etc.

graeme

Posted on: 10/14/2012 11:59

Of course, I look much older than I really am. Video does that to you.

stardust

Posted on: 10/14/2012 12:21

graeme

That's the truth....!!!!

Northwind

Posted on: 10/14/2012 12:27

Video totally does that to you. It is nice to put another face to another name.

Tabitha

Posted on: 10/14/2012 12:37

So Graeme becomes more famous-first an article in the Reader's Digest and now on you tube.

Way to go Graeme!

graeme

Posted on: 10/14/2012 15:13

Hey! I've got lots of articles. Also have a relative up for canonization. And a car that's only two years old.

graeme

Posted on: 10/14/2012 15:18

oh, and I'm writing an autobiography for my children. Interesting experience. I'm discovering that everything that dictated by life had pretty much happened by the age of 14 or so. The rest really isn't very interesting at all.

In fact, the most lasting effect on me occured when I was six. I wrote about that in the prologue - and then felt kind of silly. What else was there worth talking about? Our childhoods really are more interesting than our lives.

stardust

Posted on: 10/15/2012 11:50

Pray thee tell....what happened when you were six....?

You must now be about 77 going on 17....???

stardust

Posted on: 10/15/2012 14:18

graeme

I decided to educate myself a bit about shale gas. Some of what I'm reading totally horrifies me. Its being done world wide with China now being the biggest producer. I believe the consequences can be devastating, a giant step towards destroying our earth and life on it in the years ahead. Someone suggested its a giant Ponzi scheme to earn big bucks fast.

Shale gas is typically trapped in shale rock and extracted by cracking the rock open with highly pressurised water, a process known as hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”.

"60 Minutes" : Pros and Cons of Shale Drilling

Fracking Hell: The Untold Story

Fracking chemicals are linked to bone, liver and breast cancers, gastrointestinal, circulatory, respiratory, developmental as well as brain and nervous system disorders. Such chemicals are present in frack waste and may find their way into drinking water and air.

Waste from Pennsylvania gas wells -- waste that may also contain unacceptable levels of radium -- is routinely dumped across state lines into landfills in New York, Ohio and West Virginia. New York does not require testing waste for radioactivity prior to dumping or treatment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=dEB_Wwe-uBM&feature=endscreen

Drilling for shale gas

A short animation on horizontal drilling and completion/fracing techniques used in the production of shale gas reservoirs.

Northwind

Posted on: 10/15/2012 15:11

Shale gas and fracking are happening in the BC Peace. Dawson Creek has had severe water problems this year because the river they get their water from is nearly dry. I saw the river, and it was alarming. The powers that be say that the gas companies do not get potable water, but I wonder. We have had a very dry summer up here.....I wonder though what part the gas companies play in the problems.

Jim Kenney

Posted on: 10/15/2012 15:33

The closer one gets to Esso's steam-accessed heavy oil projects in the Cold Lake area, the more the lakes have dropped from the 70s. I wonder?

Though, to be totally fair, about 1979 a report came out that examined climate trends predicting that the boreal/parkland forest belt in Alberta would become grassland due to diminishing rainfall. In the mid 80s, the Red Deer River in NE Saskatchewan had water levels for most of the summer that ran 5 to 10 feet above normal. In 1991, you could almost cross the river without getting your ankles wet in the summer time.

As a fisher, I have been concerned for quite a while about both water use and climate change issues.

InannaWhimsey

Posted on: 10/20/2012 02:38

coolio graeme!

now i can see other 'alternate sites' viewing your words -- places like prisonplanet, Coast to Coast AM, disinfo.com...

there's room for everything on the 'web :3

graeme

Posted on: 10/20/2012 13:49

obviously.

stardust

Posted on: 10/20/2012 19:50

Hi InannaWhimsey

Here's a Goodbye Graeme on the net that's quite impressive.

He gets around....

Concordia University - Goodbye Graeme - written by Mary Vipond

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/4735173/History-Department-de-Maisonneuve-W-...

Also:

Works by Graeme http://0-www.worldcat.org.novacat.nova.edu/identities/lccn-n86-849496

stardust

Posted on: 10/20/2012 20:01

graeme

I'm a very fine internet sleuth you know. The Readers Digest article you wrote is not available to read on the net by itself but that particular book is for sale on lots of websites.

Somebody in Sask. wants $100. for the book....?.....I don't think so!

http://www.adpost.com/ca/books/1788/

graeme

Posted on: 10/20/2012 20:24

Well, thank you stardust. I had not known of that farewell by Mary Vipond. As she hints, I was always at odds with the university world. I always thought its focus was on personal status and ego - and that it did badly in teaching - not only in the daily techniques of it but in the very concept of what should be taught.

If you look at the first page that comes up on that site, you will see an article by Ron Rudin on planning and goals for the department. It is exactly what I disliked about the way universities see their role.

Mary did not agree with me; so it was kind of her to write as she did. I rather doubt that Ron Rudin would have been so kind.

graeme

Posted on: 10/20/2012 20:48

A hundred dollars for Our Glorious Century? Mein Gott! I was given a half dozen of them. Have no idea where they are now.

Actually, I didn't write it. My contract was to take an American "Our Glorious Century", and to rewrite it changing twenty percent of it to make it into a Canadian/American "Our Glorious Century". that meant taking out some chapters, writing some new ones, and re-writing some to see some events from a general, North American perspective.

RD used to pay very well. And it had far the best editors I have ever seen. (Alas! it now has greatly cut its budget. Pay is lower, and editing rather less impressive.)

At the time i wrote it, I asked how many they expected to sell, they told me 60,000. Their research was then superb, too. The sales actually came to some 64,000.

But nothing would induce me to pay a hundred dollars for it.

In reply to an earlier question of how our lives and attitudes are shaped at a very early age, I have posted below this the prologue of the authobiography I am writing for me children.

Read it only if you have special interest in early childhood, or are one of my children.

graeme

Posted on: 10/20/2012 20:46

Prologue

In the beginning, there was the Dick and Jane Reader, authorized by the

Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal as the official text for

grade one . The first page was a big picture of a neat, white bungalow

with a big, green lawn. The bungalow had steps with two railings, and a

clean path to the sidewalk where a boy stood, smiling. He was very clean

and neat, too. At the bottom of the page, it said: “See Dick.”

The next page had a picture of Dick running. The words at the bottom

said, “See Dick run.”

Building on that theme, the next page said, “Run, Dick, Run.”

Then there was another picture, this time with a neat, clean girl in

front of the neat, clean bungalow. The word at the bottom was, “Jane.”

Then the next picture showed Jane running ; and at the bottom it

said----well, you get the drift. Jane's appearance on stage

was followed by that of Spot, their neat, clean dog. He or she (the

illustration was unclear on this point) was a runner, too.

It was all fiction; and doubly so for us kids in grade one of Crystal

Springs School, a four-room brick schoolhouse in the Villeray District

of Montreal's North End. We knew it was fiction because none of us had

ever seen a neat, white bungalow – or a lawn. Nor had we ever seen a

Dick or a Jane each dressed in clean clothes that fit, and each with his

or her very own room in the neat, white bungalow.

Most of us lived in tiny flats on the second storeys of masses of brick

that stretched without a break on every side as far as our world

reached. Each pair of these second storey flats had a balcony with a steel

staircase that started out the end of the balcony, then curved out to the street.

The ground level flats were for people better off than us because there was

only one flat downstairs for two upstairs. In our case, the landlord

lived downstairs. With twelve dollars coming in from us every month, he

could afford more handsome quarters than we could..

Each upstairs flat had two rooms. The front room was my bedroom. It was

also my parent's bedroom. And it was the living room for guests, who sat

on the couch – which was my bed.

The back room was the kitchen with its coal stove for heat and cooking,

and a small kitchen table that visitors sat around in winter. (The front

room was too cold for visitors in winter, so cold that my windowsill did

the duty of the fridge we didn't have. Many of our neighbours had ice boxes which were refilled with blocks of ice delivered by horse-drawn wagons.)

The kitchen was also the radio room. That made it important because

radio ruled. The whole family would sit for hours to hear Bob Hope and

Bing Crosby and The Shadow. The favourite chair in the room was a

stuffed one that could lean back a bit. It was also my sister's

(Winnifred's) bed.

There was no hot water. There was a tank for it. But lighting the gas

jet under the tank was out of the question because that could run up a

bill of ten cents or even more. That sort of money was reserved for more

tangible luxuries. You could get six chocolate marshmallow biscuits at

the corner store for ten cents. (My mother, for some reason best known

to herself, would always take just one bite out of the first biscuit,

then gently put it back in the bag with the others. My father would

happily eat all six.)

The water situation eased up in winter because that was when we had the

coal stove in the kitchen going. On Saturday bath night, my mother would

put a tub of water on the stove. Then, all four feet ten of her would

stagger with a tubful of boiling water to dump it in the tub. There,

once I mixed in an equal amount of cold water, I could lie back and soak

in some lukewarm water that almost went up to my ankles.

But the stove-heated water was only for the coldest of months. Most of the year, Winnifred and I would get into our bathing suits on bath night, and

splash in the cold water pretending we were at the beach.

In winter, the stove was allowed to go out every day right after supper.

To the end of their days, my parents turned off the heat at night, even

on the coldest nights, often opening the windows wide. When I was away

at Acadia University, I went home one Christmas, and stayed with them. I

woke up at two in the morning, the cold driving right through the bone.

My parents had, of course, turned off the heat after supper. Then my father,

always the last one to go to bed, got the idea I must find my bedroom stuffy (This would have been about one a.m. - when I was sleeping the sleep of the virtuous.) So he had opened my window to the 40 below zero night.

My mother, nee Jessie Miller, was a Scot born at Kilmarnock, though the

family originated farther north as generations of farm servants near a highland village called Taynault. She was a twin sister to Margaret, and one of six children (including Daniel, John, Dolly and Tilda) to be crammed into

the tight budget of Daniel Miller, a tailor. (Daniel's name at his

christening was Donald; but changing names was a common and casual matter in the highlands.)

Soon after my mother was born, the family moved to London where,

according to a family tale that seems to be true, her father made the

coronation robe for King George V. The less often told part of the tale

is that uncle Johnny stole and sold some of the gold trim.

Daniel Miller's wife was , my grandmother, was a woman whose face, body, and personality had echoes of the most prominent genetic traits of pit bulls. She had been a dressmaker and, presumably, had met Donald Miller through her work. About 1910, the family somehow scraped together the money to migrate to Canada. My grandfather went a year early, then sent for the rest.

They settled at Montreal because that was where the ship stopped. A

flat, much like the one I grew up in, was found in the east end of the

city. From there, Daniel Miller walked to work six days a week. On

Sundays, he walked rather further to Montreal's Chinatown, where he was

a lay preacher at a mission. (At five cents each way, tram fare was out

of the question.)

Then, in the great flu epidemic of 1917, Daniel Miller, the illegitimate

son of a farm servant, born and raised in a highland but and ben

(two-roomed cottage), died. His widow immediately took all the children

out of school, and sent them to work. My mother, 12 at the time, went to

a big house in the expensive enclave of Westmount. Every cent she earned

for the next dozen years and more would go to her mother.

She later became a telephone receptionist, and then a stenographer. For

the rest of her life, she rarely mentioned anything about her years

before she met my father. And she never said a word at all about the

servant years. But she never forgot them.

When my sister, Winnifred, was offered a summer job looking after a family's child at their country cottage, my mother was humiliated and angry. “ No. That tells you what they think of us. They think we're the class that has to go into service.”

My father was one of five boys – Irvin, Malcolm (my father), Alex, Alan, and Youbert. Their father, Alec, had a small, incinerator business based on an invention by his father. “The shop” as we called it, was a sheet metal faced building that stood at the back of a yard filled with rusting, scrap iron. My father was to live almost half of his life within a twenty-minute walk of the shop.

My grandfather always seemed to do well, enough so that he had a car when cars were still a luxury. My grandmother always had a full time household

servant. Their home was just a short distance from ours and, though

bigger than ours, was still decidedly working class. They could have

afforded more. I don't know why they didn't.

My grandfather cared only about two people – his wife and himself. The boys were no more than cheap labour for “the shop”, and never would be more. Irvin and Alec realized that early, and struck off on their own. For the rest of their lives, they visited their parents, at most, once a year. Their children visited even less often.

Allan recognized what his father was. But he stayed with him, anyway – to look after the office, and to siphon money into his own pocket. (He was the first of the sons to have his own house and a car.)

My father was the only one who remained loyal to his father. I have no idea why. It cost him heavily; and he got neither reward nor thanks for it. Worse, my grandfather tried to stop my parents' marriage – not because he gave a damn about it but because his wife loathed my mother, and would spend the rest of her life gossiping about her. She encouraged my sister and I to visit her often, probably because it was her way of slighting my mother.

My parents married at the tiny, mission church of Crystal Springs United in August of 1932 when my father, in a good week, made three to five dollars. On the night of August 26, 1933, my mother felt the coming of labour. My father walked to his parents' house to ask for a drive to the hospital. His father refused.

My parents set out for the walk to the streetcar line on St; Denis, and

then the long ride to Pine Ave, and the walk up the steep hill to Royal Victoria Hospital. There, on August 27, I was born. I was, of course, promptly diapered by a nurse. Years later, I learned that was the only diaper I ever had. When the doctor presented his bill, my father just shrugged his shoulders, and said, “I don't have a cent.” Nor did he.

Business was slow, so my father's salary had been cut to three dollars a week. He had being doing odd jobs of manual labour for the city, like shovelling snow to (just) get by. Meanwhile, my grandparents still drove a car, and kept a maid.

I was told that my father used to walk two miles to a charity depot

every day to get free milk for me. But it wasn't enough. I was once

taken to emergency, suffering from malnutrition. But, of course, I

remember none of that.

Of my infancy, all I remember is being held by someone outdoors, and myfather coming toward us, his face and eyes lit up by a smile. In the background was a streetcar. My mother would later identify that as our Boyer Street home. I also have a vague memory of my carriage/crib, an elderly vehicle made of woven reeds. I remember peeking into it to see my baby sister when I was three.

Continuous memory began to form when I was about four, when we were living on de Gaspe. (We moved frequently, and always within the same district. I have no idea why. But I do remember, from age 6, my father and I carrying all the family possessions along the street. Luckily, there were few to carry.)

I remember a woman who had only two fingers on her hand giving me a banana. It was the most wonderful thing I had ever seen or tasted. To this day, a banana has special appeal for me.

I remember playing on the street, unsupervised, by the age of four. It

wasn't as risky as it sounds because there were very few cars in our

district. Bread and milk were still delivered in horse-drawn wagons. So was coal, and ice for the rich people who had ice-boxes. The garbage wagons were horse-drawn, great, square boxes, each on two, huge, wooden wheels. And the cry of the rag and scrap man was a daily sound as his wagon rolled down the alley.

My first friend, Stanley Short, lived just a few doors away. I once had supper at his house. We sat at a tiny, child table, and each had half a chocolate marshmallow biscuit for desert.

One summer day, Stanley and I were playing cowboys in the vacant lot across the street. As I raised my finger and shouted “tow, tow” (the French style of “pow, pow”), a pair of fingers gripped my ear, and hauled it, followed by me, across the road and up the stairs.

My mother, though attending the moderate, United Church, still carried in her veins the blood of the Calvinists that were her highland ancestors. Playing cowboys on Sunday was forbidden; so I was hauled, still walking backwards, all the way to the kitchen where the strap hung.

But I had an ace in the hole. I had already had enough instruction in

the rules of Presbyterianism to know that God decided long in advance what we would do. It wasn't up up to us. We were predestined to do whatever we did. And, as I remembered that, I opened the case for the defence.

“I couldn't help it. God predestined me to play cowboys today.”

The grip on my ear relaxed a little. My mother loved a religious

discussion. I felt a rush of joy as the flow of blood to my ear was

somewhat restored.

“You're right,” she said. “you're absolutely right.”

Then the flow of blood abruptly cut off as she added, “And God

predestined me to strap you for it.”

By the time I was five, my sister was close to three, and she was playing on the street, too. I remember that well because my mother always warned us never to accept anything from strangers on the street. One day, when my sister was playing well down the block, a grocery boy on a bicycle offered her an apple. I grabbed her hand, and pulled her away.

A few months before my sixth birthday, we moved again, this time to a flat beside a coal yard on Berri St. This one was first floor – but only half of the first floor. It had a dank, earth-floored basement that scared me. One night, I dreamed I was going to the basement. A giant rat stood at the basement door, wearing a red uniform with brass buttons. I tried to ingratiate myself with him by telling him how nice he looked.

It was in September of that year that I started school in grade one at

Crystal Springs.School. On day one, I was dressed up in my best clothes. They were not new. New clothes or new anythings were a rarity in our home. But they were washed, And they fit. Mostly.

My mother walked me to the corner where we turned right, and turned again at St. Gerard to a short street called Mistral (less than a year later, we would move to St. Gerard St). Then it was a left for a couple of streets along Mistral to a wire fence surrounding a play area with a low, brick building in the centre. My mother told me to remember the way because I would be on my own from that morning on.

I lined up with the other kids at the door to the green porch that led

to grade one. I took the last seat in the last row. Miss Flower, the

teacher, called for me to come forward, and sit in the seat in front of

her desk. As I walked forward, Stanley Short hissed, “Teacher's pet.”

But it didn't bother me. I didn't know what it meant.

(Many, many years later, I would meet Miss Flower at the hand-shaking lineup after I had led the service at a church. She told me she had asked me to sit in front because I seemed such an innocent chipmunk in a rough class that she wanted to protect me.

It was in grade one that I met Carol Roberts and Esther Jones, the first loves of my life. Esther became a phys ed teacher. Carol, last I heard, became a hooker.

I also met George Root, my best friend for the next seven years or so. He became a railway policeman.

That's also where I also met Dick and Jane. And Spot.

But they weren't real. They were in a book. That's why their clothes

looked so new and tidy. That's why they had that nice, little house with a lawn. It never even occurred to us to wonder whether they used newspapers instead of toilet paper, or salt instead of toothpaste. Why would it? They were just story people who never had to use a toilet or brush their teeth.

I did well in grade one, then looked forward to a great thrill. A member of our church had a shack way out in the country in St. Rose near Rivieres des Prairies (about 15 kilometres from home) where there was a free beach. We could rent a shack, improbably called Killarney Cottage, really cheap for a week with outhouse, water barrel and furniture and everything all included..

I loved it. There was a wooden dance hall built on piles right on the

beach. And at night, they sometimes showed cartoon movies on a big

bedsheet hanging from a line.

It was early in the week when, walking back to Killarney Cottage from the beach, I passed a wire fence that surrounded a big, neat lawn with a nice, white house. I recognized it right away. But this time it was different. There were real children playing on the lawn. I went closer, gripping the wire to stare through at the children. Their clothes were neat, so neat they looked new. And they looked healthy, just like Dick and Jane.

I don't know how long I stared at them. They even had their very own swings and a slide. I knew I couldn't ask to play with them. I just stared. Then, at last, I turned back to the path.

It was still a story book world. I couldn't be a part of a storybook

world. I sensed, even then and with only a slight regret, that I would

never play with Dick and Jane. Not ever.

But that moment is what this autobiography is all about. My whole life would be formed by chance meetings with Dicks and Janes and Spots, each set of them more alien than the one before. At each step, I learned of new horizons to life, wider possibilities, new values, new attitudes. And, with a lot of luck, it all worked out to a fuller life than I could have imagined.

But, like that day I stood clutching the fence and looking on, I always knew I could never become one of them. Nor, as I would also learn, did I want to.

stardust

Posted on: 10/21/2012 01:53

graeme.....!!!!!!

That's a wonderful story. I grew up in the 40's so I can sort of identify with it except I lived on a farm in a big country house in N.S.

Dick and Jane...oh man....you're making me laugh . I recall them but I think perhaps my daughter was reading this book in the 70's before it was phased out. Its made a come back with a series of 12 now. I also recall "Chicken Jane". There were some Dick and Jane pocket books on Amazon for one cent each. That seems crazy!

Dick and Jane

Dick and Jane special books to $6,000.

Yiddish with Dick and Jane....!!!

Chicken Jane

graeme

Posted on: 10/21/2012 09:09

I must immediately send the Yiddish Dick and Jane to some Jewish friends.

stardust

Posted on: 10/21/2012 11:45

Yes...!!!..isn't the Yiddish one cool?

There are/were 261 viewers or lurkers here to see you on You Tube, a few posting replies. On your own thread that you post if you click "discussions just above log out" you can see how many people are reading your particular thread. Did you know that ? It used to be available to us on the screen.

Here's more on the Readers Digest book for sale. There seems to be a big interest in it and many more ads in the U.S. for it.

Another one:

http://www.twicesoldtales.ca/?page=shop/browse&fsb=1&searchby=author&key...

Lots of copies for sale:

http://www.biblio.com/books/109456795.html http://www.bookman.ca/index.cfm?method=products.productDrilldown&product... Our Glorious Century Graeme Decarie 0-88850-525-6 The Reader's Digest Assocation Inc. 1996 $5.00 Boer War

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:B7GzhODIfF4J:khpi.m... [010111] Decarie, Graeme.

Our Glorious Century. Montreal: Reader's Digest, 1996. First Printing.

4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall. Hard Cover. As New Condition. / Fine. ISBN: 0-88850-525-6. 512 pages $30.00

http://www.paska.com/authors-d.htm

stardust

Posted on: 10/21/2012 11:58

Since I'm a better internet sleuth than you are I'll post these so you may better realize your immortality along with your current blogs. You'll be on the net forever and ever, immortal.....there are more articles I haven't posted.

Synopsis:

A richly illustrated, informative chronicle of twentieth-century history encompasses the major events and personalities that have shaped human life, covering such topics as sports, medicine, politics, science, entertainment, and everyday life. 35,000 first printing.

http://www.abebooks.com/book-search/author/editors-of-reader%27s-digest-...

The Ottawa Alumni Chapter is delighted to present Concordia history professor Graeme Decarie, S BA 60, as the distinguished guest speaker at this year’s Ottawa Chapter Year-End Dinner, Tuesday, May 9, 2006, 5:30 p.m., at the Empire Grill, 47 Clarence St.

After graduating from Sir George Williams University, Professor Decarie attended teacher’s college and went on to teach history and English at the elementary and high school levels for six years. He subsequently obtained his MA from Acadia University in Nova Scotia and his PhD from Queen’s University. He then headed east for a teaching stint at the University of Prince Edward Island. Since 1971, Professor Decarie has taught history at Concordia.

He has been a CBC and CJAD radio commentator and has written short stories and columns for numerous publications including the Gazette, Reader’s Digest and the West Island Chronicle. Join us and experience a fabulous Montreal-style evening with Professor Graeme Decarie.

http://magazine.concordia.ca/2006/march/associationnews/

I recently read a Reader’s Digest article (March 2010 edition) written by Graeme Decarie, a 40-year veteran teacher of history at Concordia University, about the scam occurring at universities.

Can you say "ripped off"? A career teacher explains how students pay through the nose to support professors' academic research - and are poorly educated in return.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/154096731?versionId=168005124

stardust

Posted on: 10/21/2012 13:10

graeme

You say you quit high school before graduation. As a matter of curiosity who came into your life that convinced you to return to school and then continue on to university? That was quite a leap you took and you did very well.

graeme

Posted on: 10/21/2012 15:31

It was pure luck. I was painfully bored working at Bell Tel. My father had decided to move from our old district because it was just "a bunch of low class bums" and he wanted me to meet "a higher class of bum."

So we moved to a new church where I met kids (at Young People's Union) for whom going to university was just a natural thing to do. I couldn't register as a university student, of course. But at the YMCA's Sir George Williams College, I could audit courses at night. (Auditing meant I could not write the exam or get credit for it.)

I wrote the exam, anyway. Nobody noticed. Then I was sent a final grade and - too much - a form to register for the next term. They had simply assumed I was a regular student.

Another lucky break - I had been doing a bit of volunteer youth group work for the Y. And the U offfered me a fellowship for study to become a YMCA social group worker. It was $60 a month, and all I had to do was to work 24 hours a month for the Y.

Turned out I loved it, and worked so much I missed a lot of classes and never studied. My average was so low, they wouldn't give me a major in History. (When, some years later, I was hired to teach history at Sir George (now Concordia), the chairman mentioned my name to my former teacher. He shook his head in wonder, saying, "I never thought he had any brains at all."

True enough. But I've had a life of lucky breaks.

graeme

Posted on: 10/21/2012 16:31

Oh, I knew one of your entries had me puzzled. I never wrote a book called Notman's Montreal. It was a TV-length film for NFB, and my role was to do the voice-over. Even at that, it wasn't written. I just sat in a studio watching the film and, as it rolled, made up things that I spoke into the sound track.

stardust

Posted on: 10/21/2012 22:33

Lucky breaks,,,,?......I'm convinced.....you went over the top...so funny....!

InannaWhimsey

Posted on: 03/21/2013 20:04

Are the oilsands not enough for you?

Well, get ready for methane hydrate extraction!

(Fossil fuels, eat humanity's exhaust...yer old skool)

The innovation never stops!

InannaWhimsey

Posted on: 03/22/2013 07:36

Graeme could also hook up with this guy

It'd be a good dialogue, I think :3

graeme

Posted on: 03/22/2013 19:43

This is part of largely ignored assault by big business on democracy. It's more obvious in a small province like NB> They own the government, whether Liberal or Conservative. They see themselves as having a right to be in any government, without needing to get elected. This sort of "partnership" is quite properly called fascism.

The trouble with big business is that is is shortsighted. All that counts is the profit every three months Thus its refusal to face the realities of fossil fuel use. It also lacks all the basic skills of organizing a society. In short, it's incompetent for the roles it has taken on - thus the disastrous wars of the Bush-Obama era.

We're now at the point at which the nation isn't needed much for business purposes - except, of course, milking taxpayers and fighting wars. Much of what is called globalization is the breaking down of nations so that business can do what it likes - and that includes breaking down the home nation. I suspect, for example, that Harper would much prefer being a part of the US and, indeed, much of his legislation points in that direction.

graeme

Posted on: 03/22/2013 19:43

This is part of largely ignored assault by big business on democracy. It's more obvious in a small province like NB> They own the government, whether Liberal or Conservative. They see themselves as having a right to be in any government, without needing to get elected. This sort of "partnership" is quite properly called fascism.

The trouble with big business is that is is shortsighted. All that counts is the profit every three months Thus its refusal to face the realities of fossil fuel use. It also lacks all the basic skills of organizing a society. In short, it's incompetent for the roles it has taken on - thus the disastrous wars of the Bush-Obama era.

We're now at the point at which the nation isn't needed much for business purposes - except, of course, milking taxpayers and fighting wars. Much of what is called globalization is the breaking down of nations so that business can do what it likes - and that includes breaking down the home nation. I suspect, for example, that Harper would much prefer being a part of the US and, indeed, much of his legislation points in that direction.

InannaWhimsey

Posted on: 03/22/2013 20:14

well, if we all are truly one people -- global agape..

what is the purpose of a country? why have them? why were they created?

are they dens of various -isms? encouragers of prejudice, bigotry, nationalism?

were they created as a stable employee pool for the Rulers of the Word? (B. Fuller)

are they living entities?

graeme

Posted on: 03/22/2013 20:29

nations were founded largely to provide wealth for those with power in them. A whole world devoted to that same purpose is not a good idea. If we ever develop to a point at which we can operate a world government, then fine. But until then our only means of government is the nation state - for all its admitted faults and misuses.. What big business is looking at is the freedom to do whatever it wishes anywhere in the world - as Chinese big business, for example, will soon be free to pollute as it likes in exploiting Canadian resources.

graeme

Posted on: 03/22/2013 20:29

nations were founded largely to provide wealth for those with power in them. A whole world devoted to that same purpose is not a good idea. If we ever develop to a point at which we can operate a world government, then fine. But until then our only means of government is the nation state - for all its admitted faults and misuses.. What big business is looking at is the freedom to do whatever it wishes anywhere in the world - as Chinese big business, for example, will soon be free to pollute as it likes in exploiting Canadian resources.

graeme

Posted on: 03/22/2013 20:29

nations were founded largely to provide wealth for those with power in them. A whole world devoted to that same purpose is not a good idea. If we ever develop to a point at which we can operate a world government, then fine. But until then our only means of government is the nation state - for all its admitted faults and misuses.. What big business is looking at is the freedom to do whatever it wishes anywhere in the world - as Chinese big business, for example, will soon be free to pollute as it likes in exploiting Canadian resources.

Pilgrims Progress

Posted on: 03/23/2013 16:46

I came along a little later than you Graeme - but I vividly recall my first reader here in Oz.

Instead of Dick and Jane we had Fay and Don (more Aussie sounding?)

I couldn't read at the time - so had to memorise. Trouble is, I can't rid myself of the words all these years later.......

"This is Don. Don is a boy. He can run.

This is Fay. Fay is a girl. She can skip."

I remember being somewhat puzzled at the time - thinking that I liked to both skip and run - why was I expected to just skip?

Enjoyed reading about your early childhood, especially the comment about most things that matter happen before fourteen.......

Here's something you may like to include.

A psychiatrist once asked me to recall my earliest memory - as it said a lot about the person you would become. His reasoning was that of all the images and events that happened, you had unconsciously chosen one to remember because it was important to your sense of self.....

With hindsight, I can now see that my first memory (around three years old) does indeed say a lot about me.

Soooo, can you recall your first memory, Graeme, and does it still define you?

graeme

Posted on: 03/23/2013 19:12

Wow! I never thought of that. I do remember it. A psycholgist prof assured me it was not possible for me to remember something of such an early age (about 2, possibly 3). But I have a clear memory of it. I once checked the setting and the incident with my mother. She said I was dead on about the scene.

It was summer. Someone, I presume my mother, was holding me up. We were outside at ground level. (It seems we were living in a ground floor flat at the time.) I was staring across the field, and could see an electric tram perhaps a hundred yards away.

Coming through the field toward me was my father, his face flushed and with a huge smile of great joy. I even remember how strong and athletic he looked, even in his work clothes. (He had been a noted athlete.)

What effect has that memory had on me? I don't know. Warmth. Happiness. Love. All of those i remember. I know the effect that looking through a fence at those Dick and Jane children a few years later made me something of an outsider all my life - and I regret that not at all.

But, you're right. I should think more about that earlier memory. I think it gave me a strength of some sort - but I need to think about that.

Pilgrims Progress

Posted on: 03/24/2013 00:11

Graeme, one thing you're good at is thinking about things.

Warmth. Happiness. Love.

An excellent first memory.........

My brother had four sisters - and was always trying to get us out in the backyard to play cricket. - but we girls preferred to lay on our beds reading Enid Blyton.

But he had one trump card to play. "Dad said he'd play".

You've never seen four girls get off their beds and out into the yard so fast......

(Somehow it wasn't the same if Mum offered to play with us.)

jlin

Posted on: 03/24/2013 00:54

Thanks for speaking out Graeme. Yayyyyyyy!!!!!

graeme

Posted on: 03/26/2013 16:33

And there was that terrible first time I met a Catholic girl. My district was 99% Catholic. But we Protestants managed to live in righteous separation from them. I was about 13, and walking down a street that passed the English Catholic school, Holy Family. She was standing at a pole holding a tin can with a slot in it. There was also a picture on it, of a big crucifix. Being quick-witted, I figured she was a Catholic.

But, oh my, she was pretty.

I must have paused or something as I reached her because she held out the can.

That brought me to a dazed halt. Here was a really, really pretty girl - and something had happened between us, a kind of communication. I couldn't think of anything to say. She said nothing. She just held the can out. She smiled.

Unconcious of what I was doing, I reached into my pocket for the only money I had - a dime - and then I reached out to drop it in the can. She smiled again. Confused, I stepped back, then turned and walked away, my heart in turmoil.

It was my introduction to the rest of my life.