test blog #10

I was watching MASH when Netflix pulled the plug on our VPN. I found a new VPN... but now MASH is gone. One day I hope to finish the end-to-end rewatch. But right then, my comedy-before-bed slot was left hanging. I tried "How I Met Your Mother," and I was very happily surprised. I have not watched or read ahead, so please do not even allude to the ending. I understand many fans hated it, ok? No need to fill me in. How I love "How I Met Your Mother". 1. Smart, character-driven comedy. Not easy to find. 2. Great female characters. Generally non-sexist, even anti-sexist. 3. Around Season 5, I thought the show was going off the rails, as Barney's character became more outrageous and non-believable -- usually a sure sign that a show is struggling. Then I was very surprised and happy that it found a new groove. 4. Most good comedies have at least a little pathos mixed in, and this show was brave enough to go there. Revealing the pain behind Barney's bravado was a...

Visibly anxious and upset customer: Can you please help me? Something is wrong with this computer! I go over to take a look. The public computer is still starting up, and Internet Explorer (sadly, the default browser) is slowly opening. Me (pointing to the Chrome icon on the taskbar): Let's try this browser instead. You'll find it's better than Internet Explorer. Visibly anxious customer: No! I can't! I have to use the internet! Me: I understand. This is also the internet. It's a different browser - a different tool for accessing the internet. Most people find it works better. I help her open Chrome, and show her where to start, and return to the information desk. A few minutes later... VAC: I can't use this computer! It's broken! I can't use this computer! Me: All right, you're free to use any available computer. Why don't you log in to this one? I stick around while she gets started, then return to the information desk. Fortunately, she is only...

The world lost two great fighters for peace and justice this past week. Daniel Berrigan was a lifelong peace activist, a man who was ready and willing to put his body and soul on the line. He was a writer, a thinker, a pacifist, an idealist, a pragmatist, and a priest. Berrigan was also a leader, someone who, early on, helped make visible the connections between racism, poverty, war, and capitalism. He became a leading figure in the peace movement during the Vietnam War. Naturally, he was on the FBI's "most wanted" list and served time in prison. Later in his life, Berrigan founded the Plowshares Movement , which used daring acts of civil disobedience to draw a spotlight on the US's nuclear arsenal. Here are two pieces from The New Yorker  celebrating Berrigan. James Carroll remembers his "dangerous friend". Eric Schlosser remembers how "a handful of a handful of pacifists and nuns exposed the vulnerability of America’s nuclear-weapons sites": Bre...

Tala is doing great! Of course she was exhausted and a bit wobbly when she came home, but now she's well rested and back to herself. And she looks a whole lot better without a disgusting, oozing tumour sticking out of her side! More importantly, there's a 75% chance the cancer won't come back. Look how thick her fur is! The doc said this will take a long time to grow back. She doesn't need the Cone of Silence* this time, but the surgeon recommended she wear a t-shirt to keep protect the incision site. Tala accepts it with grace. *  I much prefer the vintage TV reference to the what most people seem to call it, the Cone of Shame. The surgery clinic calls it an E-collar, which makes me think both of some sort of digital device, and of E. coli.

Short version: Tala has had surgery and has a very good chance of remaining cancer-free. Whoo-hoo! It's been a crazy couple of days. Monday afternoon we hear the biopsy results. Tuesday morning we have X-rays done. Our vet recommends a top surgeon who is in the area. She has a cancellation, that very afternoon! I cancel plans at work, and we rush over. The surgeon is amazing, explaining everything clearly and in great detail. Tala has already been fasted for the X-rays, so even though the surgeon still has another emergency to take care of, she's going to work on Tala that day anyway. The staff at this clinic couldn't be nicer, calling us with updates, assuring us we can call at any time, even sending us photos of Tala in recovery! I work Tuesday nights, and by 7:00 Allan has called to say the surgery is over and Tala is recuperating nicely. The doctor said it turned out to be not as extensive as she had thought, based on the external tumour. Statistically, there's a 75...

Tala has cancer. As it happened with Cody , we found a lump. First I was sure it was a cyst, then I was hoping it was a cyst, now I'm just hoping it's not an iceberg.  There's a big ugly tumoury thing sticking out, but this type of sarcoma is known to have internal tentacles. We're having x-rays done today to see if the cancer has spread to any organs, then - we hope - surgery as soon as possible. Cody's cancer turned out to be highly operable and likely not metastasized, and we were thrilled to celebrate  one more Cody Day . But it did turn out to be her final year. Tala Day is in late January. Will she be with us in January 2017?  The answer to that, of course, is we don't know.  And the answer to that is we never know. We don't know about Tala and we never know about any of us. I feel that we never know  every day. I'm not trying to be maudlin or melodramatic; it's just a fact. I feel my own mortality, and that of everyone I love, every single da...

#7: Hold a logo contest! Trying to increase member engagement in your union? Here are some ideas that work. 1. Always make time for your members' concerns. This is number one through infinity. If you don't make time for your members’ concerns - if your members don't know that you're fighting for them - everything else you do is a waste of time. I made a pledge to myself and to our members: I will never  say, "I don't have time for you," or "Your concern is not a priority for us." I often cannot fix the member's problem. But I can empathize. I can affirm and validate. I can let them know they're not alone, that someone is fighting for them. 2. Identify allies. Find one or two members who will conspire with you, and work with them. They may be of totally different backgrounds and have completely different perspectives than you. That's good! Come together over your shared concerns. Sit down for a coffee or a pint, talk about steps you ca...

No one knows exactly how many US soldiers deserted from the Vietnam War, nor how many young men resisted conscription by going either to jail or to another country. The most conservative account puts the number at about 50,000, the highest at about double that. The majority of those went to Canada, where - after a people's movement organized to support them - they were allowed to live and eventually become citizens. Because of this, resistance to the war in Southeast Asia is part of American and Canadian history, no matter who tells the story. Resistance to other US wars, however, is mentioned less frequently, if at all. There was massive resistance to conscription to (what was then known as) the Great War or the War in Europe. Ireland and Quebec went into full-scale rebellion , and thousands in both Britain and the US spent time in jail after they refused to fight. I'm somewhat familiar with this history through my ongoing exploration of World War I from a progressive and peac...

A while back, I blogged about weeding , every library's not-so-dirty little not-so-secret. Daniel Gross, writing in The New Yorker , looks at weeding, too - from a library-users' revolt in Berkeley, California to the hilarious Awful Library Books blog: Weeding the Worst Library Books . It's a sweet story about a necessary evil that is really a very positive - although painful - practice. What I want to know is how did the Berkeley public know about the weeding? Why was it even announced? I can guarantee the Mississauga public doesn't know about ours. In any case, it's a really nice piece: Weeding the Worst Library Books by Daniel Gross.

I recently had the pleasure of reading an advance reading copy of Every Exquisite Thing  by Matthew Quick. Quick - a/k/a Q - is the author of The Silver Linings Playbook , which I have not read, but now will. Every Exquisite Thing  combines a few stock elements of youth fiction into something heartfelt, authentic, and compelling. I caught a little bit of Eleanor & Park and a little bit of The Fault in Our Stars  poking through, but none of that stopped me from enjoying the book. Nanette O'Hare is a high-achieving student athlete whose future is all laid out for her to follow. An iconoclastic teacher gives Nanette a copy of a cult novel - echoes of The Catcher in the Rye are obvious - and suddenly she views her privileged life in a new way. The teacher goes even farther, setting up Nanette with another young person to whom he's given the same book, this one a misfit poet with some dangerous tendencies. Nanette needs to rebel, and she's fallen in love with a rebel. Bu...

This is The Proclamation. The Proclamation was read by Padraig (Patrick) Pearse outside the General Post Office in Dublin on April 24, 1916. This marked the beginning of the Easter Rising. Rather less dramatically, a copy of the Proclamation has hung on my office wall since our trip to Ireland in 2001. It has lived large and present in my revolutionary heart since the early days of my fascination with Irish history. Last week I had the pleasure of hearing the entire Proclamation read out loud by Toronto labour activist Mike Seaward. It was nothing short of thrilling to hear these stirring words ring out - words to live by. For the men who wrote them, they were words to die by. The reading of the Proclamation kicked off the 2016 Marxism conference special event, commemorating 100 years since the Easter Rising, almost to the day. This was followed by Canadian labour leader and activist Sid Ryan, spinning out Irish history in sparkling prose and stunning detail, without a scrap of paper i...