no poetry, just politics

It's been a few weeks since my last politics post ... my apologies, I've been too busy following the election to actually write about the election. Plus I don't really have happy thoughts about the whole thing, so I have a hard time sitting down to write about unhappy things. Why I am unhappy you ask?

Well for one, Harper's dead eyes during the debate scared me. Secondly, I have a home phone number and so I get 3-5 nuisance polling calls a night. And finally, I am feeling unbelievably disenfranchised because despite the fact that I live in the 4th largest city in Canada, not one of the leaders has bothered to show up here yet. Not even Harper, and his riding is here.

I'm feeling particularly disheartened because despite the fact that I live in a riding that should be up for grabs, as it is an empty seat (former cabinet minister Jim Prentice has left politics - an exit that I'm pretty sure had something to do with the above-mentioned Harper dead eyes thing), but still, according to project democracy, some random woman named Michelle Rempel is going to win my riding with 54% of the vote. Not because she's fabulous mind you - according to a trusted source who was at a meet and greet with the candidates last night, she's actually quite the opposite. On her website she talks about lower taxes, fighting crime, and the coalition. There are three things wrong with those statements - Canada already has a low corporate tax regime, crime is on the decline, and there is no such thing as a coalition. And then today she was the only candidate not to show up at a debate at the U of C, even though she actually works at the U of C! According to her spokesperson, she declined because "her campaign team didn't like the moderator." Um, I don't like snow in April, but I still walked to work this morning! You can't always get what you want Michelle! I'm sure that attitude will serve you well in Parliament. All the best to you, but please know that while you might end up representing my riding, I will never call you my representative.

Okay enough with the sad ranting, on to better things that have come out of this election. Such as this awesome video and website. As someone who has multiple relatives from Cape Breton, I particularly enjoy the Rita McNeil reference. Embedding is has been disabled, so you'll just have to check it out on youtube or just go directly to shitharperdid.

it's folk music because it's for the folks ...

... a direct quote from Torquil Campbell of Stars, as they played the main stage of the Folk Fest on Thursday night. Love their music - elegant pop is what I call it and they were great. The Avett Brothers were up next and they were awesome too. As was the beer garden.

On Friday afternoon, we hit the side stage to see the workshop with Cooloolossh (Israel), Etran Finatwa (Niger) and Cat Empire (Australia). They all jammed - it was an awesome blend of hip hop, rock, ska, rap, jazz, etc. Everyone was up dancing - this is a pic that CG took as the whole audience got up to dance. Really a great great moment.

Friday night was fun too - until Glen Hansard had a bit of a meltdown and told the audience off when we weren't paying attention. Dude, you play quiet music and it's a festival. Chill the eff out!

One of the best things about the folk fest is the people watching. Sometimes it actually rivals the musical acts when it comes to entertainment. I put the "people" into 4 major categories:

• Dirty hippies (unwashed hair, smelling of incense and often wearing multiple layers of clothing, particularly on their lower half and very little on top)
• Young hipsters (skinny jeans, knit hats, wayfarers or aviators, and ironic floral prints)
• Normal folks (like myself, rolled up jeans, tank tops, whatever sunglasses look best, most often found in beer tent)
• Corporate types (more make-up than normal folks, designer handbags and wandering around like they took a wrong turn somewhere near Joey's.

Of course, this is not a perfect list and there are other sub-categories (dancing children and music snobs being two examples), but you get the point.

This is a good article about what makes the folk fest great. Can't wait 'til next year!

I'm a data geek and I'm enraged (and you should be too)

Allow me to interrupt these mindless musings to talk about something that is making me so unbelievably frustrated - the decision by the federal government to scrap the mandatory long form census. I cannot be nearly as articulate as some of my researching counterparts have been, see here and here and here but I really do have a bee in my bonnet if I can be so old fashioned about it.

The whole thing is about ideology trumping evidence. The government says they are doing away with the long form census because it is too invasive and they want to protect the privacy of Canadian citizens. They say that the government has no right to ask them how many bathrooms they have in their house. The thing is, the census doesn't ask them that. Also, in the past 2 census years (2001 and 2006) the privacy commissioner received exactly 3, yep 3, whole complaints from the general public. In fact after the last Census, when Stats Can did a public consultation about how to improve the census, not one person indicated that they should get rid of it. No one.

The census doesn't ask about bathrooms. It asks about ethnic origin. It asks about languages spoken. It asks about unpaid work in the home. It asks about transportation. These questions are vitally important for all levels of government when they provide services. The answers to the census questions allow government to decide where immigrant serving agencies, daycares, bus lines, roads, etc, should all be located. Now apparently Stephen Harper is just going to pull out his google map, put on his blindfold, spin around a few times, point his finger, and tell his trusty ministers where they should build things for whatever population lives there ... awesome.