may day, may day!

Today is a hard day for me to spend at work. Today is the day that I want to march with my comrades in the streets. Dance around a maypole or two. Burn the capitalist swine in effigy.

May day is a beautiful holiday that has sadly been allowed to dwindle.

Some people may claim it's because the class structure of our society has changed - perhaps, the working class is certainly not what it used to be and the majority, in Canada at least, tend to come under the heading of 'middle class,' an umbrella term designed to make us sound a little more affluent than we actually are.

On May Day, those of us not counted among the rich and powerful get to count our victories and commemorate our losses - victories and tragedies generally ignored by history texts and glossed over by more conservative ideologues. I like reflecting on the fact that at one time people were passionate about the politics that govern their lives, that ordinary individuals were able to express thier anger and frustration towards the abuses of the ruling classes and, through sacrifice and determination, improve thier circumstances.

But years of moderate success have lulled us into a state of inaction. In the third world and the cities of Europe the hardships have remained harder and the booms shorter-lived than those we have experienced in Canada. We've bought into the system and have seperated ourselves from our global compatriots: we've forgotten what we came from which is dangerous because if we misstep we may find ourselves there again.

I wish I could march in the May Day parades in Edmonton. I wish I could spend time with friends and comrades who, like me, think we need to remember this important part of our past.

Unfortunately I am faced with the reality that my present occupation makes taking a day off in solidarity risky - as an employee of the state, and one without a permanent contract at that, one needs to keep his or her nose clean. I have commitments to keep, and such is the trap that many of us have caught ourselves in.

And so my brothers and sisters, I wish you a happy May Day. Go outside; meet with your comrades and family; put your feet up and have a beer. Today we celebrate that we are the ones who still have to work for a living.

It's still essentially true that we have nothing to lose but our chains.

Workers of the world, unite!

In solidarity from Alberta's brush plain.

standard end of the month rant

I have a pretty strong interest in religion. I tend also to maintain an interest in education. From time to time the two do meet.

Recently the two have been meeting more than usual.

It seems that in the past few days, the topic of religion in education reared its ugly head in the legislature. There is a movement afoot to allow parents to pull their children out of classes in which material is being covered that they may not agree with. It looks as though this would translate to parents having the right to pull kids out of science classes in which evolution is discussed.

The government, of course, denies it. I wouldn't expect them to do any less. But when the time comes I'm pretty sure there will be a rash of students pulled from science classrooms across the province.

Which raises a couple of questions: i) what rights do parents have regarding what material their children are taught?; and ii) what place does religion have in the classroom?

From a practical standpoint, I can see this turning into a disaster for teachers. Will we now be required to send advance notice of all material to be covered in class to allow parents time to ponder its worthiness? Will classes no longer be able to contain a discussion component in case 'disagreeable' material comes up? Are we to be censored for everything said and done in our classroom?

I understand parents wanting their children to have values similar to their own. But isn't it the parents' job to transmit those values? In the end everyone has to live in the same world, will be faced with ideas they disagree with and will be forced to defend their own beliefs against them.

Which brings me to the second question: what place does religion have in the classroom? There are a lot of people who say it has no place - many of whom I share numerous political beliefs with. A classroom free of religion, they say, is a tolerant classroom; one in which all students are included.

I understand the position, but I can firmly say that that's a load of horse turds.

As an English teacher I've found that literature cannot be well understood outside the frame of religion. Nor can the history tied to so much of that literature. I cannot communicate ideas about French culture and history without a discussion of religion. Yet there are people who would challenge me because I dare to mention such things within the walls of a school.

The debate really gets ugly when we turn to the sciences - the argument between intelligent design/creation and evolution rages to this day in communities across Alberta. The majority of science teachers I know have found their peace by teaching evolution and devoting ten minutes to creation during the last class of the unit.

The reality of the situation is this: to a very great extent, students' opinions, prejudices, values and beliefs are already solidified long before they arrive in a classroom. A student who enters a classroom believing in creation is unlikely to leave it believing otherwise. Children's attitudes are shaped by the conditions in which they are raised - a child raised by parents who value independent thought and open-mindedness is more likely to demonstrate those traits than a child raised otherwise.

I don't mean to suggest that teachers and schools have no effect on students whatsoever - if I didn't think that schools could play a positive role in kids lives I wouldn't work in one - but to suggest that schools are the sole mean of communicating knowledge and ideas is naive. They are simply one of countless vehicles by which culture is communicated.

"But Stu," you cry, "you still haven't really addressed the idea of religion in schools!"

There you are right, dear reader, I haven't. But patience, for I shall do so now.

Schools cannot escape the realities of the context in which they exist. The outside world will always find its way into the classroom. As teachers we can encourage students to think critically about everything they know. No more, no less.

There can be no such thing as a truly secular school. We can remove all mention of religion from the curriculum, banish it from the science lab, exorcise it in the hallways but we cannot remove those ideas from teachers' or students' belief systems.

The world needs to accept that education is an organic process and cannot be totally bent to any one group's will. Compromise is a fact of life. Sometimes we have to grit our teeth and bare it.

And that, my friends, is where I leave you. Other rants need ranting, other subjects needs flogging and I intend on giving them their due.

Merry Thursday from the brush plain.

don't let the bastards get you down

Suddenly I pine for the days when the news only talked about taser use in Canada.

I find that the media has one particularly bad habit - they like to choose a topic and beat it until it can't move anymore.

For a long time it seemed as though the Canadian media couldn't get enough of the Robert Dziekanski case. Every other word out of newscasters' mouths seemed to be 'taser'.

Now we've switched to swine flu. Personally, I got more enjoyment out of the tales of police brutality.

I don't want to diminish the threat posed by a potential global pandemic - I don't want to stand here and say that this isn't the big one while major populations get wiped out.

But am I a defeatist to think that if this is the big one there's nothing we can do about it? That there are things we can fix in this world and things that we can't and this may fit into the 'can't' category?

I'll admit that I don't take this particular outbreak all that seriously. In my personal opinion, the world has been submitted to an awful lot of crap over the past few months (see global recession, major earthquakes, large scale flooding, etc.) but now we've gotten ourselves so worked up that we're convinced the sky is falling.

Quite frankly, this is no black death. Islands are not disappearing into the sea (yet). The rivers have not turned to blood. I have yet to see a single locust: frogs are also in short supply. I killed a couple of flies last night, but it was hardly a plague.

We seem to engage in a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth any time life gets a little uncomfortable. It strikes me as being a lot of wasted energy.

More than anything, tales of economic collapse and impending pandemic have turned into get-out-of-jail-free passes for governments of all levels. Important environmental initiatives are abandoned in the name of saving the economy. Civil liberties are suspended to battle a flu that may or may not (probably may not) cause widespread death.

Wasn't it Hermann Goring who said "All you have to tell them is that they're being attacked" in order to make people do the bidding of the leaders?

This time, apparently, the attacker is one we cannot see. But they assure us he's there.

Dear reader, fear not. Things are not as bad as we may hear. The world, although a scary place, is not falling apart around our ears.

There's a lot wrong with this country, society, world, but people have made it through worse.

That being said, I think I'll lay in a supply of guns and amo. Maybe some tinned food. Set up a perimeter around my house.

Just to be on the safe side.

Regards from Alberta's brush plain.

fish tale

I have always loved fishing. Never mind the fact that I rarely do it any more, but I'm very comfortable in that class of people who are more than willing to cancel everything and take off for a day of (in my case, normally unsuccessful) fishing.

When I turned thirteen I was given a fishing pole for my birthday. That pole made many trips with me on my bike to the local fish pond. To my undying shame it has only ever reeled in two fish.

I'm not sure why I've had no luck with the fish. Maybe it's because no one ever really showed me where the fish are at. Maybe I use bad bait. Maybe the fish can sense my desperation on shore.

Both of those fish were caught on the same day. It was the day after my grandpa Somerville's funeral. One of our neighbours, a stereotypical outdoorsman by the name of Wayne, stopped by and told me to get my pole - we were going fishing.

Wayne knew perfectly well that I never caught anything. He had watched me for years during those evenings and weekends that I spent trying to coax a fish onto my hook.

When Wayne picked me up I was just a little worried that my bad fishing ju-ju was going to transmit to him. In retrospect it probably did - Wayne usually caught his limit when he went to the fishing, whereas on this day - miracle or miracles - the fish decided to come to me.

Wayne passed away not too long after that. I have not caught a fish since. Life got busier, drought came and the water level at the pond dropped, and fishing moved further down the list of priorities.

I've decided that this summer that has to change. I've decided I want to learn to fly-fish. I fully expect it will be a disaster. Probably one resulting in me embedding a hook in my forehead. Probably one that will not result in me catching a single blessed thing.

I don't care though. So what if the fish feel safer with me around 'cause I scare off the real predators? I've got enough sense to realise that now is the time to take up something like that. I have the time and the desire, so why not?

Maybe someday I'll even catch a fish.

Until then. wish me luck. And keep the antiseptic on hand, just in case.

of grouse and men

There are days, I'll admit, when I miss the city. Sometimes a guy just needs to drink some good coffee or browse through a used book store. Luckily, those urges come few and far between. The rest of the time I feel pretty grateful that I live as far as you can get from civilization and still be in Central Alberta.

Last night I went for a walk. In and of itself this is not unusual: I go walking most days the weather permits, and fairly often when the weather doesn't permit as well.

People who drive everywhere miss an awful lot. The luxury of motorized travel seems somewhat less pleasant when you think about what you see when you're on foot. If you keep your eyes open, at least.

Over the years that I've wandered through the pastures around the family farm I've seen and found a lot of things: countless deer and moose antlers, porcupine quills, birds nests, strange bog plants, fossils, interesting rocks. Even now our house is filled with found objects, a situation not aided by the fact that my beautiful wife shares the same affliction as me.

With the warmer weather this past week I've been able to get out and about again. So far I found a woodpecker on her nest in a tree, watched a few porcupines wander around, tried my damndest to not trample a field of crocus, listened to the meadow larks - for the most experiences I've had before, but still enjoyable nonetheless.

Last night, though, was by far the highlight.

My whole life I've listened to grouse drumming out in the bush. They sound like small engines starting up far away. I've spent years trying to see the birds at work - damned camouflage makes them pretty hard to find, and me being not what you would call 'light-of-foot" means that every small animal within a quarter-mile is well aware of my progress through the bush. The presence of the panting Labrador doesn't help too much either.

Last night victory was mine. At first I thought that maybe my eyes just weren't focusing, but one far off branch looked markedly bird-shaped. I wouldn't have stuck around if the branch hadn't twitched. And then it danced and drummed its wings. And I consider myself pretty lucky to have been there.

There seem to be a lot of people around Alberta who claim to love the natural world but aren't prepared to do a thing to help it. Either people sit around and pretend the wild isn't there or they do their best to tame it. I suspect that the majority of people wouldn't have the patience to sit around and wait for a plain grey bird to drum its wings. Either way it does little to help the wild bits that we've got left.

I feel pretty lucky to live in the middle of nowhere. I just hope it's the same nowhere left for my kids and grandkids in the future.

Regards from the brush plain.

snooty book-judgers of the world, unite!

I have always been a reader. I cannot remember not being able to read, nor can I remember not wanting to read. I've always carted around books, magazines, newspapers, flyers to fill in those moments when I can sit down and relax.

There has only been one brief moment when I couldn't bring myself to read, and that moment filled in the three or four months immediately following my last university class just two springs ago. After four years of being forced to read education theory I couldn't stand the thought of a book - every attempt to sit down and read led to headaches and queasiness.

I'm happy to report that I got over it, and have been reading full tilt for the past year and a half. Generally three or four books at a time, and generally works of non-fiction.

I'm not a novel reader. Never have been. When I read I like to read political theory and history, which I suspect places me in the ranks of the ten most boring people on earth.


Just this morning I finished one: Canadians by Roy MacGregor. I highly recommend it.


Perhaps that was predictable: books about being Canadian naturally catch my attention, but more important was the book jacket - rustic looking with a stencilled maple leaf, simple sans-serif font. It had all the ingredients of a great read.


"But Stu," you ask, "How do you know?"


Because, dear reader, I judge books by their covers.

Yes, I know, I'm supposed to avoid that. But it works - because very often a good book seems to be worthy of a good cover. Take, for example, Margaret Atwood's The Tent, a collection of short stories with an amazing cover illustration. Or Secrets From the Vinyl Cafe by Stuart McLean. Or Louis Riel by Chester Brown. All of them have great covers and what you find between them is worthy.

There are, of course, other considerations one must make when choosing a book. Sadly, in my case, they are just as shallow as the perceived quality of the cover.

Take, for example, paper. Many very good books are printed on very crappy paper. I wouldn't know, I rarely finish those ones.

I like books with thick, smooth pages - books that have some weight to them and feel like a plank in your back pack.

Or text - some fonts are superior to others, as are some inks. Generally, if the book has a page describing the history of the font used it is a piece of literature worth consideration.

And then there are stickers. When your main choice in booksellers is Chapters, stickers can be hard to avoid. I have no problem buying those discount books with the forty percent off stickers on them - most of my hardcover books were acquired that way - but I'll be damned if I buy anything with "Oprah's Bookclub" on it, or a "Heather's Pick" sticker proudly displayed on the cover.

And so, dear reader, I'll admit it - I'm a booksnob and I judge books by their covers. Maybe I need to join some sort of booksnobs anonymous group. Who's with me?

"My name is Stu, and I'm a booksnob."

movie time on the brush prairie

Food is beautiful. View and discuss.



http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/peter_reinhart_on_bread.html