Another Side Show is Over

The only appropriate picture I could think of for this post was a black armband and I couldn't be bothered to take or find one.

The outcome of the provincial election was pretty clear by the time I turned in last night - another 4 to 5 years of the "Liberals" and no chance of electoral reform. Today, all the pundits are examining the results and trying to explain what it all means. Since I'm not a pundit of any kind, I feel I'm on safe ground here....

The "Liberal" win means more attempts to sell off BC assets and resources. From our parks to our rivers, the government now has a mandate to pretty much do what it wants. Not even the "gas tax" was enough to defeat them. The NDP loss means that there will be no backtracking on the carbon tax and that's a good thing. I was very, very disappointed in the NDPs campaign tactic on this and I'm sure many people put their vote elsewhere because of it. Unfortunately, not a single seat was won by the Green Party despite, once again, almost 10% of the popular vote. Which bring me to the most significant loss.

The referendum question on electoral reform was defeated, overwhelmingly. I'm not sure if it was fear of the proposed system's supposed complexity or the prospect of larger ridings or the difficulty of ranking your vote....1, 2, 3, 4.... that scared people off, but it's done. My disappointment is that it won't likely surface again in the debate during my lifetime. So we go on with the composition of our legislatures not representing how the voters really feel. It was a chance to explore something different, but in the final analysis, the majority voted for the good old status quo.

Like hockey, politics is mostly an irrelevant side show in my mind. Out here in the Koots, spring is in the air, hiking and climbing season is nearing, plants are growing and there are more important things to think about. The double loss yesterday is unfortunate, but the world will continue to unfold as it will. We can go back to grassroots opposition to government dumbness where it affects us directly. The rest we might as well forget about.

Season Opener

Although spring has pretty much been here in the Koots for a few weeks, today was the first time we've really gone anywhere since we got back from our trip south. Today was sunny and warm, so after doing our various jobs this morning, we packed up the canoe and headed across the Lake.

Although the Lake had been quite calm earlier in the morning, by the time we crossed, it was getting quite a swell from the south and there were a few whitecaps. We pressed on despite this and finally got to the sheltered bay near Powder Creek. The main objectives were to lie in the sun on the beach and have a weiner roast. Feeling quite hungry by about 4:30, I got the fire going. Six weiners later I was feeling much better.

Fortunately, as the afternoon progressed, the wind began to die down and our paddle back across the Lake was easier. It's quite remarkable how accessible such recreational pursuits are: it took us 45 minutes to cross the Lake, load up the truck and get back home. Looks like the summer season is here.

Alien Life Forms

On our recent trip south through one of the several deserts we explored, I managed to collect a cutting of a Beavertail Cactus. These little guys are deceptive: they don't have the big spikes common to most cactus plants, but they do have these little nubs all over them that have very small spines that can get lodged in your skin and are very difficult to remove.

I potted the cutting when I got home (using BBQ tongs to manipulate it) and assigned it a place in the south window - it's new life as a house plant. It had the flower bud on it when it was collected but I wasn't sure what would happen to that. Yesterday the bud started to open and today it was in full bloom.

I haven't seen many cactus in bloom on our trips south - we're usually there well before the flowering season, but on this last trip I saw several blooming on one of our hikes down into the Grand Canyon. They are truly a colorful feature in the desert and I was constantly looking out for more of them as we traveled.

I'm hoping that this one will develop roots and thrive as several others have, all sharing space on my window ledge, looking south.

Search for Spring in Rossland

Since the snow is rapidly leaving and a gardener's thoughts can finally turn to the new season, I made a quick trip to Rossland to do the tilling in my daughter's garden. She and her hubby and myself got busy Friday evening about a week ago and tilled up most of their back yard. Given our gardening experience around our place, I can report that they didn't have a single rock or stone in the whole place. Completely amazing.

They also have these cute little iris flowers blooming just outside their back door. A number of other floral specimens were also showing their tops above the ground. All they need is a couple of weeks and some warmer weather.

One interesting note: as I was leaving their place Saturday around noon and driving down one of the residential streets in town, I met a young moose galloping up the street with his tongue hanging out, obviously not very happy about where he found himself.

BC-STV - Power Up Your Vote

British Columbia is in the final stages of a provincial election. That's probably the least interesting thing that's going on May 12th. Along with electing the next bunch of snake oil salesmen (er...salespersons), BC voters will be making a decision on a radically new way of electing our representatives. It's called the Single Transferrable Vote.

Predictably, there are dissenters, but the best they can come up with as a reason to defeat this referendum is that the proposed system is "too complicated".

As citizens in the 21st Century, there are many things in our lives that are complicated. Computers, modern vehicles, disease epidemiology, flying a modern jetliner, medical technology, balancing your bank statements....all come to mind. And yet, almost all of us embrace or at least use and often trust all of these and more. C'mon people. It's not like you have to completely understand the STV system just to recognize that it could be a big improvement over what we have now. It's really easy to use. "Too complicated" just isn't a good enough reason. And it's not really all "that" complicated....

The Search for Spring 2009

It's been a busy month since I last posted, not that you'd know from this site. However, our laptop temporarily tanked and we were doing too much traveling and hiking to spend time doing stuff on the computer. So.....

In 4 weeks we visited Vancouver Island, Washington's Olympic Peninsula, central Oregon, northern and central and southern Nevada, Death Valley, Grand Canyon and southern Utah. Great hikes in Grand Canyon were probably the highlight of the trip for us. This photo shows part of the Bright Angel Trail to Lookoff Point, about halfway down into the canyon to the Colorado River.

Since pictures will describe the trip much better, I've posted a selection on my Picasa site. Here it's enough to say that it was great to experience spring and summer in a few places and to arrive back home where spring has just started all over again.

Our National Embarassment

As the investigation into the taser death of Robert Dziekanski plods along and the image of the RCMP continues to unravel, the comedy factories are shifting into high gear.




It's really too bad that the RCMP can't just admit that they screwed up and that they will do everything they can to make sure such a travesty doesn't happen again. Instead, we continue to get the impression that they just don't get it.