Author: Doug Rutherford

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Remembrance Day

On this Remembrance Day, like others, I am constantly amazed at how lucky we were that all of our immediate relatives who served in recent memory came home.

Dad's medals

Dad’s medals, Korean Service medal second from right.

My mother’s three older brothers served in bomber crews through much of World War II. Dad served on a destroyer in Korea.

For some frame of reference, the average life span of a bomber crew member during most of the war was three missions. While the navy was certainly safer in Korea, we did take losses on the HMCS Iroquois in 1952 and this is always a possibility in war.

All but Uncle Bob are gone now, but on this day, we remember all of those didn’t return, or returned broken. They went willingly. And all of them, whether for the Boer War, Spain, World Wars I and II, Korea, a myriad of peacekeeping missions, Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan or Libya, went knowing that they may not return. That, in itself, is worth remembering, and probably for more than one day a year…

 

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Ever have one of “those” days?

Every so often, the Fates look at a randomly-generated list of names, run their finger down the list and say, “Hmm. Let’s just get… ah, that guy.” Today, it was my day.

My work day started with me forgetting to bring my office keys. This creates a few issues throughout the day and means I need to constantly borrow a key from someone else. In short, it’s a real inconvenience.

Then, after a while, I headed out to my physiotherapy appointment. I arrived on time, or so I thought. The time I put in my appointment calendar was 9:40 but, apparently, my appointment was for 9:20 and I missed it. By the way, my physiotherapist has no open times this week and is off next week.

I get back to the office to set up for this afternoon’s class. I have a class on routing and remote access servers. Guess what? My server has crashed some time this morning. The means I end up spending an afternoon trying to explain a practical-oriented class on an abstract concept with no way to actually demonstrate how you configure things.

On top of that, the online class software we use doesn’t like working with dual monitors. Trying to put notes on the whiteboard was interesting since, every character I typed, the window jumped from monitor to monitor. Try to concentrate while watching your workspace jump from one monitor to the other every time you type a letter.

With all the kerfuffle, I didn’t get a chance to have lunch. That’s OK, since I have an ice pack in it so it will last long enough to take home at the end of the day, put it in the fridge, and bring it tomorrow. As I sit at home writing this, guess what is still sitting back in my office.

So, in short, everything I touched today either broke or failed to work properly. You can understand why I’m afraid to pee…

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For sale: one vote

We have an election coming up, namely, the municipal election for the city of Whitehorse. Voting day is October 18th. Elected will be a mayor and six councilors. There is no incumbent running for the mayor’s position and four incumbents running for council seats.

This means I have less than two weeks to figure out who gets my vote (actually, multiple votes as you check off one vote for mayor and up to six for council. There are 5 mayoralty candidates and 22 running for council). In the 21 years I’ve lived here, I’ve voted for a possible mayor every time but have yet to actually cast six  council votes in any election.

Checking out the list of candidates this time around, I don’t see much hopes of finding six to vote for again. It was only shortly before the deadline for nominations that I could see a choice for mayor that didn’t include “none of the above.”

So here are some hints for those who want to get voted in. Note that this probably applies for all elections. A political campaign is a job interview of sorts and the electorate’s only way to choose the right person for the job is the platform put forward by the candidate. So, when expressing your platform:

1. If you intend to deal with an issue, explain how you intend to fix it in detail. Everyone loves kittens, rainbows and unicorns, but general campaign promises without details are usually best moved to the field with a backhoe to make next year’s crop grow that much better. If you cannot provide details, it means you know nothing about the subject other than what to call it.  Honestly, we have enough elected representatives who know nothing. We don’t need more.

2. Prove you have an understanding of jurisdictional responsibility. Each level of government has its responsibilities. If you’re running for one, don’t make promises about things that come under another level of government. This only indicates that you have no clue about the position you aspire to, and probably indicates your level of qualification for it.

3. If you promise something, be prepared to vote that way when the time comes. There is no excuse for supporting something you said you would not support or vice versa. The common story is “after studying the issue,…” or words to that effect. If it was a promise made in your campaign, it meant that you already studied the issue, or should have. Changing your mind in this manner means you either knew nothing about your stand on the issue, or you simply meant to lie your way into office. Unfortunately, we have too many of those cases, too.

4. Have some idea of how financing works. While governments and businesses run through two completely different models and experience in one has no relevance to the other, the general rules of finance are still the same. You can only spend what comes in. Whether through transfers, taxation or borrowing, this income is the maximum you have to provide vital services. And, unlike a business, you simply can’t close the plant and move to somewhere offering lower operating costs. Explain (in detail, again), how you intend to meet your promises and still afford to provide those services.

5. Be honest. Admit it when you don’t know something. Take responsibility for those times when your ideas don’t work. Sometimes you’re going to have to make unpopular decisions (some of the decisions the current council have been decried for are some I heartily approved of). People aren’t going to be happy with everything you do, but will be far more willing to accept it, grudgingly, if you can show you honestly and sincerely feel this is the best choice. The only way to do this is have a long history of being honest and sincere and it doesn’t take much to indicate that these are characteristics you don’t have.

So, there’s my pitch. These aren’t that much in the way of demands for buying my vote. I know it seems a lot, but you’ll probably find that the same price will purchase far more votes than mine…

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An odd start to a morning

This morning started in quite an odd, but interesting, manner. The oddity began when I went out the front door to drive to work. On the fence between the front and the back yards, there were several magpies. They were looking over the fence and squawking like they were upset over something. So, I figured I’d walk over and look.

This was the odd part. Magpies are members of the jay family, which includes crows and ravens. And, if you’ve ever had any experience with magpies, you’ll know they are incredibly wary of people. Try to walk up to a magpie and see how quickly they disappear. This time, though, they didn’t. I was about two feet from the nearest one sitting on the fence.

Near the base of the fence, lying on the ground, was a dead magpie. The other magpies seemed far more interested in the dead one than me. They perched on the fence and squawked. Bagging up the dead magpie and putting it in the garbage container at that point didn’t seem appropriate, so for some reason I muttered, “Excuse me,”  walked back to the truck and drove to work.

When I came home, I dealt with the dead magpie. There was not a mark on the magpie so it wasn’t a predator of some sort that killed it. I don’t know what happened to it. It didn’t seem old.

The odd part is that, this morning, I felt like I had attended a funeral. Since they didn’t fly off like they normally would, I felt like I was invited. I don’t know if this is common behaviour with magpies, but if funeral ceremonies are good enough for people, they should be good enough for them, too…

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Truth in Politics

Two news items from this week have prompted my blog post today. These are promos for the season opener for CBC’s Marketplace and the letter written this week by three Conservative MPs to the London Free Press stating that “centrepiece” of NDP economic policy is the implementation of a carbon tax.

The Marketplace opener concerns the labeling of so-called “Green products.” It looks at some of the worst examples of misleading labeling on products. The letter to the London Free Press suggests the NDP, on election would implement a carbon tax, despite the point that a carbon tax has never been proposed by the NDP. In truth, they consistently have supported a cap-and-trade system, similar to that which was an important point in the Conservative Party’s election platform in the 2006 and 2008 federal elections.

Why are these two items related? The first concerns the fact that many terms used in labeling in Canada are not regulated. This makes some sense when one asks questions such as, “What does eco-friendly or green really mean? Given that there isn’t an empirical definition of both, expecting regulation to cover such labeling is unrealistic (on a side note, I am a little surprised to discover that the labeling term “non-toxic” isn’t regulated, either.) This means that there is no requirement to prove claims on labeling that uses these terms. In short, the terms, given their open nature, can be blatant lies. Maybe, it is past the time where some definition of these terms be determined and regulations that protect Canadians from the use of such misleading terms be enforced.

Pull quoteThe tie-in is that we expect political parties and their advertising to be truthful. After all, most people are aware that laws exist to protect us from false or misleading advertising. Therefore, many of us expect that claims made in political campaigns and advertising can be substantiated.

The body in Canada responsible for ensuring our protection from misleading or false advertising is the Advertising Standards Council. Their code outlines what can and cannot be claimed in advertisements. However, what many people do not know is that the code specifically exempts political and campaign advertising from the rules against misleading and false advertising.

Like expressions such as “green,” “earth-friendly,” and “non-toxic” on product labels, claims by political parties and politicians should also be held to a standard where we can expect such claims to be able to be substantiated. When the rules specifically permit falsehoods to be put forward as gospel truth, the rules should be rewritten to ensure our protection as citizens. After all, choosing a government every four or so years is one of our most important tasks as citizens. Doing so with some confidence that claims about other political parties can be verified should be considered a right, and may drag some campaign advertising out of the sewer where much of it seems to reside…

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Another Labour Day weekend comes to an end

Another Labour Day weekend has ended, or at least, will have ended officially when I go to work this morning. This tends to mark the end of summer for us.

Frost image
Frost on the picnic table at Fox Lake campground, Yukon, Labour Day, 2012.

The weather has already started changing. It is windy, “fall-ish,” and there was frost on the picnic table at the campsite yesterday morning. This morning is quite windy and dark and the leaves are changing. In short, it seems that summer is truly over.

That being said, there is nothing wrong with Fall. The colours are vivid and make our stunning scenery even more attractive to just sit and enjoy. Fall fishing can be quite good, although dressing warmly is a necessity. The coho should be running so both fresh and salt water fishing are an option. And, the camper does have a furnace that is more than capable of heating the inside to a toast temperature for those late season nights, even if it is capable of sucking the battery dry quite quickly as well as it is capable of generating warmth. I’m not that worried since I bought a new generator last week and recharging is a relatively easy task.

We traditionally go camping on the Labour Day weekend. We missed out last year because I was still in the hospital following surgery, so getting out was an important point this year. Also, our summer was somewhat shortened by my heading out of town for an extended period following the death of my father and that was followed up by a bit more surgical repair work. We went to Fox Lake campground (N61º W14.6 135º 27.7′) on Friday evening and came back yesterday afternoon. I got some fishing in and the new boat has finally had a fish in it. I caught four lake trout, although two of them went back into the lake to get bigger. I’ll put them in brine before going to work this morning and will throw them on the smoker tonight after work. Smoked trout is a tasty treat.

But now, I must remember that Labour Day weekend is followed by labour. Classes officially start today, although I’ve actually had two courses running for the past two weeks. And, with the official start of classes, I must make the transition from wearing my belt knife to wearing a Blackberry in it’s place and thinking of classes rather than this…

Fishing on fox lake

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An era ends

Today, Neil Armstrong, first man to walk on the Moon, passed away at the age of 82. And, it is difficult to describe how the world seems a bit different.

I remember watching the first steps on the Moon, in grainy black and white, from our living room in Point Edward, NS. It seemed momentous and unbelievable at the same time. I watched the space program from its beginning and the rate of achievements was incredible. From Yuri Gagarin’s first flight (which was not presented as a momentous occasion) and Alan Sheppard’s first suborbital flight (which was presented as momentous) in 1961 to actually landing on the Moon in 1969 seemed like progress had no bounds. That the program would be cut a few years later seemed impossible at the time.

Today, we often see the process of putting man in space in light of the Shuttle program: often compared to riding a bus. The fact that two were lost didn’t seem to change that for any length of time. Computers take off, fly and land commercial airliners and control so many aspects of our lives.

But in thoseQuote days, given the level of technology at the time and the fact that much of what was being done on each mission was done for the first time, little was available for testing many of the processes involved in each mission. Flying to the Moon at the time was often done on the old pilot’s adage of flying “on a wing and a prayer,” like the days of wooden ships and iron men sailing towards a strange horizon. And, given the level of experience of each of those mission crews, the level of risk in untested, untried vehicles in a harsh environment was known. Despite this, they went anyway and history was made.

Neil Armstrong is gone and the world is something less for it. One less hero is left. And, there aren’t really many potential heroes to replace him available…

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Why Porter Creek D?

Once again, the question of developing the Porter Creek D subdivision has emerged, with the City of Whitehorse, who allocated more than $400,000 for the pre-design of the subdivision in December, despite the objections of a sizeable number of citizens. This week, the city announced that a facilitator will be brought in as part of the planning process.

What emerges from this entire issue is that, while a wide range of groups and individuals are opposed to this development, its only main proponents are the city itself, the Yukon Real Estate Association, and the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce. In view of this somewhat lopsided number opposing the project, one must ask the question “Why Porter Creek D?”

One of the common proposals put forward in support of this project is the lack of housing in the Whitehorse area. However, this will neither alleviate the immediate needs for housing or the substantially more pressing need for attainable housing. There is nothing in the project that calls for anything other than the status quo in lot pricing, particularly in light of the Yukon Territorial Government policy of pricing lots based on market prices, rather than the actual costs of development. This policy puts the government in a position of arguing that to change would potentially reduce the value of existing lots. At the same time, there has been a wholesale failure to publicly discuss the profits earned on their sale at a higher price. Further, the process of planning, infrastructure development, and sale takes considerable time. An example can be seen in the development of Whistle Bend Subdivision, whose main planning meetings took place in 2006 and will sell its first lots some time this fall.

A point to consider is the population of Whitehorse. When I arrived in Whitehorse in 1991, the population was just under 18,000. In March, the population was estimated to be just over 27,000 (however, just over 2,000 of those actually live outside the city limits). In short, the population has risen by about 7,000 people in the past 21 years. There were also periods where the population fell during this time, as well. Our economy has been “boom or bust” since the founding of the territory and populations have risen and fallen with periods of economy activity and recession.

Yes, we are currently in a boom. However, there is no guarantee this will continue and a view to the economy of Europe facing disaster in the near future indicates that the boom may end abruptly. Will the population of the city hold its numbers? That is something that we must wait and see.

The second aspect of population growth that should be considered is the scope of the Whistle Bend subdivision being brought online this fall. The intention is that the subdivision will house some 8,000 people. This would be an increase in housing that would allow for matching and exceeding the city’s population growth over the past 20 years. In short, given the idea of 20 year growth, the new subdivision well into the development process should provide adequate housing for our needs.

We must also consider the fact that the Whitehorse housing market is also softening a bit, a trend matching those observed nationally, but whether this is an ongoing trend or short term remains to be seen.

It costs a great deal of money to plan and build a subdivision. Why are we spending this when the need does not match historical growth? If sales fall flat, and the population does not increase any faster than it has, there will be quite a few lots available without a market to support it. These will need expensive water, sewer, road and other services regardless whether the new subdivision is actually required. And, even if the population does not increase, infrastructure maintenance costs will.

I don’t mind a bit of pre-planning. In fact, I strongly support being prepared. However, it seems to me that the city, once again, is throwing money away on something that is flash rather than substance, and rather than determining whether or not it is a reasonable requirement. Remember that when you vote for a new mayor and council this October, since several of the candidates for both offices have been strong supporters of this development.

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The camper repairs endeth…

OK. Let’s go over the checklist again.

1. Replace the copper cold water lines with PEX ones. Check.
2. Install a city water connection. Check.
3. Install the new water pump. Check.
4. Install a new ground wire for the water pump. Check.
5. Treat the tank with tank freshener. Check.
6. Go over the system for leaks. Check.

Hmm. It seems like there’s nothing left on the list. Wait. That means… wait for it… the repairs are finished. You know, finished… complete, even. In short, they’re done.

I have a few minor things to close it up. I need to install four screws and put a permanent ring connector on the new ground wire from the battery. I have to sweep and mop out the camper. But, these can wait for tomorrow morning after I make a dump run to deal with some trimmed tree limbs.

Now, the only thing I have to do is deal with this cold, freshly poured, drink of Jamaican rum. I think I’ll get on that right away…

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A semiproductive day

I started the day with three jobs to do. However, fate hath kicked me in the teeth again and each of the three are only partly done.

I wanted to finish the water system in the camper. After much cursing, swearing and expressing myself in a less than “fit for all audiences” manner, I did install the last fitting and nothing leaks. Yee hah! However, the pump for running from the water tank rather than a city water system doesn’t work. I suspect I have a minor wiring issue and will look at it tomorrow. All in all, this job is 98% done, so I was reasonably successful.

Job number 2 was wiring the trailer lights on the Escape. I had a hitch installed and ordered a factory wiring harness for it. The harness came in today and I went to plug it in and make sure it worked. It didn’t. I spent about 30 minutes tracking wiring until I discovered that the truck doesn’t come with the two fuses required for the trailer lights. I need a 15 and 20 amp mini fuse. I only managed to find the 15 amp one and have to go downtown tomorrow to get the other. This job is about 90% done, so I shouldn’t complain.

Lastly, it’s time to paint the old pickup and sell it. I don’t totally want to sell it, but having two pickups is sort of redundant. It’s a 1987 Ford F250 with a 460 cu. in. motor. It needs a bit of touch up on both sides. I picked up the paint and went to mask it but ran out of masking tape. I did, however, get one side painted and it looks nice. Oh, well. This one is 50% done I guess. However, tomorrow, the forecast is rain so I’ll either have to run a tarp over the truck or wait until a few days from now to finish this job.

So, three jobs to do and none finished. Maybe, tomorrow will be a bit more productive…