A couple recent posts talking about extended breastfeeding got me thinking about the many minority opinions and beliefs I hold.
Here's what I came up with...
1. Extended Breastfeeding - Not even 20% of Canadian babies make it to nine months let alone past a year (or two!)
2. Atheism - anywhere between 16-30% of the population depending on which study you look at. (And actually, this is only a minority compared to *all* religions. There are actually more atheists/agnostics/nonbelievers than all but one major religion.)
4. (Male) Librarian - this isn't a "belief" per se but men are about 17% of the profession (though also over-represented in senior management positions.)
5. Polygamist - just seeing if you're still paying attention.
6. Reader - More than half the people surveyed in the US a couple years ago read only 4 books a year on average. A quarter said they'd read zero.
Also with all the StatsCan hub-bub, I'm more aware than ever before just exactly how often I come across and/or use their statistics in my day-to-day life. I always say this but if you try to look at it without any political considerations, how could anyone honestly think that doing away with the mandatory long form census is a good idea? (The breadth of the negative reaction across all sectors is a pretty big clue that the Cons fucked up but good.)
10. Flames Fan - 3-5% (slightly biased poll though as it asks "Which is Canada's team?" rather than something like "Which NHL team has the most fans?")
[Oops, forgot I pre-loaded this Music Monday post after coming across the song in a MetaFilter thread last week. So, combined with the post below, you get a 2-for-1 on the Music Monday posts this week!]
Jaime Garcia has launched a Money Bomb to help fund his campaign for the NDP nomination in Regina Coronation Park. He's called it "19 for the 19th" and is asking supporters and others who supporters of a new way of doing politics to donate $19 to help him reach the nomination meeting which will be held on June 19th.
Ryan Meili, who was the first Canadian politician to use a Money Bomb during his leadership campaign last year, had great success with his recent "Money Bomb 2.0" sequel which raised enough to fund his entire nomination campaign for Saskatoon Sutherland!
Jaime doesn't have the ready-made donor list that Ryan had from his first money bomb or the name recognition that a provincial leadership candidate who came in second will have. But with hundreds of supporters on his Facebook Fan page and over twenty people signed up only a few days after announcing this latest Money Bomb, there is potential for Jaime to raise some serious funds as well.
If you support progressive politics, innovative uses of technology for fundraising or Jaime and his potential as a political candidate, I'd encourage you to donate!
Here's the full announcement:
Hello friend,
Today is May 19 and that means there is exactly one
month until June 19 when the Coronation Park nomination meeting will be
held to choose the next NDP candidate for this riding.
So far,
our campaign has been a lot of hard work but very worthwhile as we
believe we are in a strong position going into the nomination meeting.
In addition to being a lot of hard work, there has also been a lot of
expense as we have spent money on buttons, t-shirts, printing, a web
site and even billboards at two locations in the constituency to get the
word out about our campaign and its themes of family, community and
solidarity.
That is why I’m asking you for your support in our
“19 for the 19th” Money Bomb. If you are not familiar with the concept, a
“Money Bomb” is a unique fundraising tool that allows supporters of a
political candidate (whether they live in the riding or not) to easily
provide support a candidate of their choice. Money Bombs were used to
great effect in the 2008 US Presidential Election but are still a
relative rarity in Canadian politics.
Between now and June
19, I am asking you to donate $19 (or $1.90 or $190 or any other amount
you choose) to my campaign to help us assure victory at the June 19
nomination meeting which will be held at 1pm at Thom Collegiate (265
Argyle Street North).
Your regularly scheduled Music Monday post will return at a later date.
But having attended the NDP Leader's Gala tonight (great event - kudos to all the organizers!), I've got politics on the brain so I thought I'd post this video of Jaime Garcia being introduced in the Legislature by MLA Sandra Morin (I guess you could consider that little "this channel is off air" motif at the start of the clip as your music for the week? )
For good or for bad, if modern politics is about a candidate's story or their "narrative" (see: Obama, Barack for the ultimate example), this video does a good job of showing that Jaime has a very compelling story himself, having come to Canada at age 11, his family having fled their home country after his father was persecuted and left as a paraplegic for standing up for people's rights. The idea that within a generation, this young man could become an elected member of our government is a powerful idea. That's not all Jaime brings to the table of course - I've touched on the various reasons I'm supporting him elsewhere - but that's part of it.
Watch for yourself...
[Oh, and Regina Coronation Park candidate, Tory McGregor posted a correction to the Facebook comparison I did of the various candidates. I've updated the list with his correction as well as current numbers for all the candidates - including a newly joined one, Roger Bucsis - and apologize to Tory for the oversight.]
I hope no one thinks they've stumbled upon NDP Watch with this post but I have to admit that I had to do a double (actually triple) take when I received the latest e-newsletter from the provincial NDP with the headline, "Leader's Gala, a snub to working people, and more policy videos."
For a moment, I actually thought someone must've hacked the NDP's e-mail servers because I read the headline as "Leader's Gala - a snub to working people".
I know that wasn't the intention but I still appreciate the unintended irony. The Leader's Gala *is* a $50 a plate fundraising event and so it probably is true that it's far beyond the reach of most working people.
I'm sure events like this are probably important to any political party, right, left or center, for reaching a certain segment of society while helping to fill party coffers. But I like the recent post at Louis Riel Trail where he commends the latest Ryan Meili money bomb as a better way to fundraise in general as you can earn similar amounts by getting smaller donations from a lot more people. The bonus of a successful money bomb is that you actively engage a lot more people as well.
LRT's post talks of the Sask Party's $300/plate dinners but if we're being completely honest, a lot of his arguments would apply to the NDP's own fundraising dinner. And this unfortunate juxtaposition only reinforces that impression.
(I mean this post as no slight on whoever compiles the newsletter. I'm reminded of an Alberta publisher I used to work with who posted their "Typo of the Week" on their office door. Or to put it another way, "shit happens". And if I had better reading comprehension, I wouldn't even be doing this post! )
Just in time for Regina's mini-World Cup soccer tournament, the WCP Cup, Jaime Garcia has added some information to his web site targeted specifically at Regina's soccer community.
Jaime has a long history of involvement with Regina's soccer community and is still actively involved as a player and a coach. So in a riding where every vote is going to count, this type of micro-targeting of a specific audience could potentially serve Jaime very well if he can convert even some of the energetic, passionate and involved soccer folks into energetic, passionate and involved political supporters!
Ryan Meili announced this morning that he'll be running in Saskatoon-Sutherland in the next provincial election. Jurist has details including a bit about the fact that this field will be a big one, just like Regina-Coronation Park, with four people seeking the nomination.
I thought this might be a prime opportunity to do a post I've been thinking about since, well, since June 6, 2009 - a Top Ten list of my personal highlights from Ryan's leadership run last year. Some of these are things I've talked about on this blog before, some are things I haven't.
10. The Power of Social Networking (The Real Kind, Not the Virtual Kind) I started paying attention to the leadership race right around the time that Ryan announced as the fourth candidate in the race somewhere around early February 2009. Seeing he was a doctor in Saskatoon who was around my age, I sent an e-mail to a good friend from high school who'd gone on to be a doctor to see if he knew Ryan. I'm paraphrasing but he basically replied: "Yeah, I know him. Good guy. Did lots of cool extracurricular stuff at medical school. Got arrested in Quebec City." I think I've talked about how I was looking for something like the Obama campaign in the US and frankly (and no offense to any of the other three candidates who ran) wasn't expecting to get involved in this leadership race in any way because none of them gave me that vibe that mixed a willingness to use technology, to inspire young people and a new way of doing politics that I was looking for. That endorsement from a good friend of mine and mutual acquaintance of Ryan's was enough to convince me that hey, maybe this guy might have some of those things I was looking for after all. Little did I know, I would end up giving hours of my time, my money, my ideas and my energy to the campaign over the ensuing five months.
9. Ryan's Regina Press Conference After getting the positive word from my friend, I saw that Ryan would be having a Regina press conference to announce his candidacy down here (he'd already had one in Saskatoon.) I took an (ahem) extended coffee break and snuck off to the Beet Root vegetarian restaurant where the press conference was to be held. I wasn't even 100% sure what Ryan looked like and introduced myself to a couple people, at one point thinking that someone who I think worked for the restaurant was Ryan! His Regina campaign co-chair (who I also probably thought was Ryan ) introduced me to the real Ryan. We had a brief conversation, talked about our mutual friend and a bit about the race then it was showtime. I was feeling nervous through the whole press conference - I think mostly feeling out of place wondering "what am I doing here? How did this happen?" After things wrapped up, I bought a membership (the last time I had one was the last leadership race back in 2001). Then that same Regina campaign co-chair drove me to my house so we could sign up Shea as well (an action that takes on some extra significance given the Lingenfelter membership scandal that happened later in the leadership race. I'd actually asked if I could sign up Shea without her being there and remember being told very clearly, "Well, other times we might be able to do that but since it's a leadership race, we better make sure we have your wife's signature on the membership form.")
8. They Get It! (x2) Somewhere in the middle of the campaign, I attended Ryan's press conference at the University of Regina to formally unveil his campaign videos. I'd seen them already but seeing them on a big screen in front of a room of supporters and journalists made me realise that Ryan truly was a candidate for the modern age, that he "got it" in a way that none of the other candidates appeared to - at least in terms of the impact that online services could have on a campaign and doing things in a decentralized, bottom-up rather than traditional top-down fashion. It's a minor detail but I also realised Ryan got it in a different way too. After the press conference, a bunch of us were heading down the stairs from the top floor of the Education building and I observed that all the guys in dark suits looked like a scene out of Reservoir Dogs. And the greatest thing about it was that they all got the reference and started riffing on the idea, quoting favourite lines from the movie and so on. "Yep, these aren't your granddaddy's politicians!" I remember thinking to myself.
7. Getting a 24-Hour Ban from Wikipedia After Getting into a Revert War with Someone Over What Details of the Lingenfelter Membership Scandal Were Fair Game For His Entry That's pretty self-explanatory but there's another detail about this ban that I can't talk about on the blog, even after a year's passed. It's nothing illegal or anything but something that will have to wait for the book I write after I retire in thirty years!
6. Putting My Librarian Super Powers To Good Use I spent a couple afternoons at the Saskatchewan Archives tracking down photos and music to use in Ryan's convention opening. It was a brilliant way to open the video (mucho kudos to Simple Massing Priest for the idea) and the video still gives me chills...
5. 'Twas The Night Before The Convention Began The day before the Convention began, Shea and I had had a long day of work then a busy afternoon and evening hitting a bunch of Mosaic pavilions. When we registered at Evraz Place, I'd been thinking we might hit a few more around there. But Pace was getting cranky, I was getting to the point I just wanted to go home and crash knowing that we'd also be having a very busy weekend. But I bumped into someone from Ryan's campaign who reminded me they were doing one last phoning bee at Ryan's Regina HQ. So when I got home, the guilt of knowing that this was my last chance to do something helpful made me walk in our house, explain how I felt to Shea, then turn around to head back downtown (it helps to have a *very* understanding wife at times like that!). After the bee, we went to the Regina Inn and in some ways, it was the victory party. No matter what happened that weekend, we all took a moment to celebrate an amazing campaign. I ended up sitting next to Ryan at the bar and once again, was amazed at the level of candor he showed, discussing the race and his thoughts on the future. Of course, that night also resulted in photographic proof that I was wearing these shorts in public so maybe I would've been better just staying home?
4. The "Ten Reasons I'm Supporting Ryan Meili" Series of Posts I still think it's some of the best writing I've even done on this blog. And it happened while I was in Montreal for CLA and I was so pumped to do it that I'd slip back to my room between sessions and in the evenings to work on the posts rather than going out and sightseeing like a normal person would!
3. The Money Bomb I don't know if I ever officially taken credit for it on this blog. But one of the ideas I suggested early on was a money bomb modeled on what had been done to great effect by a range of candidates in the recent US Presidential election. Ryan's campaign eventually did the money bomb and it was a great success - bringing in more than their initial goal of $10 000 from numerous (and many unlikely) sources. I think it also had enough small donations that Ryan ended up with more individual donors to his campaign than any other candidate. I'm pretty proud of bringing that idea to the campaign - how often can you say you're the first person to do something like this in the entire country?
2. Ryan's First Union Endorsement (Almost) I was still fairly new to RPL when I got involved in Ryan's campaign - maybe having just passed my six month probation? Even though I was still new and finding my place, I decided that what Ryan was doing was important enough that it'd be worth sticking my neck out a bit. I started doing more and more campaigning at work - mostly via our local - although that got me a couple cautionary words and a few more outright angry responses from other members who felt what I was doing was inappropriate. That didn't put me off and my actions culminated in me making a motion at a union meeting about a month before the convention that our local should officially declare our support for Ryan and also make a large enough donation to his campaign that we would show up on donor disclosure forms. Just knowing I was going to make that motion got me even more angry e-mails from members who swore they were going to come to their first meeting ever just to vote against it (I happily note that not one of them did!) I was still quite nervous based on that feedback and seriously considered skipping the meeting completely, thinking it was a waste of time and the vote would be 50-1 against. I went and, probably as nervous as I've been speaking in public in a long time, made my pitch. I started by pointing out that, whether you were an NDP supporter or not, there are only two parties that can realistically form government in Saskatchewan right now - one which is labour friendly and one which isn't. And of the people running for the leadership, I felt strongly that there was one candidate who would be the best for the province, for its people and yes, for libraries. I hit on a couple main points that I hoped would sway people - Ryan's SaskPharm plan which I thought would appeal to many of the older members of our union and also how this was a chance for our union to do something that fits with the library's core values of social justice and inclusion. I sat down, shaking, and awaited the vote results, joking that my only request is that the totals not be announced as the scrutineers left the room. They came back a few minutes later and...announced the totals. "What the hell?" I thought until it penetrated my brain what they were saying - they had to announce the results because it was a tie! We had a moment of confusion but eventually someone pointed out that with a secret ballot, the Chair doesn't cast the deciding vote because that would reveal their preference. So the motion was defeated. Even though I regret not pushing harder to get some pro-Ryan folks to the meeting (remember - I was thinking I was going to get killed so what was the point?), I took this as a major victory and the first real indication that - holy shit - Ryan might really and truly have a chance to win this thing! Even after the membership scandal, it still seemed pretty unrealistic to think Ryan could overcome all the advantages Lingenfelter had going for him. Plus, even I thought of Ryan as someone whose greatest appeal was in Saskatoon, that it was with young people, that it was a long shot candidacy. And here was a group of mostly middle-aged women in Regina who were saying they were prepared not only to take a baby step of making our union a bit more politically active but also jumping right to the point where 50% of them were willing to join me in supporting a specific candidate! In retrospect, it also made me realise that the most vocal negative voices were countered by the quieter, pro-Ryan people who would buy a membership from me in the coffee room or slip into my office to give me a cheque for the money bomb.) Oh well - I wish I'd gotten 50+1 but I did get a pretty good article out of the experience!
1. Where the hell did all these people come from? I wrote about this in my year-end entry last year (question 16) so I'll just copy that piece which details my single biggest highlight of Ryan's leadership run. (Funny how I mention in that post that I'd like to do a Top Ten list of highlights of Ryan's campaign - it's like I was doing the work ahead of time!)
I was a
bit dejected at the convention - there seemed to be so many Link
supporters around, they were all wearing those bright orange t-shirts which made them even more visible and I
just felt badly out-numbered. "Ryan's base is in Saskatoon. Ryan's base is
younger people who probably can't afford to be here. Ryan's base isn't the party establishment who *are* here" I
rationalized for what seemed to be the lack of supporters in evidence. Then,
it was Ryan's turn to speak and it just seemed like supporters
materialized out of thin air to line the entrance way to the stage. I
remember thinking, "Holy shit - where did all these people come from?"
as the first percussive beats of Past in Present started up. Such a cool cool moment.
The clip at the start of this video doesn't do the vibe in the room justice. Pretty amazing!
[Edit: Jurist has replied to my comment on his site (which I've also posted below) to clarify that when he said Tamara had "the strongest web presence" of the Coronation Park candidates, he was referring to her "web site" presence, not her "online" presence. I guess it's semantics - when someone says "web", I think of the World Wide Web and all the various services that encompasses whereas Jurist's comment was only focused on one small element of the larger whole. And even with his clarification, I'm still not willing to concede that Tamara's site is a better one in terms of being thorough or the more professional looking - in some ways it is but in others, it isn't. Again, this is a matter of taste as much as anything and a full analysis of the usability and functional details included in each site is perhaps a post for another day.]
His recent post on the state of the races in Coronation Park and Regina-South is a prime example of this. But I did have one correction to his thoughts which I posted as a comment on his blog and wanted to re-post here as well because I know lots of people don't click through to read comments.
I'm not trying to start a blog war or anything but all the evidence I see is that Jaime Garcia has the stronger web presence, especially in regards to the metrics that likely reflect real world support.
Here's the comment I posted to the Jurist's blog (not even correcting my bad math - Tamara would have to do 10 tweets to "catch up" to Jaime, not 6!):
Nice assessment.
However, you're probably not surprised to hear that my one issue with
your post is your assertion that Tamara "has the strongest web
presence".
As I write this, Tamara's Twitter account has 106 Tweets
with 27 followers while Jaime has 116 Tweets with 30 followers giving
him a slight edge. On Facebook, Tamara has 189 fans while Jaime has
348 fans - neariy double your candidate's total.
I know both are imperfect metrics as Tamara could do six
different tweets listing the next half-dozen things she sees as she
looks around the room and "catch up" to Jaime. But I think that
discrepancy in Facebook numbers is very revealing about the wider
support the respective candidates are enjoying - doubly so because I
know Jaime grew up in Coronation Park so presumably many of his
supporters are people who live here or also have roots here. I'm not
sure if the same can be said for Tamara?
I will concede that Tamara has more photos on her personal
site and presents them in a very nice fashion. But otherwise, their
sites seem to basically be very similar to each other in terms of
function and content.
Hockey I really hate the Canucks and think it would be a travesty if one of the Sedin sisters won the Hart Trophy. I mean, a guy with a career average of 65 points a season gets a bunch of assists and is now one of the best players in the game? Right. Love him or hate him, Ovechkin is great for the game - dominant and entertaining - and it's best for the game if he wins the Art Ross, the Hart and the Rocket Richard trophy. Oh, and one other trophy too because when the Flames are finally put out of their misery and out of the playoffs, I think I might throw in behind the Caps as my pick for the Cup.
Libraryland
Frankly, I'm worried about libraries -- not because I think e-books
will replace their dead tree counterparts specifically, but rather
because the library as an institution is an anathema to today's notions
of intellectual property. It's a loophole left over from a more
permissive and libertarian era.
An interesting comment about libraries in a Reddit thread about a 1995 article by anti-Internet commentator, Clifford Stoll (which is also worth a read) about how the Internet isn't and never will be the nirvana that others were predicting. (Yeah right. Although to be fair, I've read both of his books and his first, "Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage" is really good, especially if you came of age in the era of BBS's and Telnet in the pre-Internet days like I did. "Silicone Snake Oil", on the other hand, is pretty crappy and may even have been inspired by his Newsweek article for all I know.)
Pace Cuteness Shea and I bought a laser pointer so we could expend the absolute minimum amount of energy while entertaining the cat. What I didn't realise is that Pace would end up getting down on all fours and chasing it around too!
Politics Jaime Garcia's Facebook fan page has all the latest on his most recent activities including shots of his steak fundraiser, Jaime at the NDP convention and the billboard ads he has out in the constituency. Check it out and consider becoming a fan!
