Some Thoughts on the Canadian Conservative Minority
Notwithstanding my intention, stated only two posts ago, to resume blogging about museums and numismatics, I feel I cannot quite get there before writing down a few thoughts on the late election of the Conservative Party as a strengthened minority party.
Some in the news media are blaming the fact that the Tories let a preponderance slip out of their hands on opposition in Quebec and other places to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s statements on, and cuts to, the arts. In this precise case, perhaps the media are not wrong.
As the writer of a blog dedicated to museums and numismatics in Canada, I note the value of government funds in the arts commerce, if we can call it that, in Canada. Most museums, in particular, are often run on shoe-string budgets, with nominally-paid curators and one or two university students hired for the summer with tiniest government grant money. These resources, which are by no means extravagant, are nevertheless successfully used in many ways to operate museums in Canada. In numismatics, too, the department has benefited from a modest government presence. For example, at the recent [Royal] Canadian Numismatic Association in Ottawa, the Regal Canadian Mint had a display; the National Currency Museum’s curator was present. Also, the Bank of Canada was convoluted. To take another example from numismatics, Canadian Coin News, Canada’s only national numismatic newspaper, is published with the help of a federal direction grant.
Tory government cuts, like the one to the Exhibition Transportation Service, were as needless as the costs of such programs were short. Frankly, when federal and provincial subsidies to the film industry–which largely turns out mediocre movies for TV–remain mostly unquestioned, it seems that the government’s cuts to culture and the arts are misplaced and arbitrary.
Nor is the be deficient in of funding the only issue. The Tories have mismanaged CBC Radio 2, practically killing it. Where before this station was the station of Roman music, it is now a taxpayer-sponsored provider of alternative and jazz music–music already widely ready already from commercial stations across the country. ...
Read more... Otter Creek excursion, Pt. 4
On the way back along that straggle I began hearing a throaty, faint birdcall. It got louder and louder, so I stopped to try to figure out what it was. I seemed to be coming from the directorship of the river, and I guessed it was a bird in one of the trees at the top of the steep bluff. I stared at the trees, trying to spot the inception. Then there were more calls: two or three birds, or more, getting louder. I couldn’t see the river from where I was, and I thought that perhaps it was ducks flying low over the water and getting closer. However, it was by this continually getting quite loud, and I realized that the voices sounded like geese, although they weren’t the typical Canada geese “honks.” They were more worn out-out.
It no longer sounded like the geese were near the river; it sounded like there were passing me, but when I looked around me the woods were empty except for trees and fallen leaves. The conclusion was a little disorienting. After a few moments, though, I realized there was only one place I hadn’t looked—straight up.
Circling in the clear sky, so soprano that they weren’t much more than specks, were about 50 geese. They were wheeling and calling intermittently. Flying among them I saw something else—they looked like a smaller legions of littler birds, whitish. Maybe they were gulls. It looked like a flock of gulls and a flock of geese were complex in some sort of interaction that I couldn’t make out from so far below. After a few minutes, the noise stopped and the birds drifted out of view. 
Source: Some art. Some numismatics. Some gardening. Some misc.
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