The Accidental by Ali Smith

The basic premise is quite intriguing. A girl shows up in a family's vacation house. Everyone assumes that she's there with another member of the family, so she just kind of hangs around and affects them all. I quite enjoyed that premise, but I didn't find the book itself too compelling. I didn't care that much about the main family, and if, at any point in my reading, you had taken the book away from me and told me that I could never find out what happened next, I wouldn't have cared.

Until like six pages before the very end of this book, I was irritated by two unresolved questions. Then one of them was suddenly and cleverly addressed. It wasn't answered or resolved, but it was addressed and in a way that made me go "Cool!" The other was left unresolved though, which bothered me.

What's interesting about this book is it's set just a couple of years ago - in 2003, I think. There are passing references to current events, which I recognize, but I don't know whether people will recognize them in 10 years. (For example, a description of the Abu Graib photos, mentioned in passing as being on a newspaper page without any explicit identifiers.) I guess it's a risk on the part of the author, but it will be interesting to see whether these things hold up.

Election results

The three races that I voted in have been called. The incumbent won for city councillor by a vast, vast margin, which surprises and perplexes me. One thing about the incumbent that always bothered me was his opposition to density and the trappings of density. That position simply doesn't make sense here in this neighbourhood, because it's a very dense neighbourhood - right in the geographical centre of Toronto. And that's why I chose it - because I enjoy the convenience and amenities that can only be the result of density. The high-rises have been here for 30 years, so you'd think that everyone who opposes density would have moved out by now, and all the residents would be, like me, specifically seeking density.

So then this challenger comes up who supports intelligent development and other trappings of density, as well as many other perfectly sensible positions. This is a breath of fresh air to me - I'm certainly not about giving corporations free reign, but if any neighbourhood is prime for further development it's this one. More housing = increased supply = slows down the rise of local housing costs, enabling everyone who lives here to continue living here. More commercial = more amenities for us. I was very glad to have a viable challenger, and was looking forward to a good race.

But the incumbent won by a longshot. Is that because that's the way people around here feel, or is that because the challenger had trouble getting the word out? I'd be very surprised if such a majority of the riding was so strongly opposed to density. As I mentioned above, the density has been here for decades, and we're all benefitting from it. Is this riding really full of assholes who are sitting there enjoying the fruits of density while trying to prevent anyone else from enjoying it? Or is it just that the challenger didn't get the word out? The challenger did have a website (there was another challenger who didn't have a website or answer any media requests, so he doesn't count), but I only got one flyer, and that was from the incumbent. The flyer was a very well-targeted outline of his position on tenant issues (the challenger had nothing about tenant issues on his website), so I could see how that might sway people in this tenant-heavy neighbourhood, but it also seems to me like the very people who would be swayed by that would support density. So maybe people just weren't getting the challenger's message because he didn't manage to actively reach us. I just hope it's because of poor targeting and the fact that many people don't actively seek out their candidates' positions so they take what information arrives on their doorstep. I'd hate to think that those hundreds of people whose apartment windows I can see out of my 14th storey window are sitting there saying "High-density? Nooooo, we don't want that! It would ruin the character of the neighbourhood!"

Aside: Hazel McCallion has been mayor for 28 years, and has just been elected for another 3 or 4 years. Thirty-plus years. That's an entire career. She's has one job for an entire career. I don't think that happenes to anyone anymore. It does make me wonder how in touch with reality she can be. She's held the same elected office for an entire career's-worth of time. How could she possibly identify with someone who has been or lives in fear of being downsized?

Weird Salon letters

1. First, someone wrote to Cary Tennis saying that her friend's boyfriend didn't want her to go on the bus in going-out clothes. What I found weird about the letters is how many people seem to think that buses are So Very Very Dangerous. That's simply not my experience. I mean, I'm not going to count my money or change my shirt on a bus, but I feel quite safe. There are always multiple groups of people around, there's the driver, you're on camera at all times, it's well-lit - it's simply no more of a problem than any other element of public life. The only potential area of concern is waiting for the bus, which I did find sometimes iffy in my pre-Toronto life. But these people are talking about being on a bus, and that's not nearly as much of a problem as the commenters make it out to be.

2. Then there's this guy who wants permission to hit on women who already have boyfriends. What I find odd about the letters is that there are so many more men commenting on what women do/don't want than women commenting on what they'd want in that situation. There were even a couple of men who commented that all women are up for grabs until they're married, despite the fact that I and a couple of other women had previously posted that we specifically do NOT want to be pursued when we're in a relationship. Frankly, I take offence. It's pretty damn cocky for random third-party to presume to overrule my declarative statement about my personal standards! Ladies, if you ever meet one of these guys in real life, please go Lysistrata on his ass!

Voted

Well, no TDSB students took me up on my offer, so I voted in accordance with my own judgement. This shouldn't be taken as indicative of the apathy of Kids Today, but rather as indicative of the fact that I'm an unknown blogger with no high school or elementary school students in my readership. Next election, someone should really come up with a way to poll students on their trustee preferences though, just so people can use it to inform their voting if they wish.

But on to the mystery: I wasn't on the voters' list! This is really weird, because I voted in the 2003 Toronto municipal election, and I still live at the same address now! I didn't get one of those "confirm that you're on the voters' list" letters, but I assumed that's because I haven't moved. Then I didn't get a voter registration card, but I figured it got lost or something. I have no idea how I got off the list! Although, now that I think about it, I haven't gotten one of those MPAC forms in quite a long time. And apparently I'm still on the list at my parents' address in my hometown, although I don't think the two are connected. That's very odd though, since I've never voted in a municipal election at my parents' address (I moved away shortly before the first municipal election in which I was eligible to vote).

In any case, it turned out just fine. I filled out a form, showed the nice lady my driver's licence, and was given a ballot. I was a wee bit surprised by the lack of security - I only had to show one form of ID, didn't have to prove my citizenship, and simply verbally told her which school board I support. If I wasn't a citizen, I could have voted anyway. If I had done enough research to do so, I could have sabotaged one of the school boards I don't support. But maybe people are so generally apathetic about municipal politics that no one cares enough to sabotage them? Anyway, I would have been far more pissed if I couldn't have voted than because it was so easy to vote.

ETA: I didn't see any doggies while voting today, which usually portends an unfavourable election. However, I didn't do my good-luck ritual either, so I don't know how that will affect things.

New record?

I think the recruitment video in today's Simpsons wins for the greatest density of pop culture references per minute.

Behind the counter

Today I purchased a behind-the-counter product at a pharmacy. I walked up to the counter, asked for the product, and the pharmacist handed it to me. That's it. Makes me wonder what the point of keeping it behind the counter is. I know it's behind the counter for pharmaceutical reasons, not because it's commonly stolen like razor blades are, but I was not asked any questions or given any advice. (Unless the pharmacist could tell just by looking at me/talking to me/being in my presence that I needed the product in question, which would have been terribly embarrasing.)

Wherein Dear Ellie misses the obvious answer

In re: the first letter, where the lady's husband insists on switching sides of the bed when his neck hurts:

Why not just switch sides permanently?

I've decided what to do about the petition

I've decided that I'm not going to sign the petition, but I am going to email my MP and the Prime Minister a reworked version of my post below, outlining what I think would and would not be an appropriate use of the state funeral. Signing the petition would have been too supportive - I could have left a small comment, but I don't know if it would be taken into considerations. Not signing wouldn't have been interpreted as either outright opposition, or simply my not having seen the petition (aside: petitions in general should keep a tally of people who had a chance to sign but chose not to do so). An email outside the aegis of the petition seems to be the best way to tell the powers that be about the nuances of my opinion. I would encourage anyone else with a nuanced opinion to do the same thing.

Coming up sometime later this weekend: how to avoid making Remembrance Day into a meaningless cliché. Then on to other topics, I promise.

Petition for a state funeral for the last surviving WWI veteran

From James Bow, I just learned that there's a petition to give a state funeral to the last surviving WWI veteran.

My first thought is that this is a really cool idea. My second thought was that there's a lot of potential to do this poorly. If it is done in a way that makes it not for just this one guy but symbolic of everyone, military and civilian who died in and suffered through WWI, that emphasizes the utter senselessness and tragedy of WWI, and the terrible cost of WWI and all wars in general, I think a state funeral is a brilliant idea. But if it's all empty pomp, mindlessly making the deceased (and perhaps his fellow veterans) out to be heroes, making the military look glamourous and sexy, the sort of thing that could be remixed into a recruiting ad, I don't think that's appropriate.

While the soldier should, of course, be buried with all appropriate dignity, the public's mind also needs to be on trenches full of mud and shit and gangrene and death, rats and roaches and amputated limbs, the foolishness and shortsightedness of nations stuck in the 19th century getting the world into this mess, the foolishness and ignorance of men who are really boys charging off like it's some great adventure, hundreds even thousands of men dying to gain a few metres of ground, all to be fought all over again in a few short decades. This would be an appropriate use for a state funeral.

However, if it's just about clean and pressed uniforms, flags and honour guards, and a sepia photograph of a dashing young man off to be a hero, that's highly inappropriate, and not something I will sign a petition for.

Holocaust memorials can honour the dead appropriately while emphasizing the horror; the survivors leave feeling the dead have been properly honoured, the general public leaves feeling "never again." This is what our war memorials should be doing, this is what our Remembrance Day ceremonies should be doing, and this is what the state funeral for the last veteran should do.

I haven't decided yet whether or not I will sign the petition. I will need to reflect on it some more, and do some research into what a state funeral involves. While I don't begrudge the state funeral in any case - I certainly wouldn't protest if they decided to do it - I'm not yet sure if I'm comfortable actively demanding it. But I think everyone should have a fair chance to sign the petition or not, which is why I'm posting the link here with my thoughts on the matter. Do whatever you think is right.

On being anti-war

On the radio this morning, they were discussing at length a poll on how people feel about Canadian troops being in Afghanistan.

I listened as I bustled about my morning routine and mulled things over, and I kept coming back to one thought:

In general, being anti-war is surprisingly unpopular. I hold a lot of unpopular and/or uncommon opinions, and I think of all the opinions I hold, my pacifism is the one I get the most shit for. It sounds strange, but based on my experiences with these things, if you stick me in a randomly-selected group of people I'm more likely to offend by saying "What if they had a war and nobody came?" than by anything else it might occur to me to say. I've also noticed that whenever someone expresses general or specific anti-war sentiments in public, they seem to qualify them more than with most other statements, like people need more reassurance that this doesn't mean the speaker wants your brother in the military to die or for the world to be dominated by nazis or something. Look at the uproar surrounding white poppies - apparently it's controversial to express pacifist sentiments for Remembrance Day of all things!

So with all this in mind, I keep finding myself wondering how honestly people answered this poll. Maybe they did answer honestly - I'd assume that pollsters aren't in the habit of dissing pollees opinions. Or maybe they answered less anti-war than they feel, out of the habit of toning down their anti-war sentiments. Or maybe they were more anti-war than usual, to compensate for the fact that they usually have to tone things down in public (although I don't know if people would think of this on their feet while answering a poll.)

It doesn't usually occur to me so strongly that a poll may be inaccurate, but in this case it really struck me.

Santorum

Dan Savage's attempt to redefine the word santorum seems to have worked on me. I didn't pay much attention to it the first time around, but just now I had the TV on to US election results while I puttered about doing other things, and whenever the word "Santorum" was uttered I'd sort of do a double take. "WHAT are they talking about????...Oh yeah, it's a person's name."

Weird bumpersticker combination

Seen on a car:

1. a bumpersticker saying "God Bless America
2. a bumpersticker saying "CNN Lies"
3. Ontario plates

Based on that information, I can't tell what they think CNN is lying about.

Missed a spot!

A while back, I started using a Schick Quattro, because I could not longer find blades for my previous razor (Gilette Sensor Excel), probably because I'd been using it for like 10 years.

Ever since I switched to the Quattro, I've been missing spots, and always the same spots. The inside edge of the armpit, the very bottom of my ankle, the bit between the sticky-outy part of the ankle bone and the Achilles tendon - I keep finding these small patches of centimetre-long hair in areas that I thought I was shaving every two days.

A side-by-side comparison shows that the Quattro blade is the same width as the Sensor Excel blade, and the handle is longer so that doesn't explain why I keep missing the bottoms of my ankles. It's like my shaving autopilot needs to be recalibrated for the new razor or something. At any rate, I hope I get it sorted out by summer.

Grey hair science

There was a small knot in a lock of my hair. This lock of hair included a couple of greys, but consisted mostly of dark hair. After I got it untangled, the dark hairs returned to their normal straight condition, but the greys remained strangely bent, as though they had been though a bizarro curling iron.

Maybe this is why white-haired little old ladies always have their hair curled. Maybe grey hairs are far less likely to fall back into their natural shape, so old ladies set their hair so they can control its shape, rather than leaving it to chance and having every hair be a different shape.

If this is the case, when I've gone completely grey, I'm going to put my hair in GIANT curls on top of my head, like Ginger from Gilligan's Island.

Harry's Firebolt

In Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry's Nimbus is broken by the Whomping Willow, and Sirius replaces it with a Firebolt, which is The Very Best Broom Ever In Existence.

So why does Harry need to have The Very Best Broom Ever In Existence? He's a teenager, and he's been clearly established as an Exceptional Flier. The fact that he's an Exceptional Flier almost negates the need for him to have The Very Best Broom Ever In Existence - he should be able to do just fine on any decent broom.

And what has the Firebolt done for Harry anyway? Getting past the dragon in the Triwizard Tournament, flying from Privet Drive to Grimmauld Place in OOTP, and a bit of Quidditch.

In the dragon scene, the emphasis was very much on Harry's flying skills. It wasn't even mentioned that Harry had The Very Best Broom Ever In Existence - he succeeded because he's an Exceptional Flier. Goblet of Fire seems to be a very random, disjointed book, and I think the reason for this is that it was setting up a number of future plot threads. For example, Harry's training for the maze task is what gave him the expertise to lead the DA, and ultimately to defeat the Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries. The book also introduced Fleur Delacour, who is all teed up to become a character in her own right, and Viktor Krum, whose presence set up all the relationship drama in HBP. So I don't think the dragon was an end in and of itself. I think it was more intended to emphasize the point the Harry is an Exceptional Flier.

The flight to Grimmauld Place is unexceptional. No emphasis is made on how Harry's flying skills or the quality of his broom came in particularly handy. He was competent and able to keep up with the adults, but there was nothing really difficult to it - it was just getting from Point A to Point B. Worst case, it's meaningless. Best case, it's intended to show that Harry can keep up with adults in standard flying for transportation purposes.

Quidditch is the only situation where the fact that Harry has The Very Best Broom Ever In Existence is emphasized, and it is emphasized along with the fact that Harry is an Exceptional Flyer. However, I don't think Quidditch has much significance in the larger plot. I read it as originally intended to increase Harry's sense of belonging in the wizarding world (since he's exceptionally good at Quidditch but not particularly good at anything in the Muggle world), and in later books it was intended to enable various interpersonal relationship plot points. J.K. Rowling has said that she wrote her last Quidditch scene in HBP, so I don't think it has any significance in the overall Harry vs. Voldemort plot, with the possible exception of establishing that Harry is an Exceptional Flier flying The Very Best Broom Ever In Existence.

So far, the Firebolt hasn't proven particularly necessary. With the possible exception of one or two Quidditch victories, a Nimbus would have done just fine. But Harry's Nimbus was gratuitously destroyed and replaced with a Firebolt for no yet-apparent reason. I think some seriously hardcore flying is going to be involved in Harry's defeat of Voldemort.

I hate this

I called the doctor again to nag about the HPV vaccine. The receptionist said I need to call the pharmacy, and wouldn't or couldn't give me any information on whether the doctor could administer it, whether I need a prescription, etc.

But I have talked to a pharmacy. They said I need to talk to my doctor.

I turn 26 in seven weeks, at which point I'm too old for the vaccine.

I'm very anti-litigation, but I think if I ever get HPV or cervical cancer, I'm going to sue someone.

Things They Should Invent: translation drinking game

You have to break stride and go back to insert an adjective, take a drink.
Your English sentence is less than 60% the length of the original French, take a drink.
A noun phrase of five or more nouns all piled together without the benefit of prepositions, take a drink.
You find yourself actually using some obscure linguistic factoid that seemed useless in university, take a drink.
You make a typo that results in another perfectly valid word, take a drink. It's a dirty word, take two drinks.
Faulty agreement in the source text makes the meaning unclear, take two drinks.
Your terminology database craps out on you when you're on deadline outside of tech support hours, finish the bottle.

Any translators out there? Add your own!

Things They Should Invent: indicate cellphone battery charge in hours

My cellphone shows how full the battery is with a little picture of a battery containing four or five little bars. I have a pretty good battery - when I'm down to just one bar, it can last a couple of days. But if I have a non-standard day coming up, some situation where it's more important than usual to be able to make and receive cellphone calls, I start feeling tempted to recharge when the phone is down to one bar. This is a problem - my previous phone died because I didn't let it empty all the way before recharging and left it on the charger too long when I did recharge, so I want to be particularly careful not to recharge a non-empty battery unless absolutely necessary.

This is why I want my phone to tell me how much battery time is left. Just make it a function in the menu. Tell me how much "on" time and how much "talk" time is left. Better yet, let me enter a value for "talk" time, and tell me how much "on" time I have in addition to that. That way, if I know that tomorrow I'll need to have the phone on for four straight hours and anticipate making six five-minute calls during that time, I can calculate whether I'll need to recharge the phone tonight or not.

Attention: Toronto District School Board students

I have decided to do it.

I am going to let Toronto District School Board students tell me how to vote for the position of Toronto District School Board trustee. I have one vote for a TDSB trustee in school board Ward 11. The candidates are here, scroll down until you get to Ward 11. If you are a TDSB student under the age of 18, leave a comment containing the name of one of these candidates. You don't have to justify it or convince me, I'm going with a strict majority or plurality. In the event of a tie, I will use my own judgement to break the tie. In the event that no one comments (quite likely, since I do not, to my knowledge, have any TDSB students in my readership), I will vote for a trustee using my own judgement. Any TDSB students, regardless of which ward they live in, are welcome to comment. Why? Because a) I don't know of anyone else who's doing this, and b) I have no way of checking whether or not you're from Ward 11 anyway.

If you have an online presence, I'd appreciate it if you could leave a link to your online presence in your comment, just so I can check that you're actually a TDSB student. (I'd be happy to delete any comments after the election is over, just let me know.) I'd also appreciate it if you could leave some kind of name (by selecting "Other" under "Choose an identity" rather than selecting "Anonymous"), just so I don't have multiple Anonymouses. However, I totally understand if you don't want to leave a link to your online presence on my strange adult's blog.

However, because I am allowing anonymous comments, I need some way to prevent abuse. So I have decided on the following rules:

1. Posts from IP addresses outside the TDSB catchment area will be deleted.
2. Multiple posts from the same IP address supporting the same candidate will be deleted.
3. Posts from the candidates' own IP addresses will be deleted (I will be tracking this by sending the candidates innocuous emails in the guise of an interested voter.)
4. Posts from people who I know for certain are not TDSB students - or who represent themselves online as something other than TDSB students - will be deleted.

If I find myself having to delete a post, I will say what I deleted and why, in the name of transparency.

After doing the best research I can, I have not been able to find anything indicating it's illegal or otherwise improper for me to do this. If it is, in fact, illegal or improper for me to be doing this, please leave me a comment with a link to whatever specific rule I've broken, and I'll call the whole thing off and cast no vote whatsoever for the trustee position.