The Best to You Natasha!

Have you ever treated your taste buds to a halibut burger? The best one I have ever had danced its way across my tongue on June 17, just last week, and it has likelly spoiled me for any other!
I found this delight on Vancouver Island, at the Port Renfrew West Coast Trail Motel, facing the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The weather was cool and a little overcast, but as I took my seat in the restaurant/pub, a few rays of sunshine peeked in through the window and lent a bright touch to my table. They were soon put to shame, however, by the lovely smile on the young waitress who came immediately to take my order. She mentioned the specials being offered that day and recommended the burger. I took her advice and ordered one. When she asked me what I would like to drink with my meal, and I asked for a house white wine, she began to list the choices. The first one was a sauvignon, but she tripped herself up in the pronunciation of the word. When I tried to help her it out with it, I fared no better than she had and we both shared a good laugh over our misadventures with the French. I was impressed by that because she had the confidence to laugh at herself, instead of trying to cover up the slip.
Then the food was served, and the culinary delight began. I had asked for a salad to go with my burger and found myself with a most generous serving of greens, garnished with artfully cut and arranged slices of carrot and cucumber. The waitress returned, as all good staff do, to enquire if all was to my liking, and I told her it was the best meal I had eaten in my whole week-long stay on the island. I told her, too, that she was also the most friendly waitress I had encountered. I asked her then for her permission to include her smiling face in this entry and she said yes, much to my great pleasure.
On chatting with the young lady, Natasha by name, I found out that she takes seasonal employment there, but would like very much to be able to attend a college for training to work in the hospitality industry. She says she hopes someday to travel the world. I say, "All the very best to you, Natasha." Our world needs all the warm smiles that Natasha and her ilk can share.
If you are out on Vancouver Island and you've got some time to spare, head up the west coast to 17310 Parkinson Road, Port Renfrew. Rest assured that if Natasha's there, you'll have an excellent waitress helping you. Try one of the corn-breaded halibut burgers, but make sure you arrive hungry. You wouldn't want to leave any of that meal!

A Census Comedy of Errors

Like the good, dutiful Canadian citizen that I am, I filled out my census form and returned it the day after I received it. That was a while ago, but silly me, I didn't make an exact note on precisely when that was. I didn't think I would need to.
It was before any of the work disruptions due to the labour problems with Canada Post.
Yesterday, I returned from a seven day sojourn in British Columbia to find a sturdy, card-stock notice wedged into my door, informing me that my census form had not yet been received and that it was my "legal requirement ... to fulfill this legal obligation." Whoever left the notice took a moment to underline in ink the words "legal requirement", that being the written equivalent of a stern vocal admonition, or perhaps even a vague threat.
This morning, I dialed the number given on the card and patiently made my way through all the various choices and "please wait" options until I was finally connected to someone live. At that point, I told her I had indeed filled in and returned my form, but that it could now be languishing at the bottom of some postie's bag. She told me that there is a "lengthy process involved in getting each one into the system" and so, not to worry, says she. I said to her, "What you're telling me then is that the government is busily hacking down trees to make these unnecessary forms to stick on people's doors." She had no direct response to that, but did say that if the ever-mysterious "they" had not received my form in a couple of days (definite time line there, eh?) that someone would come by again, and if I happened to be out they would leave a reminder on my door, since it is a legal requirement that everyone fill out the forms. It was just like I had never told her I had already fulfilled the aforementioned legal obligation.
I had barely sat myself down with a cup of coffee, after that most dissatisfactory phone conversation, when there came a knock at the door. Upon answering said knock, I found myself looking at a fresh-cheeked young woman, perhaps a student, eagerly conducting the protocol of bothering people on a Sunday morning to remind them of their legal obligations to the government. After she told me that "they" had not yet received my census form, she offered to fill it out with me on the spot. I recited for her the whole litany detailed here, the whole comedy of errors that is the Harper government conducting a census. I included the part about the government killing trees needlessly, assuring her of course, that I realized it was none of her personal doing, but that I still found it distressful to know it was being done. She told me that if my form had not been received in a couple of weeks, "they" would send another reminder. Will that reminder be a person at my door, or another piece of dead tree left on my door?
Although I searched the Statistics Canada Notice of Visist - Census 2011 form, nowhere on it could I find mention of it having any recycled paper content. It would be of great interest to me to know exactly how many of those forms are being left on doors across the country; exactly how many trees are required to make those forms, and exactly how many of them are uselessly carrying coal to Newcastle, as was the one on my door.
At no point in my telephone call or my at-the-door encounter did I raise my voice. At no point did I resort to any four-letter words. I was, however, firm in telling both of my conversation partners that the government really needs to rethink and rework their badly flawed conducting of this census. It needs to be an efficient operation, rather than the sad little comedy of errors that it currently is.

Tell Me Why Not

The people of Ontario will be voting for their next provincial government on October 6th of this year. One election promise being made by the hopeful PC party is that if they are brought into power, they will create a publicly accessible website to list the names and addresses of the province's registered sex offenders. It would likely be the first such website in Canada, and would currently inform the public of the names and locations of over 14,100 individuals.
Of course, there is controversy over the proposal. Some are saying that it would serve the purpose of better protecting children from predators. One of these is Paul Gillespie, the former police officer who co-founded Kids' Internet Safety Alliance. Others, however, are saying that the website would only lead to vigilante-style action being undertaken by parents. They say the police already keep track of registered offenders and can alert the public of looming dangers in the form of pedophiles who move into a neighbourhood.
I agree with Gillespie on this one. I think those who bemoan the rights of the registered sex offenders as being trampled on by having their names listed on the proposed website are forgetting the rights of those victimized by the perps. There are too many bleeding-heart liberals in Canada willing to twist themselves into pretzels in order to protect the rights of those who victimize others. Unfortunately, they expect the rest of us to do the same. They forget that these predators have willingly declared themselves to be more desirous of perverted pleasures than they are of giving any thought to the matter of rights. They often come to the consideration of rights only when they don't like the living conditions in the pen or when they find themselves about to be exposed to the general public as the undesirables they are.
I know such a declaration as the one I have just made will lift many an eyebrow and elicit many an expression of dismay over the perceived lack of willingness to forgive it entails. So be it. People who expect that forgiveness to materialize do so in spite of the fact that the rights of the victimized children have been trampled into the dust. Many of these children will have had their childhood completely stolen away; their innocence completely destroyed. They will have been left to spend a lifetime trying to piece themselves back together after the offenders have shattered their wholeness of spirit. Why should those responsible for shattered lives be given so much consideration when they decide they want to move on?
Part of the debate about such measures as the website is the seeming lack of definitive answers available in current research into recidivism rates among sex offenders. Available research, however, does suggest that "incarcerated child molesters committed on average two to five times as many sexual assaults as resulted in conviction." While the jury is still out on this one, maybe we should listen to people like Gillespie, and err on the side of caution, with the children first and foremeost in our consideration.
When pedophiles make the choice to forever damage a child, they make a declaration. They choose to mark themselves, forever, as people who have taken pleasure from victimizing the vulnerable. Why should we worry about everyone knowing the choice they have made?

Ford's War on Creativity

Toronto councillor, Adam Vaughan, chooses the above phrasing to refer to Mayor Rob Ford’s campaign against graffiti. The campaign has already seen the erasure of a mural that had brightened up a railway underpass west of Landsdowne Avenue. The street art covered over by Ford's little militia men was claimed as his own by one Joel Richardson, an artist who says he was paid $2,000. by the city just two years ago to bring a little colour to the underpass. More than one such underpass exists in the city, of course, and every one of them upholds the rep for boring drabness that such places have. To add a touch of colour in a manner that might also add a touch of interest to the days of those who pass by them is no mean feat. Why should Ford get his pantywaist so knotted up over the existence of art, spontaneous and planned, in our city?
This past weekend, I spent some time out and about in my hometown. Down on Church, near the intersection with Queen, I came across a mural painted on an alley wall. I found it fascinating, with suggestions of 12th century tapestry work to it. Look at the image to the right of this entry and see if you can see, as I did, the outstretched front legs of the knights' chargers as they are ridden forth. Look at the person pictured at the top of the mural and see if it suggests to you a king of old, portrayed as the man for whom those destriers will be ridden into battle. I saw all that and more. Of course, part of the beauty of such a piece is that everyone who views it may very well see something different!
I have no idea of whom the mural's creator might be, but I do know that s/he caught my attention and held it; gave me something to marvel at and think about. This happened in a place that otherwise would give very few people a reason to do anything more than simply ignore it while they keep walking on by.
Now imagine Ford's enthusiastic army of art-erasers, out to polish up the city walls by returning them all to a state of boring blandness. Picture those little men and women, all armed with their ever-so-important spray cans of City Clean Blando Paint, quivering with excitement when they discover this wall. They'll have themselves such a grand old time covering it!
Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with Ford wanting to cover up true graffiti. As I was heading home from my sojourn downtown, driving along the DVP, I approached an overpass just south of Lawrence Avenue, I found myself looking at the scrawling black letters in which someone had written "poodick". It has no artistry to it, no appeal to anyone but the sad mind that felt obliged to write it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems to me to be much more the sort of eyesore that Ford's graffiti police should be hunting down and destroying.
The question is: how do we get Ford and his little eager beavers to differentiate between real graffiti and street art? How do we get them to cover up only the former and leave alone the latter?