Problematic penitence

My Lenten penance so far this year has been to listen to the spring training games of the Washington Nationals. I follow this team because they used to be the Montreal Expos, and I was living in Montreal when that franchise began playing, back at Jarry Park. I have hardly ever been in Washington, and have never seen a Nationals game live, but they are my team.

And this spring they have started off with 11 straight losses, following the tradition of the last two full seasons when they have lost more than 100 games each time.

Ah, but now, today, they played two split-squad games and won both of them. Will I have to root for single-payer health-care reform from now on?

Harsh realities

The less I pay attention to Canadian politics, the pleasanter my memories of it. We have been out of Canada for five years on this current stint (just got the notice saying we are being dropped from the voting lists because of prolonged absence), which has allowed me to pretend that Canadian politicians, base their fervent disagreements and maneuverings on high principles and a shared concern for the well-being of all citizens.
But I have been following events a little more closely over the last few months, and my rose-coloured lenses need to be set aside.
The Conservative government shut down Parliament around Christmas time to choke off an investigation into mishandling of prisoners in Afghanistan, and to try to defuse a confrontation where the government is refusing to provide documents which Parliament claims it has the right to see. The shut-down in itself was cheesy and petty, and underscored that the dispute over the documents seems to be because they would be embarrassing to the government, not because they would reveal matters damaging to national security.
And this week the government's budget proposals came out (Summary article by a former Conservative staffer: http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/ericmang/2010/03/conservatism-and-economic-incompetence). More tax cuts for those who have already had tax cuts. Retrenchment on efforts to help people out of the disastrous recession. A more militant military. Much much less for the arts.
The government has the principles of its dogmatic base at heart, but not the needs of the generality of Candians. Why, they are almost acting American (Bush-era) in their arrogance and disdain.
I much preferred the rosier view I had built up. Wish I was in a position to do anything about the current situation.

Tribal knowledge

At my day job, I keep running into word-walls, where the evident meaning of the words is not what the text is trying to convey. So, we have an "application accelerator" that does not accelerate the application. Evidently, it accelerates the process of creating the application, and what happens after that is up to the developer. We have an "autogenerated" modal window that turns out not to be autogenerated, or not in the sense I would understand that term. I still have to tell it what I want in the window and how I want it to look.

Probably what I am running up against is the speed of development of our product. It had its cranky places in times past, and you had to have a large chunk of "tribal knowledge" in order to make it work at all. And now it is much more simple and straightforward for anyone who ever used the older versions. But I did not. I am only seven months here, so my baseline is what everyone else things of as this huge advance over the past. What they want to trumpet as wonderful improvements, I see normal or almost-normal software behavior.

This would be funny if it did result in my wasting so much time tracking down where my understanding does not match the expectations of the team with good tribal knowledge.

Ugly face

Jack Layton is the leader of the Canadian New Democratic Party, has been for the past seven years. He is an energetic fighter for his party's position, and also a stylish leader who does a good job of eviscerating opponents' positions and actions without sticking knives into their guts.

Jack announced on Friday that he has prostate cancer, which is scary but likely treatable. His dad had prostate cancer almost 20 years ago and fought it successfully. I am a great Jack Layton fan, but even if I were not I would wish him the greatest success in this battle. As Gilles Duceppe, leader of the rival Bloc Quebecois, tweeted, "Cher Jack, ton dynamisme et ta détermination viendront à bout de cette épreuve. Bon courage."

I found remarkable, though the quality of comments left on Canadian news sites as the rumor mill churned before Mr Layton's press conference...and even after. People found the most hateful, irrelevant things to say about someone they probably have never met and who arguably thinks benevolently of them. I understand that people who don't get out much and can't keep friends tend to lurk and the world of comment-posting, but still I have clung to a romantic image that this would be Something Canadians Just Don't Do.

I am wrong, of course. Canadians are as trashy as are any other people, and ever have been. I remember now sitting as a poll observer for the NDP in a Halifax riding where the great Muriel Duckworth was our candidate, the first woman to run for a seat in the Nova Scotia legislature. Observing for one of the other parties was a college-aged troll who kept up a non-stop flow of disparaging commentary of all things that were not of his party. But he didn't really know all that much, so his commentary was mainly about how ugly or stupid or lame various prominent figures looked--his chief target was Stanley Knowles, MP, labor activist, and clergyman (who, even his friends would agree, could look a bit like a long-legged bird). I remember wondering at the time, "What planet does this kid think he is on? Why does he think what he's saying has merit?"

It didn't have merit, of course; but as these past decades have shown us, meritless speech poured through a megaphone can have great power. So I guess he was a harbinger of what we now experience.

Speedy healing, Jack!

Home on the prairie

I dashed home from work last night and went off to the nearest AMC theater complex to see a simulcast of Garrison Keillor's radio program, "A Prairie Home Companion". I thought I might be all alone in the theater, but the audience eventually got up to about 150 folks. Most of us were geezers, but not all.
Do you know this show? It has been broadcasting almost forever on Saturday nights on public radio: two hours blending inane skits, local acts, big-name stars, a classy house orchestra, and news from the imaginary town of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota.
The concession booth had no Powder Milk Biscuits or ketchup, two of the supposed sponsors for the show, but aside from that the evening was perfect. We laughed and applauded and held our breaths at the virtuoso music and sound effects. Elvis Costello was the big name of the night, but he had good company.

That was some fun. I hope they broadcast the radio show this way at regular intervals. I will never get to the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota; but this was almost as good.

Swoled

I wish that my lip, after I have once bit it solidly enough to leave visible damage, would not develop a kinky attraction to the teeth chomping down next to it. But it seems to swell towards the danger zone and get itself bitten again and again and again. Even when I wasn't eating anything, just talking on a conference call with some suddenly-startled folks in India. "What was that?" they said. "Must be something with the connection," I enunciated.

On the way to the train

So we had a train to catch on Sunday morning in Albany. About two weeks ago I started to think about winter storms and icy early-morning highways, and we opted to book a bed and breakfast for Saturday night in Troy, NY. One of my rare bursts of genius.

The Old Judge Mansion bed and breakfast is so large that the old judge himself maybe be lurking in one of the many upper rooms. There is one parlor given over to the playing of Texas Hold'em poker tournaments on Sunday nights. There are downstairs public rooms that I saw, but hardly had time to inspect. Kindly hosts; firm beds; off-street parking; ample breakfast.

Oh, and good directions to several restaurants nearby. The first one we went to was booked until late April, so we went to another one, Loporto's, which was also very busy. But they squeezed us in at the bar and fed us mountains of food while the barman (who has worked at various jobs in the building since he was twelve) put on a show of pouring, mixing, shaking, and serving.

Troy and I had had a benevolent ignorance of each other before this past weekend, but now I am happy to have made the acquaintance. It's a former 'Richest Town in America' that looks through much of its downtown as though great old structures had been leveled without much thought to replacing them. But we very much enjoyed what is still standing. And we made the train on time on Sunday morning.