Get off my planet

I subscribe to Vanity Fair. It is a guilty little pleasure of mine that I have been fostering since my teens. While the magazine does not, to the unaccustomed eye, seem to fit in with my usual reading list—The New Yorker, The Economist, Harpers and The Atlantic-- it is an anomaly in that it features fashion pages and Hollywood fluff alongside serious feature articles about politics, art, business and in depth reporting on contemporary issues.

That being said, two articles in the February issue of Vanity Fair have made me seriously consider the audience of the magazine and whether or not I want to be counted in that number. The first article was about Sadistic Chefs: Tyranny-it's what's for dinner. While the article went on about the appalling trend of diner's being held hostage to the whim of the maestro behind the stove what I found most abhorrent was the lengths people went to and the money people spent for the privilege of being so abused.

Author Kummer described $700 dollar meals and flights to Chicago taken for the express purpose of getting a table at a top tier restaurant in Chicago. Is this not conspicuous consumption run amok? The cost of this three hour dining experience would be enough to send a child to school, to feed a family, to pay my home heating oil bill for one winter. How do people spend money in such a frivolous manner and sleep at night?

In another article, same issue, The Kelly, a handbag that cost $8,000 was demonstrated to be worth it's astronomical price tag because the leather was hand dyed and the bag hand stitched with the craftsman’s signature sewn in the lining as proof of authenticity. I had to read the paragraph with the price twice and the comments from wealthy patrons visiting the shop only once to know that something was really wrong with the world. What has happened in our culture that a functional item like a bag to hold your money can cost more than what a majority of people in the world earn in their entire lives?

When we talk about global warming, gun violence, etc....it is the people who insist on $8,000 hand bags and $700 dollar meals + airfare that I blame for the inequalities that have lead to a multitude of social and environmental ills. My compact fluorescent light bulbs don't amount to much in the face of such flagrant misuse of planetary resources.

And who, you may ask is the real object of this rant; surely not the jet set, Kelly bag swinging readers of Vanity Fair. I wrote this post for you, dear friends, for the people I can reach, because I want to ask you to consider this: look at the things you own. How much do they cost? Are they necessary to your life? Now look at how much money you have donated to worthy causes this year. If your luxury spending outweighs the amount you spend trying to make the world a better place--Please get off my planet.

Don't know what you got till it's gone

Yesterday someone pointed out to me that small local newspapers, like the one for which I work, have a precarious foothold on existence in the world of Facebook where local news travels like wildfire. Social media's entrance into the 'news' business has impacted every news gathering agency from small town newspapers like mine to the big boys at the New York Times. We in the business know this and have been trying to counter the social media affect by getting in on the action ourselves (I tweet at GysboroJournal...rarely). I am not sure if this is the correct approach. Perhaps what we should really be doing is trying to educate the public as to what the difference is between Facebook posts, tweets and citizen journalist.

What is the difference? It should be fact checking, a non-biased point of view and a critical look and presentation of both sides of any story. Unfortunately, much of the major news media groups seem to have forgotten that this is what sets them apart from the rumor mill that is social media.

Two weeks ago the federal government of Canada implemented changes to the Employment Insurance (EI) program affecting workers nation-wide. The changes were outlined last spring but when they were enacted two weeks ago the reaction was swift and negative. Within days I saw the following message on the newsfeed of several friends:

With the new EI changes in effect, you are supposed to call at least 1 place per day looking for work. I suggest that you call your MP's office every day and ask if they have a job for you and ask them to write down your information and keep it on file that you were looking for work in their office. The new rules state...s that a business must keep track of everyone who calls or comes into the their business looking for work so the EI police can call to check if you are seeking employment. I'm sure the businesses will enjoy having to take down 500 peoples information a day and keep it on file for maybe a year or so. I suggest that you then call your local PC MLA and ask them if they have a job for you and to keep track of you calling seeking employment. COPY AND PASTE SO OTHERS CAN SHARE IT AS WELL!!! This should go over like a bag of hammers...

I posted this response:

Do you know anyone who has actually been asked to do anything different under the new EI rules? I don't. I am on EI and have not been notified of any additional hoops that I am required to jump through. I am afraid that there is a lot of misinformation out there about what is now required of EI claimants.

No one posted a response claiming to have first hand knowledge of anyone actually being required to make calls, or having received notification that this would be a requirement in the future. Since the EI changes have come into effect I have filed another EI report, received my usual cheque and have not been notified of any changes necessary to keep my claim active. I have spoken to two other EI claimants in the area and they too have received no such notifications.

This stands as the prime reason that real news media, real journalism is still necessary in this world of social media saturation. Misinformation. Social media has a tendency to fuel hysteria; it's left to the real media to set the record straight. But will anyone be listening? How many false news stories have to make the rounds before people will realize that Facebook and twitter don't amount to the modern day equivalent of news but are actually the modern day version of back fence gossip. Declining readership indicates that the people won't wake up to the misinformation they've been consuming at least not yet. Will they wake up in time to save real news? I doubt it. I'll just keep humming this song and see if anybody hears it.

Don't it always seem to go

That you don't know what you've got

Till it's gone

They paved paradise

And put up a parking lot

(thanks Joni)

You're so vain

…. you probably think this post is about you.

Well it is about you, in a way. It's about whether or not you; my friends, family and acquaintances, are reading what I write.

In truth this is about my vanity and my need to check my post statistics feverishly after I upload a new blog entry.

It's about instant gratification and stroking my artistic ego. It's about popularity and presence. It's about thinking I have something important to say.

It's about always wanting to reference that great Carly Simon song in my everyday life.

Cheers and thanks for bringing my stats up. 

What I am missing

Today as I proof the paper I read an 'In Memory' ad from a wife about her deceased husband. I remember this woman coming in to the office for the past two years to place similar ads in the paper on the anniversary date of her husbands' death. She's not a woman you would take note of if you were walking down the street: she's a senior lady, who, if anything comes across as a bit androgynous. But in her resided a great love and now a great memory of the love she and her husband shared. When I think of her, I think of what I am missing.

I have had thoughts of what my life as a single woman would mean emotionally those two previous years when her 'In Memory' ad came across my desk but this year, those thoughts are tinged with a new potency due to a recent break up I had with a short-term boyfriend. While this relationship was not long, only a few months, it did open my eyes to a life that I had pretty much assumed was not part of my path; a life with a companion.

For a long time I have made my peace with the idea that I would be a single person, then as life happened, that I would be a single person with children.

Being single is what seems simplest to me. I haven't had to accept all those little things that inevitably drive me crazy, or make time for another person other then my children. I have not had to deal with complications, awkwardness, deceptions and other things that often accompany a 'relationship'. I have been able to focus on my little family.

But sometimes I feel I need a break from my little family and that is when new men typically come into my life. For the past five years any relationship I have had has always been one that was outside of my regular life. The men I have dated have not become part of the fabric of my day-to-day life. When I was with them it was like I was a tourist on holiday. And as they say, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

That being said, this latest and shortest relationship, was something different. First of all, he didn't annoy me. And that is a big step forward for me. In any man I have ever been involved with there have been minor things that they did that drove me to distraction; things as simple as how they would pronounce a word with an elongated vowel to as crushing as dirty socks on my side of the bed (you can see now why I have never been married). This man let his dog eat off the dishes—I didn't care. He used double negatives—I didn't care. And most importantly, he didn't read my work-- and I didn't care.

So I felt like I had made progress, had gotten past some of my 'issues'. Unfortunately, maybe he had not gotten past some of his.

Today as I read the 'In Memory' ad from a loving wife I felt a little sad that I wouldn't have this man to tell the days tales to, wouldn't call him this evening to talk about his trip to the city, and wouldn't have a day when I would be missing the love I lost.

The good news is I wrote this.