Book Review: The Ark of the Oven Mitt

Like many other people, local musician (and City Council member) James Gordon has been trying to figure out to keep his business going during this plague time. Unable to actually do any touring, he's written a book/album about the decline of the bar band circuit. In the process, he's attempted to come up with something of a prescription for a new world. 

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The book starts out by introducing a folkie band by the name of "Miles Gerber and the Shit Disturbers". This group consists of the main singer/song writer/guitarist Miles Gerber, bass and fiddle player Dougie, the Drummer, the van they travel in (Nelly-Belle), and, a young woman they literally picked-up off the side of the road who goes by the letters "MG". The plot progresses by illustrating how much the bar circuit has declined since the "good old days". 

Haunting this depressing state of affairs is Mile's decline---both professionally and personally---after the other half of his original, semi-successful band "Miles and Myles", left him under mysterious circumstance. His wife and the band's lead singer, Maddie Myles, unexpectedly left him one day never to be seen again. He never got over the loss, and it left him in a tailspin. 

Once MG arrives, however, things take a bit of an upswing. First off, MG announces that her initials stand for "Merchandise Girl" and shows how the Shit Disturbers can augment their meager income by selling t-shirts and downloading songs off the Web. Eventually, she takes over the role of agent---which she proves very good at, even to the point of organizing a show at a major bar in downtown Toronto---which is live-streamed. 

The artistic basis of this mini-renaissance is Miles' connection to a member of his audience who shares with him the story of the decline and fall of his family's sheep ranch. This leads him to write a song about this personal tragedy, which he promises to sing at the next venue. When the band gets there to set up, they find that the ex-rancher is in the audience and pleased as punch that he has been heard. 

This leads to other stories from audience members, which leads to other songs, which eventually results in a caravan of folks following the Shit Disturbers across the Prairies and eventually to Manitoulin Island where an impromptu "Woodstock" coalesces into the "Ark of the Oven Mitt", which you'll have to read the book to understand. ;-)

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The book has it's moments, but the real appeal is the music. When you open it you are confronted with a QR code which you can scan with your phone or tablet. It takes you to a BandCamp page that allows you to stream or download the songs.

James Gordon has a real knack for writing songs that encapsulate someone else's emotional point of view. Consider, if you will, the following example. Here're the lyrics from one of them.   

James Gordon, looking mysterious

.

Angus Maclean

On that awful day, they took my license away

Might as well have taken me out back and shot me

Bit by bit they steal, everything that makes me feel

Like a man, time has tracked me down and caught me.

 

Well the auctioneer, he's on his way here

To take everything except my pain

What am I bid, how much to get rid

Of one old man named Angus Maclean

Their gonna take me away, to that old folk's place

Put me in a hog pen to die in

And when they try to say, Angus it'll be OK

I still got enough upstairs to know they're lying

Well the auctioneer, he's on his way here

To take everything except my pain

What am I bid, how much to get rid

Of one old man named Angus Maclean

You can't separate the land, from an old farmin' man

We're made of the same damn dirt

Might as well auction me, then maybe we'd 

Know what an antique like me was worth

One more trip into town, on this old David Brown,

Don't need no license for that 

Then we'll sit in the barn, till they auction off this farm

And we're sold off together for scrap

And here's the performed song as a YouTube clip.

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The way to understand this book is to recognize that James Gordon is an old-fashioned balladeer. By this I mean that he writes small, emotional songs that explain a specific human situation. 

This is an old tradition that goes back long ago. In the British tradition, balladeers were people who wrote songs and travelled from town to town sharing them with people who were gathered in pubs or markets. When cheap printing and increased literacy came along, songs were often printed on "chap books" so they could be shared more widely than a individual balladeer could travel.

In a world without newspapers---or any other formal source of information---the ballads a person would hear in a tavern would often be their only source of information about significant or just plain interesting news from the wider world outside the village. 

For example, here's a ballad from 1759 about the death of General Wolfe during The Battle of the Plains of Abraham. 

First the lyrics:

Bold General Wolfe

On Monday evening as we set sail
The wind did blow a most pleasant gale
For to fight the French it was our intent
Through smoke and fire, Through smoke and fire
And it was a dark and a gloomy night 

Now the French was landed on the mountains high
And we poor hearts in the valley lie
Never mind my lads, General Wolfe did say
Brave lads of honour, brave lads of honour
Old England shall win the day

The very first broadside we gave to them
We killed seven hundred and fifty men
Well done my lads, General Wolfe did say
Brave lads of honour, brave lads of honour
Old England shall win the day

The very first broadside they gave to us
They wounded our general in his right breast
Then out of his breast living blood did flow
Like any fountain, like any fountain
Till all us men were filled with woe

Here's a hundred guineas all in bright gold
Take it and part it, for my blood runs cold
And use your soldiers as you did before
Your soldiers own, your soldiers own
And they will fight for evermore

And when to England you do return
Tell my friends that I am dead and gone
Pray tell my tender old mother dear
That I am dead O, that I am dead O
And I shall never see her no more

And now the performance:

Gordon's ballad Angus Maclean is much the same thing, only it isn't about the conquest of French Quebec by the British Army, but rather the decline of the family farm. That's what The Ark of the Oven Mitt is about, the personal impact that our changing world is having on individual people. If Gordon lived at the time of the enclosures, he'd be singing about people being kicked off their village lands. At the time of the potato famine, he'd have been singing about starving while shiploads of Irish wheat were being shipped to England. And if he currently lived in Ukraine, he'd be singing about training as a guerrilla to defend his home while Russian troops concentrate at the boarder. 

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As a matter of fact, James has written another ballad recently which has become something of a hit (ie: downloads alas, not sold recordings). Ironically, it's about a different sort of convoy than the one described in The Oven Mitt. It's not composed of people who lost their livelihoods because of the new economy, but rather fools who threw away their employment because they were gulled into thinking that a life-saving vaccine is a plot by reptiles from outer space/Bill Gates/blood-drinking American politicians/whatever.

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Moreover I say unto you, the Climate Emergency must be dealt with!

 

James Gordon Part Four: Leading by Example

In the next two parts of my conversation with Councilor Gordon, I'm trying to tease out some of the more subtle issues that environmental leaders have to deal with. In the first one I'm asking about how we respond to the feedback we get from the general public---who are often totally indifferent to the problems that future generations may have. I've listened to James' response quite a few times and had some ideas pop into my head as a result.

 

Cloudwalking Owl · James Gordon Second Interview First Question

It strikes me that James and I see the demands of activism and politics in different ways. I think that for him what's important is what the general public will allow him to get away with. He's working for the audience. In contrast, my concern is about what the science says. It's something of a dilemma that all environmentalists face. The science is getting increasingly shrill in it's dire warnings. But the general public doesn't want to change the way it lives it's life, and many people will just "shut down" if you try to tell them the truth. That's why a lot of people in leadership positions won't tell the voters what they really believe---they sugar coat it because they believe that the general public "can't handle the truth".

Maybe they are right. I ran for public office many times saying things that people didn't want to hear and as a result I never got anywhere near getting elected to anything. But I have a sneaking suspicion that every time a politician sucks up to what they believe are the voter's prejudices they end up reinforcing the idea that there really isn't an Climate Crisis and that they won't need to make any sort of substantive change in their lives to prevent a real catastrophe. Sometimes we need to stop making "baby steps" and really do big things if we are going to deal with real problems. Where would we be, for example, if this same sort of timid, tepid response was used to deal with the Covid-19 crisis? What sort of hole would we currently be in? 

Another way to think of this problem is to compare it to the dilemma we face when we see someone in a store who adamantly refuses to wear a mask during the current pandemic. A large school of opinion states that a small but significant fraction of the population  just "double down" and become more obstinate in their behaviour if you try to get them to do something that they don't want to do---so talking to the guy without a mask will be counter productive. (If you wonder what I'm talking about, check out the video below. It's from the Now This website.) 

There's another issue that people should think about too. In work life I've seen diabetic people who are having issues with their blood sugar levels act just as loony as the woman in the above video. After they got their blood chemistry under control they were profoundly apologetic. In my first aid training the paramedic who taught us said that diabetics die in police drunk tanks every year because they look like out of control drunks who eventually "quiet down" to "sleep it off"---only the "sleeping it off" bit is going into a diabetic coma and dying. So I would advise caution in making assessments about individuals you see freaking out. You never really know what is going on until you've got a pretty good understanding of the specific details.

Another school of thought states that if you allow "free riders" to get away with their behaviour, it undermines the willingness of everyone else to continue to support the group effort. Personally, I see evidence that both points of view have merit, which would suggest that there must be a statistical "sweet spot" where you ignore a certain percentage of infractions to avoid helping people get a "martyr complex" over mask wearing, but call out and sanction another percentage so the people who routinely wear a mask don't end up feeling like they are "being played for suckers".

It's much the same thing about the climate crisis. Some folks refuse to accept any limits on their "right" to have the largest environmental footprint possible. If we point the finger at them and point out how selfish and greedy they are, a lot are going to go out and buy a Hummer or do something else equally idiotic---just to give the finger to whomever told them off. But at the same time, there has to be at least some effort to point out publicly how viciously they are acting towards other people or else the people who are careful about their footprint will just give up because "what's the point? every molecule of CO2 I save is just being emitted by the jerk who drives his Hummer to the airport so he can fly to where he starts his holiday cruise." 

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In this second question we move on talk about the importance of "leading by example". I've had this conversation with a lot of people and there seems to be a real disconnect between most of the green leaders I know and many members of the general public. The leaders often don't understand why they should live less "large" lives than anyone else, and many voters say that these people don't really believe what they are saying---because if they did, they wouldn't be blasting around the planet spewing CO2 everywhere. 

Cloudwalking Owl · James Gordon Second Interview 2nd Question

If you wonder what I'm talking about, take a look at this image from the Patriot Post website:

Used under the "fair dealing" copyright provision.

I think that there are two sides to this thing. 

 

I suspect that James is onto something when says that people often come from a position of privilege and aren't conscious of what they are doing. I have a hard time understanding this because I'm old enough and come from they type of background that I remember a time when almost no one except the very wealthy ever traveled on vacation. For example, my parents went on one over-night vacation in their entire marriage---to beautiful Chatham Ontario. And it was only possible because their children were old enough to take care of the livestock (and dad won the trip as a bonus for selling seed corn). That's because, as they said, farmers are "chained to their animals". Having grown up this way, I can understand that long distance travel for pleasure is an aberration in human history whereas a majority of Canadians see it as their birthright.

I also wonder about the honesty of people who complain about the hypocrisy of greens who go on trips, live in big houses, etc. There certainly are some greens who actually do "walk the talk". Why do the complainers fixate on the ones that don't? I suspect that even if every single person who said that we need to get off our fossil fuel addiction actually did go off meat, never flew again, got rid of their car, etc, most of these folks wouldn't lift a finger to change their lifestyle. That's because they aren't honestly complaining about the other guy, instead they're just looking for an excuse to do nothing. 

There are examples from history, however, where "leading by example" was a genuine thing and led to great results. Consider the "Swadeshi" movement that was part of Indian Independence (which I was mentioning to James.) 

Personally, I think that there is a real need for environmental leaders to lead by example. I have great sympathy with the idea that if you really do think that we are facing a tremendous catastrophe we owe it to everyone else to actually look like we really believe it and live accordingly. Possibly that explains the "rock star status" of Greta Thunberg when she was in the middle of her "fifteen minutes of fame". 

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Moreover, I say unto you we have to deal with the Climate Emergency!

James Gordon Interview, Part Three: Government's Inability to Follow Through

In the third part of my conversation with Councilor James Gordon we talked a bit more about the "nuts and bolts" of local politics. The first part deals with on-going issues where it appears that Council had made a decision---and yet, nothing substantive ever seems to change. 

Cloudwalking Owl · Fourth Question First Interview

 

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In the first part I mention Hugh Whiteley, who was a professor (I assume retired) in the 

Hugh Whiteley, from Face Book.

Engineering department at the U of Guelph. He used to spend a lot of time going in front of Council raising issues---so much so that I can remember some people saying that he was an "honorary member of Council" himself. One of the points that he repeatedly raised was that the city had made a decision that whenever a piece of land along the Speed or Eramosa rivers came onto the market that the city should purchase it and make it into a publicly-accessible park. Unfortunately, whenever some of it did become available, there always seemed to be a reason why the city never did buy it.

I got in touch with Whiteley and he sent me a power point presentation that he'd created for when he gave a talk on this issue. According to it, in 1993 the city Council created a "River System Management Master Plan". In fact, he says that "the City of Guelph became the first city in Ontario to adopt a management master plan for its river and stream corridors". The idea was that the Speed and Eramosa rivers have an undeniable value to the community, and as such should be integrated into a combination wildlife corridor and recreation area. Formally, the city called this the "1997 Greenway Vision and Plan". This was adopted as part of the official plan of Guelph in 2001. 

According to Whiteley's slides

The Phase 3 Official Plan Update (OPA 48) adopted by City Council in
2012 and approved by the Ontario Municipal Board in 2017 replaces
the OP policies implementing the Greenway Vision and Plan and its
integration of all types of open space with an OP open-space policy
framework restricted to City of Guelph parks

But according to Whiteley, this change only came from staff recommendations and shouldn't have superseded the Council decision. Instead, Council should have passed a new Recreation Parks & Culture Master Plan, which it hasn't since 1993. (The city is currently in the process of creating a new one, but the first public consultation was supposed to happen last winter, with a final draft being created by this fall. The pandemic has probably significantly delayed the process---which the website itself warns.)

It appears that the brave new world of Guelph riversides being linked together into an integrated wildlife corridor and park system just dissolved into bureaucratic goo once it left Council. That left Prof. Whiteley to become the conscience of Council---reminding them of that one meeting where they had a bold vision for the future.

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It might get people to loosen up their purse strings a bit if they realized that the above little section required about a half dozen hours seeking-out Hugh to find out how to contact him, reading various "false leads" (the official master plan of Guelph comes to about 400 pages), and, then working through what Whiteley sent me---besides just writing. This is just to explain that gathering news for the community is "an actual job that requires actual work" (to quote Adam Donaldson from an interview that went nowhere because my sound recorder wiped out most of the conversation). 

I'm going to go on a bit of a rant here because I think it should be said. Years ago I wrote a story about the Guelph Carnegie Library and I spent many hours working through microfilm copies of the old "Mercury" newspaper. In the process, I gained a new respect for reporters. Beyond their daily missives, there really isn't any record at all of many different key events in this city. Recently I realized that the same thing could be said about "The Guelph-Back-Grounder". I carefully save each new story in the Internet Archive "Wayback Machine" so even if Blogger goes under, academics, students, and, interested citizens from the future will have the same opportunity I had when I looked at the stories around how the Carnegie library was built and torn down. 

If you think that this work is important and needs to continue, pay for it! It's easy to do using Pay Pal or Patreon. As much as a dollar a month would make a lot of difference! I'm not proud, though. If you want to slip me some money or payment in kind---that's OK too. Indeed, if someone wants to be a "patron" and make a significant on-going financial support that would help too.

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I also mentioned Susan Watson, who's been battling with Council to provide as much

Susan Watson, photo by 
Bill Hulet

parkland as the official plan mandates for quite a while. As near as I can tell, the current official plan mandates that there should be four different types of parks with different rules governing each:

• "Urban Squares" (I assume, like St. George's square downtown)
• "Neighbourhood Parks": 0.7 HA/1,000 residents
• "Community Parks": 1.3 HA/1,000 residents
• "Regional Parks": 1.3 HA/1,000

Add these together and you get the number of 3.3 HA/1,000 people in residential communities. 

Adding to the complexity, the city approved a new parkland dedication By-law in 2019. Just to give people an idea of the complexity of trying to figure out these rules, consider the following quote from page four:

(d) Where land is located outside of Downtown and is to be Developed or
Redeveloped for residential purposes with a total proposed density equal to or greater than one-hundred (100) Dwelling Units per one hectare (1ha), the greater of:



i. a portion of the Land not exceeding 1 hectare (1ha) per three-hundred (300) Dwelling Units, but in no case to exceed thirty-percent (30%) of the total area of the Land, or;
ii. five-percent (5%) of the total area of the Land; shall be conveyed to the City for Parkland.

After hours of trying to make sense of these planning documents I've come to the conclusion that it's almost impossible to figure out exactly how much land any given new subdivision should be contributing to any particular park. That's because there are different classifications of what a "park" is and the total amount of parkland added together across the entire city. This makes sense to me simply because each new development project can't be expected to build it's own parks---if it did, every small one would have a tiny park attached to it. It makes a lot more sense to consolidate the portion each development brings to the table into an organic whole that services the entire city. That's why businesses are allowed to offer a cash payment in lieu of land sometimes.

If this wasn't bad enough, the provincial government under Doug Ford brought in a proposed omnibus bill titled "More Homes, More Choices" that among other things (including cannabis regulation, endangered species, conservation authorities, etc) that changed the rules around parkland acquisition. This passed on June 6th of 2019 and it complicated things even more for the city. According to a legal website that I found discussing this subject, parkland is associated with "section 42" of the Ontario Planning Act. 

In a nutshell, this analysis suggests that municipalities can now levy a "Community Benefit Charge" (CBC) that will be used to fund a variety of different services:

• Libraries
• Long-term care
• Park development (eg. playgrounds)
• Public Health, and
• Recreation

The amount that a city can charge through the CBC is capped at 15% of the market value of the land for single-tier municipalities (Guelph is one), which means that when the money comes into City Hall, parks will be just one of several "soft services" that will be lined up, cap-in-hand, for their payment. Municipalities that already have regulations mandating park acquisition may still keep doing this, but only if they don't start charging a Community Benefit Charge. As you might imagine, this might put Guelph in the position of having to balance off parks against the proposed new library. 

I hope that the above discussion shows the sort of wild complexity that makes it very hard for the average citizen or even City Councilor to understand what is happening with regard to setting aside land for new parks. And that pretty much leaves developers and staff in the driver's seat. Just like the discussion I had with James about the proliferation of red tape one needs to wade through to receive social assistance (see The Administrative Burden of Social Programs), it appears that managing development has become so complex that it is pretty much impossible for a non-professional to understand what is going on. Two questions arise from this insight: "how effective is democratic oversight when things are so hard to understand?", and, "is the complexity that ties both politicians and the public into knots a bug in the system---or a feature?". 

It's generally a bad idea to try to parse out intent, so I won't do anything more than raise this question. But having said that, if we do want to continue to have some semblance of public oversight with regard to a great many things---including park acquisition---I suspect that citizens and elected officials are going to have to demand that more of our official documents be written in plain English instead of legal gobble-de-gook. 

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Image from the David Suzuki 
foundation website. Photo by
Jennifer Roessler

Councillor Gordon mentions that he personally shepherded the Blue Dot affirmation through Council as one of his first acts after being elected, but that not much seems to have come out of it. Contrary to what James assumes during the interview, I actually hadn't heard of the Blue Dot municipal program until he mentioned it. It turns out that it is an outgrowth of the David Suzuki foundation and in a nutshell it suggests that municipalities adopt a resolution saying that they consider environmental rights on par with other rights that our society affirms and supports to a greater or lesser degree. As they say on their website:

A municipal declaration of environmental rights is a commitment to decision-making principles that protect, fulfill and promote the right to a healthy environment. A community’s specific declaration might include a commitment to use the best and latest available science to ensure that the right to a healthy environment is always considered when decisions are made. A declaration can also include a commitment to set clear environmental objectives and targets for air pollution or other issues of relevance to the community. Finally, a declaration can ensure municipalities remain accountable through regular assessment and public reporting.

(Page 7 of Today We Decide: the Blue Dot Organizer Toolkit)

I checked on the website and it lists Guelph as having passed a resolution in December of 2015. There are now 174 municipalities that have passed this resolution, and the city has letters from then Premier Kathleen Wynne and then Environment Minister Glenn Murray acknowledging that they received letters from Cam Guthrie and pointing out that the province of Ontario already has had an Environmental Bill of Rights since 1993. Other than that, I suspect that the resolution is not much more than an empty gesture.

I mentioned earlier that I hadn't heard about the Blue Dot project. That's probably because over the years I've developed the ability to "tune out" symbolic programs. My belief is that the easier it is to show your support for something, the less real influence that it will have on the world around you. Indeed, I stopped going to a local spiritual community after a guest speaker told the congregation that "anyone who signs a petition is an activist" and everyone present murmured their assent to this proposition. In contrast, I'm of the opinion that the only real way you can tell if you are getting somewhere is if you start being watched by investigators and get threats. (I've had both things happen over the years. Among other things, I once caught a private eye who'd been hired by a political party in Queen's Park snooping into my background. Another time I had a judge threaten to take away my house and life savings through legal costs when I was involved in a lawsuit against a multinational corporation.)

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The next part of our conversation centred on programs that governments have passed, which have been embraced by the staff, and, which have done a great deal of good---but which the majority of citizens I meet don't know anything about.

The first one I mentioned was the Canadian Child Benefit (CCB). I've heard from social workers that it has had a tremendous impact on poor families---especially single-parent households. If you doubt it, take a look at the table that I found in a Canadian Centre for Policy Analysis publication titled Economic Contribution of the Canada Child Benefit: A Basic Income Guarantee for Canadian Families with Children .

According to this chart, the poorest 11.4% of all Canadian families with children received over $1,000/month, this is real money going to the poorest children in this country. Of course, this doesn't help all poor folk. But after decades of political parties mouthing platitudes about ending child poverty, the Trudeau Liberals have actually done something real about it. Personally, I think that this is something people should be shouting from the rooftops. But outside of one tradesman who told me it allowed him to support his family during hard times, I've never heard anyone but social workers praise it.

We also talked about the Elliot, which is a Guelph retirement home that was originally started in 1903 as a private charity called the "Guelph Home for the Friendless". It continues to this day as a non-profit charity, but which the city has put a significant amount of money into and the province has recognized through the a petition in 1963. As Gordon pointed out during the first part of our talk, the Elliot Community (as it is now called) has been something of an "oasis" in the present pandemic. This is a pleasant contrast to the dismal way that some for-profit homes have fared during the pandemic.

An overhead picture of the main Elliot Community complex on Metcalfe.
From their website. Used under the "Fair Dealing" copyright provision. 

The other very Guelph facility is the Guelph Junction Railway. It has the distinction of being the very first railway in the entire Commonwealth to be owned by a municipality---and is still one of only two in Canada. It came about in 1886 by way of a special act of the federal Parliament because local merchants believed that the Grand Trunk Railway wasn't providing good enough service at a reasonable price. Since it is municipally owned, it's management doesn't have to make a profit. This means that they can plough back a it's operating surplus into maintenance and keep it's freight fees low to encourage local businesses. And, as you can see from the map below, it allows Guelph industries to connect with three different railway lines. (Click on the image to see something bigger. Unfortunately, this map is the only thing I could find to show you.)

The purple line is the Guelph Junction Railway. From the GJR website. 

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Councillor Gordon mentioned that he thinks it's the job of a politician to let the public know about the good that the government has been doing. But in my conversations with other elected officials I've found that many of them have a hard time blowing their own horns. Instead, they complain that reporters tend not report the good stuff that they do---presumably because it isn't "newsworthy". The way they have explained things to me, all they think that they can do is put out a press release and hold a media event. Beyond this, they talk as if there is absolutely nothing at all that they can do. This sort of passive attitude towards letting people know about the good they do has always been counter-productive, but it's somewhat suicidal in this time when local news production is in free-fall. We can't expect the free market to provide adequate news coverage anymore. And if we allow people to forget about all the good that government has done, we run the risk of letting demagogues promote the idea that "government is the problem---not the solution". And that wouldn't serve the public good at all. 

To that end, I would suggest that it is tremendously important that governments put more energy into creating useful, easy to navigate, and, understandable public websites. And in doing so, they have to create an internal culture in the bureaucracy that fosters the ability to communicate in clear and precise language. This would probably involve a huge internal battle because it would involve fighting against the tendency towards risk aversion and the general "covering of the ass" culture of career civil servants. (When I worked at the University I often thought that the coat of arms for the place should consist of a roll of toilet paper rampant with the Latin motto of Tegimus asinum!) Another way of understanding this is to suggest that it would need to follow the "BBC model" instead of the "Joseph Goebbels" one. That is, to emphasize building long-term public trust through honesty instead of short-term influence through cover-ups and half-truths.  

If governments did a better job of this, it might be a lot easier for both the public (and what journalists still exist) to find out the good that politicians are doing---and where they've failed to follow-through with the decisions already made.

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Moreover I say unto you, the Climate Crisis needs to be dealt with!