Dear Mr. Mrike, take three

Dear MR.MRIKE CHUKWUMA,

It feels like an eternity since I heard from you. I hope you are okay. I had a vision of you crushed in a horrific bowling accident. In another vision, you were locked away in a prison cell with those monsterous email scammers I told you about.

If either of those are true, dear friend, have no fear! When our deal comes together, I will pay your hospital bills or your bail. Or both. Then we can be together forever. FOREVER!!!!!

*hearts*

My ex-friend said my visions are just violent daydreams, but the one I had about him after he said that TOTALLY CAME TRUE!

But I digress, I want this deal to work, Mrike. I want us to work. Together we can get through anything! So I've had time to review yesterday's email, and I think I found a few improvements I can make.

I have been told I can come on a little strong. I know I need to work on that. It hurts so much on the inside when that cold and callous restraining order is served. So to take the pressure off, you can take the naked picture in the bank vault. That way you can lock the door and ease into it. Do what feels good for you, Mrike. But take a couple desk lamps with you so the lighting is good.

Funds still in Canadian one dollar bills, but if you were crushed, you don't have to iron them. Your hands didn't look so good in my vision. Kind of floppy. If you're in jail, you'll probably need something need something to keep busy, so you can fold them into origami swans. I love those little swans. They burn so well. But be mindful of the edges, the currency is old and we both know they aren't making any more.

I am confident these minor tweaks will quell any misgivings you may have. I want everything to be perfect between us. PERFECT! This is just the beginning, Mrike. As the song says, we have only just begun. JUST BEGUN!

So to recap: Naked picture of you, your spouse, or an attractive family member in the vault. All two or three of you would be equally acceptable. Or even better, now that I've written it down. Make sure the lighting is good. Use your imagination. Do I even need to say no shoes at this point? NO SHOES! Funds in Canadian one dollars. Wrinkled is okay if you've been horrifically maimed, otherwise, swans. Even if you're not in jail, swans.

Best best best regards, my BFF,

Your best best best BFF!!

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

PS, DO YOU BELIEVE IN SOULMATES MRIKE???? BECAUSE I DO!

PPS, REMEMBER TO CHECK THE FOCUS AND TAKE A COUPLE TEST SHOTS!! SEND ME A COUPLE AND I'LL CRITIQUE THEM FOR YOU!!! IF YOU CAN GET WIFI IN THE VAULT I CAN SKYPE IN. JUST LET ME KNOW, BIG BOY!!!!

Dear Mr. Mrike, take two

Dear MR.MRIKE CHUKWUMA,

My dear good friend. It has been three long days since I responded to your email and I still have not heard from you about our business deal. Not even so much as an auto reply saying you are away. It has me feeling a little sad. And lonely.

I have since reread my previous email to you, Mrike, can I call you Mrike? I may have handled a couple things more professionally.

You will notice I addressed you by your full name, not a generic salutation. I've heard of some people, hurtful meanspirited people, who buy email lists and send everyone on the list the exact same message! And even worse, it is fraudulent! Lie upon lie upon lie. It's simply terrible, Mrike.

But that's not me! My words are only for you. ONLY YOU, MRIKE! ONLY YOU. The way you used all-caps to shout the brilliance of this deal was masterful. I felt an immediate connection. It was like we bonded through the magic of words in the world (wide web). *hugs*

I may have also been a bit forward with my request for a photo of you naked at work. Some people are shy, I get that. A naked picture of your wife at your desk will do. Or your husband, which ever way you roll is A okay with me, Mrike. The no shoe-rule still stands obviously.

The funds still have to be in Canadian one dollar bills, but I don't want your hands to be too tired to respond to all of my emails, so you can take breaks while ironing. I'm good with the delay.

I trust this email will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt the sincerity of my intentions, intentions that echo yours, and I await your response with bated breath.

Breathy, bated breaths.

To recap: naked photo taken at your desk. It can be you, your wife or your husband. A good looking sibling would also do, if different from the aforementioned spouse. It's okay if they are the same person. Who am I to judge? No shoes!!!! I can't stress that enough. NO SHOES. Funds in Canadian one dollar bills. Ironed, but take your time.

Best best regards my dear good friend,

From your very best dear good friend.

PS, PHOTO MUST BE 300 DPI!!! NONE OF THAT 72 DPI CRAP THAT GETS FUZZY WHEN YOU ZOOM IN ON THE GOOD BITS!!!!!

PPS, I CAN'T FIND YOU ON FACEBOOK!! ADD ME SO WE CAN BE FACEBOOK BFFS!!!!

What difference will 12 years make?

A while ago, while researching a paper for work I ran across a paper that quoted an Irish judge named MacKenna, in which he discussed the task of weighing evidence. It stuck with me.

"This is how I go about the business of finding facts. I start from the undisputed facts which both sides accept. I add to them such other facts as seem very likely to be true, as, for example, those recorded in contemporary documents or spoken to by independent witnesses like the policeman giving evidence in a running down case about the marks on the road. I judge a witness to be unreliable if his evidence is, in any serious respect, inconsistent with these undisputed or indisputable facts, or of course if he contradicts himself on important points. I rely as little as possible on such deceptive matters as his demeanour. When I have done my best to separate the true from the false by these more or less objective tests, I say which story seems to be the more probable, the plaintiff's or the defendant's."

Like most Canadians with an internet connection and a Facebook page, I learned of Ghomeshi's termination from CBC last Sunday morning. I was on vacation in New England. First I read his side of the story, which had appeared in my newsfeed. When I met up with a Canadian at lunch, I asked if she "knew about Jian" Ghomeshi. She didn't. I explained what I had read, and immediately blurted out my problem with it. Which was that the CBC, that ever liberal bastion, would fire one of their beloved and income-generating stars for engaging in sexual activities described as milder than 50 Shades of Grey, a bit of fan fiction that was just risque enough to be wildly popular with millions of soccer moms. To be milder than that, would really just be sex, and we're taking about the CBC.

In the context of Justice MacKenna's quote, Ghomeshi contradicted himself with his own testimony. It didn't fit with the facts, which was that CBC terminated him based on information that made it impossible for him to remain in their employ. When I read the Toronto Star account of the story later that day, with the independent accounts of the four women he abused, it pointed to a far more compelling reason for his termination from CBC. As time passed, the number of abused women increased to nine.

It's like that old proverb, if one man calls you an ass, consider it. If five people call you an ass, buy a saddle.

If nine women independently come forward with remarkably similar accounts of you of being a sexual predator, you are a sexual predator.

In the beginning, Ghomeshi had staunch supporters. He had less supporters after the Star article broke, and less still as more women came forward. Several articles were published on the steady decline of "likes" on Ghomeshi's Facebook page. They gave hourly ratios. His new PR team dumped him. His old PR team dumped him too. The tide of public support as expressed through social media shifted to the women. There are some who remain unwavering in their support of Ghomeshi, but it is a definite minority. The problem with blind faith is that it is blind, look no further than Ford Nation for proof of that.

There are also those who are stalwart supporters of the justice system as the only determinate of guilt. For them, that the women didn't go immediately to the police and file reports means it probably didn't happen, or it maybe it wasn't that bad, or maybe they just changed their minds afterwards. If there is a silver lining to be had in this black and white view of justice, it is that the people who believe this are most likely people who have never been sexually assaulted. The people who have, well they know exactly why those women didn't report it.

The justice system is especially cruel to victims of sexual assault. In particular, when it comes to victims of sexual assault by people with power, whether the powerful be employees in residential schools, Christian brothers in orphanages, a wealthy celebrity, or a former premier of Nova Scotia, whose list of accusers spanned more than 30 women and four decades, all with similar accounts of being attacked.

"...nearly three dozen women – babysitters, job seekers, law clients, party workers, journalists, a legislative page, even an oil company executive – most of whom did not even know the others existed, had all told police remarkably similar stories about how Regan had attacked them. 
Silently. 
Without preliminaries. 
Pawed them. 
Groped them. 
Stuck his tongue down their throats. 
Sometimes more. 
And then, when it was over, acted as if nothing had happened."

In 2002, after a nine year battle, Nova Scotia prosecution services announced that they would not proceed on eight remaining sexual assault charges against Gerald Regan, former premier and federal cabinet minister. The Crown gave the age of the allegations, the cost to go forward, and the age of the defendant as reasons not to go forward.

I was studying public relations when the Regan decision was announced 12 years ago. At that time, social media was largely conceptual. I learned about it in school, but I didn't understand it. News stories were still read on once-a-day newsprint and user-generated content was limited to call in radio shows and letters to the editors. That April day Regan and his high-priced lawyer declared vindication on all charges, and 30 women lost to Regan all over again. After a few days of reporting, life went on.

If it wasn't for a recent comment I read on a news story about Ghomeshi, I wouldn't have remembered the Regan case. It is an eerily similar story of sexual predation by a person in a position of power that went on for years. Back then, there was no medium for people to express collective outrage; no way to sustain that outrage. Today, we have the medium. In the last 12 years, I've watched social media evolve from a theoretical concept to a mechanism capable of influencing world events.

With it, can the Nine of 2014 achieve the legal justice the Thirty of 2002 were denied?

Memo to agriculture minister

I may be a Liberal to my very core, but I am not celebrating [one year in office]. I am trying very hard to understand Keith Colwell's recent performance as agriculture minister. The only conclusion I can draw is that Colwell knows absolutely nothing about agriculture in Nova Scotia. You see, I grew up on a sustenance farm in Antigonish County. We had a dairy cow that was bred beef every year and we also raised our own meat birds and laying hens. It was how my parents managed to feed four kids while working and living around the poverty line, like so many rural residents. We weren't alone, most of our neighbours did the same. It is a way to make rural life work. Not everyone wants to live and raise their kids in a city.

So when I see the agricultural minister on Sun News, of all places, stating his absolute support for the turkey board's decision to shut down small processors right before Thanksgiving, I have to wonder about his suitability as minister. These turkeys were bought and raised to be ready for the holidays/winter food stocks. Since you have to sign an affidavit to buy those chicks, the turkey board could have made their stance known then and let people decide whether they wanted to continue knowing they would be forced to use a provincial processor.

Instead, the board lets these people buy and raise the birds for months and then shuts down the local processors. Unless there was some documented evidence of how these local butchers were failing public heath, this could have waited until next year's crop of chicks. In Gordon Fraser's case, I suspect after 36 years of processing birds without incident, he probably could have made it through year 37. It was either a stupid, short-sighted decision or an intentionally-malicious decision on the part of the board. Having reviewed the social media efforts of the turkey marketing board, I'm leaning towards the former.

Even then, it still would have been the wrong decision. Most farmers have other jobs, and sustenance farmers definitely have other jobs. For the ones that don't possess the knowledge and facilities to butcher their own birds, they have to find time outside of work to get their birds to the butcher and picked them back up. Gas is also expensive. If it means a day or two off work, possibly without pay, and a long drive to get them to a provincial facility, they may not do it next year. And that is the exact opposite of what an agriculture minister should want.

I am aware that this province is in a deep dark fiscal hole and farming is, decidedly, not glamorous. Nor is it lucrative. Farmers just grow our food and food for their own families. As agriculture minister, the job is to support those that are already farming, especially the ones doing it to feed their families, and to bring in newcomers. Our rural communities are struggling with declining and aging populations. Either we want people to live there or we don't. If we want people to live there, we need to find reasons for them to live there. Food, by way of farming, can be a reason. There's the eat local movement, there's the sustainable food movement, the slow food movement, the organic movement, and the farmer's market/meet your farmer movement, and of course, basic food security. Then there's foodies, there's tons of those. Did you know artisanal butchery is a thing? Heritage turkeys and pigs? Agriculture won't solve our deficit, but there's an awful lot of people willing to pay top dollar for the right agricultural products. We just need to grow them and we've got the land and the communities to do it.

I've met lots of folks who love rural life and working off the land, I have yet to meet a call center worker who shares the same enthusiasm for their job. If the current rules make it harder for people to grow food, then the rules need to be modernized. It's a majority government, you have the power to pass legislation. Proper food safety is adaptable to the environment in which it occurs. You can start with new rules for local processors, because we can either make it easier for people to live in rural communities or we can relocate them all to urban centers and frack the countryside into oblivion.

I know which future I want for Nova Scotia.

As an aside, I noticed today Colwell's latest step as agricultural minister is to craft a law making it illegal to abandon animals, with a special focus on cats. As an animal lover, I applaud the sentiment, but aside from shameless vote buying what is this going to accomplish? Many cats and dogs are abandoned at or because of sexual maturity when there is no money to have them fixed/deal with offspring. What penalty will be imposed on someone with no money? Beyond farming it out to an agency, what plan is in place to enforce these new laws? How do you prove abandonment without proof of ownership? Cats aren't licensed. Will it be cheaper than subsidizing a spay and neuter program, one that would not penalize people for being poor?

The time to pander for votes and go for easy wins is somewhere in year three, not now.  Now is the time to fix things.

Agriculture minister does not understand agriculture

In a recent interview, Keith Colwell, Minister of Agriculture, stated that not only would small local meat processors be prohibited from butchering turkeys, but he may have no choice but to prohibit Nova Scotians from butchering their own meat birds. All birds would have to be processed at a provincial or federal facility.

Colwell's justification was dire: "Would you feed your family with something that is not inspected, no controls over bacteria and feel safe that you're feeding your family that and have someone get sick from it?"

His justification was also wrong. Farmers have been doing exactly that for a few centuries in this province. I encourage the minster to compare the instances of meat-born illnesses and deaths in the families of Canadian farmers who slaughter their own livestock or have it processed by local butchers with those of the big facilities. The current numbers to beat are 22 dead and 57 confirmed cases of Listeriosis for Maple Leaf in 2008. After that, look to the 2012 XL Foods E. coli contamination, which, while death free, resulted in the largest beef recall in Canadian history.

Provincial and federal abattoirs are high volume slaughterhouses. For the family that takes the time to raise their own meat birds, possibly free-range, organic fed, hormone free, it takes their hard work and slides it down the same production line as antibiotic- and hormone-laden factory farm birds. The family also has to truck live birds halfway across the province. The longer the drive, the more stress the birds experience, and while it is true they will be killed, as Temple Grandin said, We've got to give those animals a decent life and we've got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect.”

These families raising their own livestock have a vested interest in their food. It is not the same as popping into Superstore and picking up a stuffed Butterball. They fed, watered, and cared for these animals. They deserve the right to give their animals the best possible end and receive the best product in return. As a farmers' daughter who spent years in commercial kitchens, that end and that product isn't found in a high-volume slaughterhouse. That end and, most definitely, that product is found in the hands of an experienced and knowledgeable butcher, like Gordon Fraser.

Rise again, you muddy windy glorious festival

It's been a several years since Shawn and I joined the caravan to Canso for the Stan Rogers Folk Festival. Last year's festival was preempted by the Summer of No Fun House Renovation Project. The one before by work responsibilities. This year would have been the same, we were both too busy to go, had Tropical Storm Arthur not blown it down.

When I saw Stanfest was cancelled, I found myself at a loss for words; well, eloquent ones anyway, as evidenced by my Facebook post: "Holy sh*t! Stanfest is cancelled!" That we weren't going was disappointing, but it's like many things that you enjoy that take some effort. The longer you are away, the easier it is to come up with reasons why it's okay to stay away. There's the five hour drive, the last two on skinny roads packed with fat Winnebagoes. There's the weather, because there's always weather. There's tenting and mud, which blend together with every passing hour. 

There's port-a-potties after dark.

When I realized it meant no one was going, that's when I felt like I lost something. 

I wrote an article about the 2008 festival for Saltscapes Magazine, you can read it here. I never intended to write an article, I just wanted to go to the festival. Repeatedly, and with media passes. It worked perfectly till Heather, the Saltscapes editor, assigned me a deadline. I felt sick. At that time, I had never written creatively for anyone but myself. Worse than that, Stanfest is passionately loved by many, myself included. I didn't want to be the one to write a not-good-enough article.  Fortunately, Heather is a great editor. More fortunately, people liked it. To that end, as a writer, it helps immensely when your audience is already sitting squarely in the choir.

Last night, I experienced the abridged version of a Stanfest. Three glorious hours of song after song, storyteller after storyteller. I sang, I howled, I laughed, I clapped till my hands hurt, and I cried - Makalya Lynn - that's your fault. It was everyone I had seen before and wanted to see again, plus a few I hadn't, and now want to see again. 

 It felt like I was back in Canso, but warm and dry.

When it was over, I looked at Shawn and said that was amazing, but now I wanted the rest of it. One songwriters' circle was not enough. I wanted all of the songwriters' circles.

I also wanted to be in Canso. I wanted that separation from home and work and responsibility that comes with being at the edge of nowhere; and out of cell reception.

I wanted to be around the people of Canso. They are wonderful people. I'll never forget our first trip to the Co-op, we were on motorcycle and two of the staff came out to watch us load up the bike. They wanted to see how we were going to carry everything. It was a good demonstration, we are seasoned pros at bike transport. Or the teenage volunteer who knocked on our truck window at the bottom of the hill to the registration booth to ask for a lift up, because she wasn't "walking up that hill one more time today".

It is a big hill.

I wanted the weather (maybe not all of it), but enough to breed a sense of resilience. An "I'll take your thunderstorm, wind, and rain and still rock it out. I am prepared and I am here for the duration". Stanfest preparedness is something we learned over time; from rubber boots to French presses.

I wanted the campground. There's musicians, music lovers, and fun lovers everywhere. You're never bored in the acoustic campground.

To quote the late great Levon Helm, I wanted "the adult dose". 

Before I walked out of the Metro Centre, I committed. There will always be struggles with life and work and responsibilities, but that's just all the more reason to make time for the things in life that make you rejoice, like Stanfest.

I'll see you next year, Stanfest, you throw in the hell and high water, I'll bring the boots and tarp.

For Leo Kell

When I think of my father, I think of him as larger than life. He was a barrel chested man with massive shoulders and arms, baseball gloves for hands, and a booming voice. Thankfully for any boy I brought home, this was tempered by a big laugh and an even bigger smile. 

Not only was dad physically strong, he could do anything. He could build anything, drive anything, and fix anything. He could dig a basement foundation, back a dump truck with a 40 foot trailer up our long driveway, and help a cow calf all on the same day.

My father was resoundingly calm under fire. I remember one day he picked me up in town in a Mac dump truck with a sander attached and we sanded some logging roads on the way home. The Mac was of a vintage long before seat belts were mandatory, and as we slid backwards and sideways down the side of a mountain in that big rattly rig, I asked dad if I could get out and wait for him at the bottom. "Nope," he said, completely unconcerned by what I considered to be a perilous situation. "I might run over you."

When I was 16 and learning to drive, I almost put us over an embankment while looking for third gear. Dad called out my name, I yanked the wheel, tires screeched, the truck veered wildly with each over correction, and then dad grabbed the wheel and we came to a stop at the side of the road. We sat there for a few minutes and dad asked me if I was okay. I said I was gonna be and then I very carefully drove us the rest of the way home. I had been terrified, but as soon as dad took control I knew he would fix it. Mom told me a few days later dad said it was just luck the truck didn't roll over.

My father loved animals and kids. We had a house and a barn full of them and dad, as the guy who could drive everything, transported us and our animals all over hell and creation so we could show them. It was mostly horses and dogs, but there was the scattered year of bunnies and chickens, and the occasional heifer. As in all things, mom and dad were united in the instruction of their children. It didn't matter if we placed first or last, but we had to be good sportsmen, handling either situation graciously. Or, more motivationally put by dad: "Your mother and I took you here here so you can have fun, if you are not having fun, we can pack up and go home." Needless to say, we had fun.

My father practical, reasonable, and he gave good advice. He was full of adages and sayings and he wielded them with precision. Especially on teenagers whose hair-brained ideas and wants often required debunking. He had a phrase for every occasion, "Don't count your chickens, before they've hatched" was popular, as was "you're judged by the company you keep". "Never burn your bridges", was another favorite. It was also sound advice. Everyone in town knew and liked my father. I am still "Leo Kell's Daughter" when I meet people from home.

He was tough as nails. Dad had survived falling off a roof, countless work injuries, several car accidents - including one where a dozer fell off a flat-bed and sheered off the driver's side panels of his truck like a can of sardines. Dad had the presence of mind to undo his seatbelt, scooch over, and keep steering as so not to plunge down the 40 foot embankment on his side of the road. One day I caught him bandaging a woefully smashed thumb with half of a maxi-pad. With a wife, three daughters and a son away, dad lived in a house of women.

He also survived decades of polycystic kidney disease, which causes years of intermittent pain, high blood pressure, and eventual renal failure. There were a few emergency trips to Halifax where it seemed unclear whether he was going to make it back home. My Aunt Terri, dad's sister, gave him a kidney as the 1980s came to a close. Thank you forever, Terri. I was 14 at the time and he and mom were in Halifax forever after the surgery. In hindsight, I think it was closer to a month, but I was a kid and wanted her parents home.

Dad passed away on a Saturday in August 2000, exactly one week after my brother's wedding. After nearly a lifetime of worrying about his kidneys, his big heart unexpectedly gave out. The wedding had been a joyous affair with all of us home and all of us happy. Circumstances were exactly opposite the following weekend. I have been extremely fortunate to never experienced before or since, the depth of pain felt that weekend. Especially by my mother, for whom dad was half of her.

But I try to be my father's daughter. My dad always said there were worse things of dying, and he certainly survived enough trials over his 57 years to know what he couldn't bear. On his last weekend of life he was with his wife of almost 35 years, surrounded by his children and their significant others, his parents, siblings, relatives and friends. We laughed, we ate - dad loved to eat - we danced, we ate some more and we had a fabulous time. Dad used to say everyone had a number, and when their number came up, that was it. I think dad's number was called a bunch of times, he just managed to talk his way out of it long enough to see his family settled and together one last time.