My favourite Celtic album is Off the Map, a live recording from 1985 by Archie Fisher and Garnet Rogers, and it’s nice to hear it in High Fidelity after so long.

I was introduced to this recording by my guitar teacher back in the late 80’s, but all I ever had was a crummy cassette version (Sam’s didn’t have the LP and there was no CD version at the time). I digitized the tracks from the cassette as MP3’s sometime ago, but the quality left something to be desired, so recently I bought the LP version on Ebay, and the record arrived yesterday. I used my Art Accessories USB Phono Plus (a great little audio interface that has a proper phono pre-amp) and Audacity to digitize the record this morning, and it is amazing to hear the details and the sound I was missing.

The recording is now available on CD, and if you are looking to hear some great, heartfelt Celtic music I cannot recommend it highly enough. Fisher’s tune “Ettrick” is both beautiful and heartbreaking. The light-hearted Mallie Leigh, and Rolling Home are also highlights. Altered guitar tunings are frequently used, and as a result the guitar parts have an extra special ring and shine. Throughout the recording, the innate musicality of Fisher’s deep Scots brogue and the intimacy of the performance are impossible to miss.

This recording is worth tracking down. Trust me.

Tags: Celtic, Archie Fisher

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“For six years, Tania Head symbolised the courage and determination of 9/11 survivors. It made her one of the chosen few. Her account reduced many people to tears and inspired thousands more… But yesterday,it was revealed that she ‘made it all up’ !”

I am sure people will be calling for this woman’s head. And meanwhile, the consequences of the “Big Lie“, that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks (a lie still believed by a sizable percentage of the American people, as poll after poll indicate) continue, as the death toll mounts in Iraq.

This is the same kind of mentality that goes after the questionable use of a few food stamps, while companies cozy with the White House get billions in profit from inflated government contracts.

Tags: 911, Iraq
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Yesterday, the federal government in Canada announced a $14 billion dollar surplus. It was also announced that the entire amount went into debt reduction. Not a penny went into improving (or even preserving) social programs, or perhaps even helping cities like Toronto. When asked about why no money went to help Toronto’s financial crisis, we were told there was no need.

In the meantime, lowering the debt merely helps strengthen the Canadian dollar, which may help the government’s friends in Alberta (where it is easier to qualify for unemployment insurance than in Toronto), but doesn’t do much for the manufacturing centre of Canada, namely Ontario.

Welcome to the new rust belt.

Tags: Toronto

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According to this article, traffic circles (also known as roundabouts and rotaries) are being considered to help with traffic issues in Toronto. I just can’t see how this would work.

For a traffic circle to work, the drivers of Toronto would have to:

• know the rules regarding the right of way in a traffic circle
• obey the rules
• show some consideration for other drivers in the traffic circle
• wait one’s turn

Anyone who knows anything about Toronto drivers can take a good guess about how likely the foregoing is. Look up the word psychopath in the dictionary, and you’ll see a picture of a Toronto driver, in all his/her tailgating, bird-flipping, passing on the on-ramp, cell-phone using, red light running, rolling stop glory.
On the other hand, a few traffic circles could be used to raise revenue — put up some bleachers and charge admission to see an exciting display of Demolition Derby. To top it off, put a boxing ring in the middle of the traffic circle for road rage encounters. Just think of the revenue!

The only way to fix traffic in Toronto is to lessen it. Better public transit, and a stop to the seemingly unending urban sprawl are needed; not a few traffic circles where we can drive around and around, never getting any closer to a real traffic solution. We need direct action, not a timid, roundabout approach.
Tags: Toronto, Traffic

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I don’t normally care too much for corny wedding proposal stunts (like getting a proposal posted on a giant screen at a sports event, or doing the proposal on live TV) but this story I find rather touching – a man arranges for a crossword to be made up containing his proposal for his girlfriend (also a crossword fan) as the answer to a clue.

I suppose if they want a prenuptial agreement, they could work that out with a Sudoku.

Tags: Weddings

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Yesterday, while walking through the Pittsburgh airport, waiting for my flight home, I happened upon the direction sign to the airport’s chapel. In addition to the English sign, there was one of those little pictograph signs. (I would have taken a picture, but I only had my cell phone camera with me, and besides, taking a picture in an American airport is to invite immediate arrest, but that is the topic for another entry..).

The sign had a representation of a window in the shape of a Gothic arch, and what was supposed to be a person in a church pew, praying. Looking at the pictograph, the image seemed to me to be capable only of two interpretations: one was of a person sitting in a pew, chin on their hands, completely bored (perhaps listening to a bad sermon?). The second interpretation, and the more disturbing one, was of a person holding their head in their hands, in a state of complete, solitary and desperate anguish, as if the person’s world had just been turned upside down.

I hope the artist did not intend for these two interpretations, but these are the ones that came to me, unbidden.

Tags: Pittsburgh,Religion

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I was in the U.S. when the Canadian dollar briefly hit parity with the U.S. dollar yesterday, and when I spoke about it with a few people, no one even knew about it — it was obviously not even on the radar. Compare this with Canada — front page news everywhere. It was brought home to me again clearly that for most of the U.S. population, it really is terra incognito north of the border.

I have also seen a lot of people online complaining about prices not coming down in Canada, and it is true that the differentials in a lot of areas are shocking and unwarranted. We are also hearing a lot of pious bleating from various companies saying that they can’t drop prices yet..blah blah blah. Well folks, time to make the market work to your advantage; if you feel the price of something is too high, either don’t buy it until the price comes down, or buy it in the U.S., online etc., where you can get it cheaper.

Some folks might say that this in unpatriotic — I would say to them, is it our patriotic duty to be overcharged? As a consumer. I don’t owe allegiance to any company, especially Canadian companies with crummy service, bad attitudes, and as recent studies have shown, very little interest in innovation. If your business model is based on the concept of overcharging the ignorant sheep, I guess innovation really isn’t needed.

Manufacturers are also crying foul, as the high Canadian dollar makes Canadian exports more expensive. Rather than relying on a cheap dollar to make exports attractive, shouldn’t we be taking a closer look at what we are exporting? The battle for low-end manufacturing has been lost — China won, get over it. If we focus on high-end, value-added products and services, things that will be in demand regardless of currency rates, then I think the future for manufacturing in Canada would be brighter.

Of course, to make this happen, we need innovation, and a federal government that doesn’t see it as a crime to spend money in Ontario. I wonder if we are likely to see either.

Tags: Canada,Dollar

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I was at a Celtic festival in the Beaches area of Toronto this past Saturday, and I was struck by what I saw — a couple of young boys, of Oriental descent, dressed in kilts, and I thought this was a quintessential Canadian moment, to see young people enjoying bits and pieces of the various cultures that make up the Canadian “cultural mosaic”. (Of course, I’m thoroughly WASP, with a lot of Scottish, ethnically speaking, but with a great love for sushi, so maybe there’s a counterbalance there). The term “cultural mosaic” has been around for some time, and is normally used in contrast to the “melting pot” term used to refer to the subtle (or not too subtle sometimes) disapproval for multiculturalism in the U.S., compared to Canada. I think though, that the term may becoming obsolete, as it still implies separation of discrete cultures. What I see happening now is cultural mixing, like a painter mixing pigments directly on the canvas; you get a vibrancy that you don’t get if you mix your paints before applying them.

To me, it seems the Canadian approach has the potential to be the world’s largest cultural mash-up, as cultural combinations and influences are combined and recombined, with unpredictable and exciting results. Another reason to love this country!

Tags: Canada, Celtic, Multiculturalism

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“Two students at Central Kings Rural High School fought back against bullying recently, unleashing a sea of pink after a new student was harassed and threatened when he showed up wearing a pink shirt.”

This story is great for two reasons. Firstly, it’s great to see young people standing up for someone they didn’t even know — where were these guys back when I was in school? (I certainly remember getting bullied). Every now and then you see a story which helps increase one’s faith in humanity, (and I’m proud to see that it happened in Canada).

The fact that they used the Internet to galvanize support for their actions is also significant — recent news stories have painted social networks (Facebook in particular) as being a poor replacement for actual face-to-face friendship and communication, and in some respects that is true, but it is great to see the Internet once again enabling this kind of large-scale mobilization.

Tags: Bullying,Pink

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In a recent post, I was talking about personality tests, and as an interesting counterpoint, here are the results I got when I entered my birthdate into a Celtic Horoscope web page:

You Are A Chestnut Tree

You are a born diplomat with a well developed sense of justice. And even though you’re impressive and intimidating, you’re also fun to be around. You can be irritated easily, and you sometimes act superior. Nevertheless, you are sensitive of others feelings and very loyal. Sometimes you feel misunderstood and are fiercely close to those who know you best.

This is accurate enough in a lot of respects to be interesting in a creepy kind of way. (If any of my friends reading this think this is way off, let me know!)

And no, it’s not enough to get me believing in Astrology, regardless of variant

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