Unsettlement again

One thing I’ve learned over the past few years is that change can be massively unsettling, turning everything we know, or think we know, completely upside down, and then sometimes it’ll be tossed into the air, then swung it round before It’s slammed back into the ground again. I’ve just experienced that. Again.

Yesterday, as my dinner was cooking away, I found out that a friend of mine, Andy Cawston, died suddenly the night before from cardiac arrest. I’d logged into Facebook for a few minutes to see what people had been up to, and saw a friend had posted about it.

The news hit me very hard, not the least because it was so unexpected. In fact, my first thought was that my friend had made a mistake, something that was obviously an absurd thing to think—and I knew that.

I closed Facebook to re-focus. After my dinner, I started to put together my thoughts, and then I shared that on Facebook, as other friends were already doing. But what I shared on Facebook was only part of what was going through my mind. This post is based on what I shared last night, but filling out the story.

One never wants to put oneself at the centre of the story about the loss of someone else, though the loss of a parent or spouse kind of insists on it. When a friend dies, it’s our shared story that’s ours to share—and even then we focus our tale on the one we’ve lost.

However, much of my reaction to the news was based on my own reality, which is precisely why Andy was such a good friend: He understood where I was coming from and the challenges I was facing. But it never occurred to me to tell him how much I appreciated his support—and especially his understanding. He would’ve understood that, too.

Andy was a force of nature, curious about nearly everything, willing to talk about, or debate, nearly anything. We originally met through Facebook, and over the years our debates were sometimes intense, but we never took any of that personally—we could disagree without being disagreeable (as we defined that). We also agreed plenty of times, too, of course, and we also learned from each other, something that’s always a wonderful thing when it happens.

The day Nigel died, Andy rang me through Facebook to express his condolences, yes, but also to offer his support. He reached me shortly after I’d arrived back home after going to the funeral directors to make the arrangements for Nigel. I knew that Andy had always been quite open about talking about his health challenges, mental health in particular, so from the very beginning of my grief journey I saw him as a kind of mentor.

A few weeks later, Andy and his wife (who he called “The Missus” online, allowing him to preserve her privacy) were in Auckland for a bit, and he arranged to get together with his friends in West Auckland. Andy invited me to join them, even though he knew it might be difficult for me to do that so soon after my loss—at the time we’d never met in real life, and I didn’t know most of his friends. I did go, though, social anxiety raging, because I didn’t know if I’d get another chance and I didn’t want to miss it. In the end, it turned out to be a great time.

Andy offered to meet-up online to talk, if I ever needed a sympathetic ear, but I never did. Even so, he’d check in from time to time to make sure I was okay. That meant a lot.

I never got the chance to visit him, once again because of my own struggles, something that, among other things, left me reluctant to travel. In fact, that’s still true. But I knew Andy was there, and I could call on him if I needed to. Now, his memory will be the help.

Our Facebook debates were legendary, and from the outside they sometimes probably seemed bitter. There were certainly times that we felt exasperated at each other, but—magically, maybe—we still respected each other because we both knew that we arrived at our positions only after careful thought. There were times that one or the other of us changed our position after one of our discussions, which doesn’t happen all that often in my experience. Even when that didn’t happen, those debates helped us sharpen our arguments to make stronger points in other discussions, which was useful. Mostly, they were just a bit of fun.

Things changed after Nigel died, because I did. I couldn’t engage in the sort of discussions Andy and I used to have, partly because I had little or no patience for political topics. Andy and I still traded comments and Facebook “reactions”, but I found it difficult to engage with others in the way I had been doing, and that made me feel bad. Still, I know that if I’d said anything about that to Andy, he of all people would’ve understood—and he’d probably have had suggestions for dealing with it.

None of us knows for certain when time will run out for ourselves or others in our lives, and so, none of us does a perfect job using the time we have available. Sometimes, though, despite everything, we get lucky. I feel very lucky to have had Andy as a friend, and I feel we enriched each other’s time on this planet. His work is done, but I hope to carry our shared lessons forward.

Farewell, Andy. Thanks for everything, especially for just being there. I know there are lots of people who who will miss you, and that’s an awesome legacy.

Andy sometimes commented on posts on this blog, often as “Da Chieftain”, a reference to his nickname from New Zealand’s now defunct Guardian Angels chapter that he’d been part of.

Queen Elizabeth II Memorial Day

Yesterday was a special one-off holiday, Queen Elizabeth II Memorial Day, New Zealand’s official day of remembrance for the late Queen of New Zealand. There was a national service in Wellington (video above), but, if we’re honest, for most New Zealanders, it was an unplanned day off—and the final day of an unexpected three-day weekend.

While this is the first time most workers have experienced the death of their monarch, Commonwealth Realms faced opposition to a day off. Australia declared a holiday (held September 22) not long after the Queen died, but republicans opposed it, as did businesses, of course. Canada declared a National Day of mourning for the Queen on September 19, the day of her funeral, which made it a statutory (paid) holiday for federal workers only. Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Manitoba decided not declare it a statutory holiday, meaning ordinary workers wouldn’t have a paid day off, but Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and Labrador all did, and British Columbia made it a holiday only for provincial public service workers. In Canada, the mess was largely because businesses opposed it on the grounds they only had six days to make arrangements. The United Kingdom’s “bank holiday” on the day of the Queen’s funeral was not a paid day off.

NZ businesses and the most rightwing party in Parliament whined loudly about having to give workers a day off. Of course. However, while business and their allies in politics and the media can be counted on to always complain about having to do anything positive for workers, I have to admit I didn’t really see the point of having a special holiday on September 26.

The Queen’s funeral was a week earlier, and the official period of morning in her native United Kingdom ended that day. This meant that New Zealand’s day of remembrance a week later was disconnected from the official mourning. Add to that the fact that photos of her ledger stone had been revealed, and NZ’s day seemed kind of, well, pointless. On the other hand, it’s not unheard of for official days of remembrance to be held some time after the date, though not usually for such a high-profile person.

The official commemoration was a national service at The Wellington Cathedral of St Paul, a modernist Anglican cathedral whose cornerstone was laid by the Queen on January 13, 1954, during her Royal Tour of New Zealand. I watched a bit of the service, but not for long—it wasn’t my sort of thing, being a Christian service for Christians like the Queen. From what I saw of the service, though, they made an effort to be inclusive, similar to the actual funeral.

The Queen’s Personal New Zealand Flag entered the cathedral at the start of the service, and led the departure at the end (I saw that on the news later, though, because it happened before and after I watched). That standard isn’t the same as her official banner used in the UK, since within New Zealand her official position was Queen of New Zealand, not of the UK. It was used mostly the same way the one in the UK was, and the service was the last time it will be used for official purposes. A new banner will be created for King Charles III. Australia and Canada also have Personal Flags for the monarch.

There was a minute of silence held throughout the country, however, I wasn’t aware of that, either, until I saw the evening news because it, too, happened before I turned the TV on. I’m pretty sure most New Zealanders weren’t aware of it either, not unless they were somewhere where the service was being shown.

I have mixed feelings about it all. First, I completely understand that she was head of the Church of England, and as such, having such an overtly religious service is appropriate. On the other hand, as I’ve said many times, I’m uncomfortable with overt religiosity of any kind being merged with civic and governmental functions. At the same time, I’m also well aware that the New Zealand government doesn’t have any sort of secular official “services” (as, indeed, many governments don’t). And, of course, anyone who didn’t want to take part for whatever reason—religious, political, lack of interest—didn’t have to because there was, of course, no compulsion to participate.

Desipte all that, for me it mainly just seemed kind of unnecessary: She’d been buried a week by then, and most people had already started moving on. I question the wisdom of continuing the mourning for another week because of the effect that it can have on the people who clearly were personally affected by the Queen’s death. But there’s one thing more, and the harshest question: Did that many New Zealanders really need or specifically want a special day to farewell the queen a week after her funeral?

The only televised coverage was on Newshub, the news operation of TV Three, which is part of US-owned media company Warner Bros. Discovery Australia-New Zealand, apparently partnering with NZ’s state-owned radio broadcaster, RNZ. However, Newshub hasn’t posted its coverage on their YouTube Channel (though it may be available on their on-demand streaming service, ThreeNow; I haven’t checked). The video above is from the YouTube Channel of The New Zealand Herald newspaper, and it’s just a version of the Newshub coverage, some of it raw footage (with chyrons added, covering the broadcaster’s chyrons that identified who was speaking…). The broadcast was funded by government funding agency, NZ On Air. All a bit weird, it seems to me, since both TVNZ’s One News and Newshub carried the actual funeral live, yet the coverage of the one in New Zealand and for New Zealand was much lower key. Does that mean an implicit acknowledgement that it just wasn’t a very big deal?

To be blunt, the answers to the questions raised by all of this don’t matter: It’s truly over now, and New Zealanders are moving on. There will be different stories and questions related to the monarchy in the years ahead, but this particular chapter is now well and truly closed. Questions, however, will be the one certainty in the future.

National transitions

The normal progress of transition from one monarch to another is underway. Saturday night (NZ time), I watched the official proclamation of King Charles III at the Palace of St. James in London, an event that, of course, last happened when Queen Elizabeth II was proclaimed 70 years ago, but this was the first time it’s ever been televised (the full 1:10:35 long video of the “Accession Council and Proclamation Council”, which includes the actual proclamation at the end, is available on ”The Royal Family” YouTube Channel; to skip directly to the official proclamation, click here). The events have never been televised before, so few people alive today would ever have seen it before.

Yesterday, the New Zealand government officially proclaimed Charles III as the King of New Zealand (video above) in a ceremony that’s been established for ages, and that clearly borrows phrasing from the UK’s proclamation. As with the UK’s ceremony and proclamation, this is the first time New Zealand’s was televised, too, though television didn’t officially begin in New Zealand until 1960). Canada has also proclaimed Charles III as their new king (WATCH), and so has Australia (WATCH). I think it’s fascinating that only Australia dropped “Defender of the Faith” title from the proclamation, even though neither New Zealand, Canada, nor Australia have an established church, and so, there’s no “faith” to be defended as there is (officially, anyway…) in the United Kingdom.

As an ol’ political science major, I find all this fascinating, and it’s especially interesting to be able to witness history that so few people alive have ever seen. And there’s more still to come..

Work to do

The chart above from Statista shows the percentage of women in the lower house of various countries’ national legislatures. Ranking 75th in the world, the USA has a very long way to go to achieve better gender equity among lawmakers.

The reason for the chart is, of course, that in his “State of the Union” speech, the current occupant of the White House mentioned the record number of women elected to the US Congress in 2018 (and Statista has a chart about that, too, of course). While that was, indeed, very good news, what he neglected to mention is that at 23.7% female, the US House of Representatives is still less than 25% female and that 87% of the women serving in the US House this term are Democrats (the US Senate is slightly better: It’s 25% female, of which “only” two-thirds are Democrats).

The data comes from the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and represents information provided by countries by December 1, 2018, which is why some numbers are slightly off form current data. fair’s fair, and here’s how the countries I typically write about compare to the USA, listed according to their rank from the IPU:

19. New Zealand: 38.8% female (New Zealand has no upper house of Parliament).
38. United Kingdom: 32.2% in the House of Commons, 26.3% in the House of Lords.
51. Australia: 28.7% in the House of Representatives, 40.8% in the Senate.
59. Canada: 26.9% in the House of Commons, 46.7% in the Senate.

The point of all these numbers isn’t to demonstrate how well New Zealand is doing compared to all the other countries I write about—that’s just a nice bonus. The reality is that New Zealand could and should be doing much better. It was the first country to give women the right to vote, after all. The point is that these percentages give us a common-ground way of comparing countries to each other.

Still, it’s interesting that in all but the UK, the upper house has better gender balance than does their lower house. Personally, I think the problem with the UK’s upper house is that it’s an anachronism, bound tightly to the class system that it both represents and perpetuates. Still, that’s no excuse, really.

There are some—invariably on the Right—who dismiss the importance of gender equity in representative government, the whole “the best person should win” thing. In a perfect world, that would be true, but in our societies, with endemic sexism and governmental structures designed by and for men, it was difficult for women to even put themselves forward, much less be elected.

Times and attitudes are changing, as the large wave of (mostly Democratic) women elected to the US House last year shows. There may yet come a time in which the gender of a candidate for any office—including US president—won’t matter, but we’re not there yet. Some countries are doing better: New Zealand has had three female Prime Ministers, the UK two, and Australia one. So far. Change is possible. But there are profound problems facing all the countries I’ve mentioned, and too often they seem intractable.

With so many problems festering, maybe it’s time to try something very different. I think that we should should elect more women and more younger people. It certainly couldn’t make things any worse, and it just might fix everything.

The infographic above is from Statista

Internet Wading: August 2018 edition

This month’s Internet Wading collection of links is mostly serious topics. It happens.

Let’s get the politics out of the way first, shall we? Okay, let’s! First, Catherine Price tells us “How to Break Up with Donald Trump”, which isn’t necessary for most people, of course, but it’s actually for people who oppose the current regime. Short version: Walk away from the screen.

Cheap, often silly, shots sully political debate, and David Shariatmadari took on one: “'Virtue-signalling' – the putdown that has passed its sell-by date”. Apparently it passed that date in 2016, when The Guardian published the piece, but it’s still true. And one of the most annoying of the slurs the rightwing loves so dearly. Yawn.

Meanwhile, a truly important Internet Rage, “'Elitist': angry book pirates hit back after author campaign sinks website”, which is about as dumb a reason for “outrage” as it sounds. I laughed at the Internet Outrager who fumed, “writers are the most pretentious pieces of shit I’ve ever seen. I’ll find another way to pirate your books assholes.” So, people expecting to be paid for their work makes them “pretentious pieces of shit” and "assholes", but refusing to pay someone for the work they’ve done does not. Okay, then.

Get away from the keyboard! Because “Good Things Happen in Book Stores”. Well, duh! But don’t stay too long or you may buy too much and have a new problem: “Tsundoku: The art of buying books and never reading them”. I actually heard about that quite some time ago. And, no, I do NOT have that problem, no siree!! [quietly hides piles of unread books…]

There are REAL problems in this world, of course, including one that people are ridiculed over constantly. But, it turns out that gluten intolerance is “Not just a fad: the surprising, gut-wrenching truth about gluten”. This was actually a fascinating new (to me) look at a problem that people in my life have been affected by.

Combining tech issues and culture, “Japan's Emperor Is Stepping Down Soon, Which Could Cause Major Headaches for Computer Calendars”. This isn’t a problem in the West, but it did remind me of the “Y2K bug” that wasn’t, but this apparently really is a problem.

History! “How One Woman Brought the 'Mother's Curse' to Canada” talks about the filles du roi in 17th Century French Canada, and so, one of humans’ best understood genetic mutations.

“Sulphur, Sicilians, and the Exodus to the USA” tells us about sulphur mining in Sicily, men who eventually migrated to the USA. I never knew that sulphur mining was done naked. Actually, I never knew anything about sulphur mining. Or that any mining was done naked. So, it was a new information gold—sorry, sulphur—mine.

Going back even farther, “Was There a Civilization On Earth Before Humans?” In this article on The Atlantic, Adam Frank takes “A look at the available evidence”. The article tells us about how speculation can help us understand the cycles of civilisation.

And, there has to be at least one non-serious thing: “5 Stupid Things You Won't Believe Have Been Around Forever”. This is actually more interesting than the click-baity title would suggest.

And finally, Roger Green wrote recently about old posts that keep getting read long after they’re published, and he said of the post: “It’s sort of like drunk tweeting, only in a longer form. And without the alcohol, but WITH sleep deprivation.” That could probably explain most blogging, to be honest. In that post, Roger also talks about how he keeps track of ideas for blog posts, something I talked about at the end of my July Internet Wading post. And, as it happens, this is my 31st post for August, so my goal for this month has now been met. Yay, me!

And that’s another month done. Happy Wading!

Weekend Diversion: Shawn Mendes

This week’s artist is another whose work I first heard on our free-to-air music channel. I’d already heard of him by then, and that he was the latest hot artist. He was just a name until I saw the video above.

Shawn Mendes is 19 (he turns 20 later this week). He was born and raised in Ontario, and released his first full album in 2015. He’s gone from success to success since then.

The first of his songs I really paid attention to was “In My Blood” (video above). It was the first single from his third album, Shawn Mendes. It reached Number 9 in Australia and in Canada (Platinum in both countries), Number 13 in New Zealand (Gold), Number 10 in the UK (Silver), and Number 11 in the USA (Gold).

I liked the song from the first time I heard it, and the video, too. It’s still my favourite of his songs I’ve heard. I later learned that it’s about Shawn’s experience with anxiety disorder, something that is extremely unusual for an artist to talk about, regardless of what the song is about. Maybe that fact will help others?

The single immediately before that was “There’s Nothing Holding Me Back” (video below), the last single from his second album, 2016’s Illuminate. The song reached Number 4 in Australia (4x Platinum), Canada Number 6 (5x Platinum), Number 8 in New Zealand (Platinum), Number 4 in the UK (Platinum), and Number 6 in the USA (3x Platinum). This is also a single I’d heard somewhere along the line—maybe the chorus was used in a commercial or something, because I seldom listen to the radio anymore, and I don’t remember seeing the video before.



Finally, his first single, “Life of the Party” (video below), from his first studio album, 2015’s Handwritten (it was also on the EP he released right before then, 2014's The Shawn Mendes EP). He was 16 at the time he recorded the song and the video in 2014.

The song reached Number 9 in Australia (Gold) and Canada (2x Platinum), Number 6 in New Zealand (Gold), Number 99 in the UK, and Number 24 in the USA (Platinum). Did I mention he was 16 at the time?



There’s one more thing that has to be noted: His achievements. All three of his studio albums debuted at Number One on the Billboard 200 (USA). He was one of only five artists to debut at Number One before he was 18. He’s also the first artist to have four singles top the Billboard Adult Top 40 before turning 20. And he’s the first artist to have three Number One singles on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart before turning 20. His first single debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at Number 24 when he was less than month shy of his sixteenth birthday, making him the youngest artist whose debut single entered the charts in the top 25.

I mention all that because Shawn turns 20 later this week. So, I guess it’s Happy Birthday to Shawn Mendes. I wonder if I should thank him for making me feel like such an underachiever?

Keep your extremists, thanks

Two far-right Canadian “commentators”, including one banned from the UK for spreading racist material, are coming to Australia and New Zealand in July. They (I’m deliberately not using their names so as to avoid giving them Google Juice) are mounting a “speaking tour” to make money—oops! sorry—to speak at shows around Australia and in Auckland. They should stay home and leave us alone.

It’s probable, though not certain, that the two will have willing listeners on their tour, and not just the sort who are expecting a freak show and trainwreck. All countries have their radical elements, and as long as all they do is talk, there’s not much that can, or possibly should, be done about it. That doesn’t extend to foreign agitators, however, who enter a country, stir up trouble and bugger off with their pay, never having to worry about or experience the consequences of the extremism they spread and encourage.

What puzzled be about the younger speaker is that they’re only 22. How, I wondered, could someone so young become so filled with the negativity and regressive agenda of the radical right? Maybe the answer really is money.

According to news.au.com, the website of News Limited (all prices are in Australian dollars):

General admission tickets to the pair’s talks, starting on July 20, cost $79 per person. Those who want to get in early for “first choice of seats” can pay an extra $20. From there, it gets steep.

A meet-and-greet with the pair for 30 minutes will cost $199. If you want to spend 45 minutes and get some signed merchandise, it’s $499.

An “intimate dinner” with the pair will set you back $749.

Not bad for not doing any real work.

The young speaker promoted their appearances by saying to Australians, “Do you want to retain your culture, do you want to retain your borders, family, identity, or will the boats keep coming, will the no-go zones keep growing and will you become another victim of multiculturalism.” Whatever that means, it sounds more than a little racist.

The reason the young speaker was banned from the UK is that they distributed flyers intended to provoke Muslims. The speaker claimed the stunt was a "social experiment" to prove Islam is a homophobic religion. It doesn’t take a genius to know that deliberately provoking people proves absolutely nothing, and one could get the exact same result by passing out similar leaflets about Jesus—or maybe the current occupant of the White House—to far-right “Christians” in the USA.

These far-right folks always pretend to be a victim, with absolutely no responsibility for any violent confrontations that may happen. That’s a bit rich, since they always deliberately attempt to provoke violent confrontations.

The young speaker demurred, “I’m certain our ideas will shock people and our arguments will bring a lot of excitement to Australia, but I don’t remember discussing throwing bottles or rioting or setting anything on fire.” Then they stoked the flames: “We’re not going to be the ones bringing the mayhem, the left-wing rioters who are going to be there — they’ll be the ones doing that.” The far-right speakers clearly hope that’s the case so they get more publicity.

Both Australia and New Zealand have the power to block foreign trouble-makers from entering the country, and it would be understandable if the countries did so for these two. However, I don’t think that will happen, for a lot of reasons, and maybe that’s for the best: Banning them would do nothing to stop their racist agenda, but the publicity from doing so would build their popularity with their fans and vulnerable people who might be susceptible to recruitment.

The best thing to do would be to ignore them as much as possible: No counter protests—in fact, nothing more than a symbolic sole picketer (with a vehicle nearby to drive them to the hospital in the highly possible event that a far-right provocateur attacks them). Having one peaceful protestor designated as such would by itself provide a strong marketing image, and a far more effective one, and a much better strategy, than the violent confrontation the far-right folks crave, and the Left too frequently obliges with.

Honestly, though, it would be better if the pair just stayed home. They’re not wanted in this part of the world, and there must be a lot of people in North America they haven’t bothered yet, so why travel all this way just to annoy us?

They should just stay home.

Did Canada set the stage?

Most Americans know very little about Canada, and nothing at all about its government and politics. Or that they had an election. But today Canadian voters denied a fourth term to their conservative government. We hope to do the same thing to New Zealand’s in a couple years.

The video above in from John Oliver, talking about the Canadian elections, and giving Americans more information than they’ve probably ever heard. It doesn’t surprise me that it comes from the British-born host of a US comedy show, since such shows seem to be the best way to get political information in the USA right now.

Oliver is sometimes a bit biting in his humour, something New Zealand has experienced a few times—and those times were, too, probably the only time that viewers ever heard anything about New Zealand politics; but, then, we’re not a neighbour of the USA (an aside: back in 1995 I was telling someone that I was moving to New Zealand, and the person thought it was a Canadian province…).

I loathed Stephen Harper, and for many of the reasons that Oliver mentions (and also for his war on science, his reprehensible policies on LGBT refugees, and so much more). I have no idea whether Justin Trudeau will be a good prime minister—but it’s hard to imagine he could possibly be any worse.

Here’s the thing. There was a time when the Conservative Party was down and out. It came back. Not so very long ago, the Liberal Party was in third place, and now they just won the election handily. Never count a party out.

This has implications for other countries. Democrats must win back seats in Congress and state legislatures, as well as governorships, if they are to have any hope of fixing the Republicans’ messes and disasters. Much of the media is writing off the Democrats’ chances—could they be wrong? Could the Democrats have successes beyond prediction, like the Liberals in Canada?

In New Zealand, pundits look at polls right now to declare that National is likely to win a fourth term in a couple years. Maybe—or, maybe we’ll be like Canada.

The point is, that increasingly pundits are the worst possible predictor of election results, constantly misreading the mood of voters and underestimating politicians and their parties. Canada has proven the folly in pundits being too certain of their own infallibility.

But it is still funny that we need comedians to tell it to us straight.

The photo below was posted on Facebook this evening by Andrew Little, Leader of the New Zealand Labour Party, and Leader of the Opposition, who wrote: "Just posted this letter to Justin Trudeau, congratulating him on the result of the Canadian Election".

On Canada’s National Day

Today (July 1 in North America) is Canada Day. In past years, I’ve posted the ad “I am Canadian” ad for Molson Canadian beer because I think it’s such a great ad, and it’s very pro-Canada. The video above contains that ad (in between ads…).

I picked the version above because it’s the best quality version I’ve found so far, though the ads placed on either side of it are a little annoying. The actual ad starts 15 seconds in. The ads for Molson Canadian have won several awards over the years (actually, the beer has, too).

What I like so much about the ad is how over-the-top the actor gets—until the very end when he turns polite, saying thank you (the stereotype of polite Canadians has been the subject of other ads for Molson Canadian).

I also like two specific things in the script: “I can proudly sew my country’s flag on my backpack,” is the first. Until the current Canadian Government started getting embroiled in the USA’s wars, Canadians were pretty much exempt from the sort of abuse that Americans have sometimes received overseas (indeed, having their flag on display helped let people outside Canada know in advance that they’re not American). That advantage may have been eroded over the past decade or so, but it’s still probably true that the Canadian flag attracts less hostility in much of the world than the US flag does.

The other thing is just funny to me: “It IS pronounced zed, NOT zee, ZED!!” Because, well, it is!

Now, me being me, I needed to verify something that I thought was true but wasn’t sure of, namely, that Molson isn’t, strictly speaking, Canadian. It turns out that Molson Brewery was formed in Montreal in 1786, making it the second-oldest company in Canada (the legendary Hudson’s Bay Company was first). Huge respect to a country that has among its oldest still functioning companies a brewery!

In 2005, Molson merged with Colorado-based Coors. The new company, Molson Coors, is incorporated in the USA, but is traded on both countries’ stock exchanges and has dual headquarters in Denver and Toronto. Some members of the Molson family are still on the company’s Board of Directors.

In 2007, Molson Coors created a joint venture with SABMiller to combine operations in the USA and Puerto Rico, but not Canada, where Molson Coors is strongest. Molson Coors owns 42% of the joint venture, called Miller Coors, and SABMiller owns 58%, but they have equal voting power, which is, um, interesting.

SABMiller, meanwhile, is the London-based multinational company that owns former US brand Miller’s, former Australian brand Foster’s (except in UK and Europe, where it’s owned by Heineken), former Dutch brand Grolsch, and former Italian brand Peroni, among many brands. The company, the world's second largest brewer, is actively trying to grow through acquisitions and takeovers to guard itself from being taken over by Belgian-Brazilian company Anheuser-Busch InBe, which is the world’s largest brewing company. This is why the arrangement with Molson Coors is so interesting.

So, unlike SABMiller (or Anheuser-Busch InBe, for that matter), Molson Coors is still North American-based and at least partly Canadian—maybe a little bit more Canadian, given its particular strength in that country.

So, while Joe is Canadian, the company, if it was a person, would have to shout, “I am quite Canadian!”

Happy Canada Day!

Supporting the Freedom To Marry

Tomorrow, the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments that could lead to 50-state marriage equality. There have been a lot of good and positive messages of support as that date approached (and some awful ones), so I thought I’d share some of the best videos I’ve seen lately.

First up, Freedom To Marry is running the ad at the top of this post. It simply argues, "It’s time. America is ready for the freedom to marry." They’re absolutely right: The USA definitely IS ready, even some loud-mouthed extremists aren’t.

Next up is an ad from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which has been doing some great video messaging in recent months, many of which are on their YouTube Channel). This ad features various people known from various, chiefly entertainment, fields. It has a good message that’s presented well. I know some people hate ads like this that use “celebrities”, but the approach does help get the attention of some people, which may make them actually hear the message, so I don’t have a problem with it.



Finally, I wanted to share a video from PFLAG Canada, “Nobody’s Memories”, which, they say, “is our tribute to all those in the past who were never allowed to marry by law – and to everyone who is still denied the right today.” It’s a beautiful ad. But for some bizarre reason, it's private. The link should be viewable on YouTube. Normally, I'd have skipped over them when the video wasn't available, but it really is beautiful and deserves to be seen,

The messaging on the pro-equality side is light-years ahead of where it was in 2008, when LGBT people were conspicuously absent from ads against California’s Proposition 8. Our adversaries, meanwhile, tend to rely on their religion as their only argument against us, sometimes, sadly, resorting to lies, smears and defamation to try to hide the fact that they have NO secular argument against marriage equality.

To me, ads like these are a bit of an antidote to the bile spread by the opponents of equality and freedom. I think we’ll need a lot more antidotes in the months ahead, so I’ll probably share more positive messages like these. I bet there’ll be plenty more of those, too.

Things you find

So, I was looking around on YouTube, as one does, and I found something that taught me something new—as one does. The video above is from Archives New Zealand, and within it is something I’d never heard of before. And how many times has THAT happened?

Beginning at about 2:16, the video talks about a meeting in Wellington by the Colombo Plan, and I immediately thought, “wait, what?!” I’d never heard of it.

It turns out, the Colombo Plan was conceived in 1949/50 among nations in The Commonwealth as way to combat the rise of communism in Southeast Asia. It focused solely on economic development, ignoring the social and economic inequality that communists exploited. However, this was central to conservative thinking, then as now, that “a rising tide lifts all boats”, so if the economy does well, everyone in it does, too. That’s nonsense, of course, but in the 1950s, it didn’t seem so (and it still doesn’t to those of antique beliefs…).

The conference in Wellington was held in May, 1956. The Prime Minister at the time would have been Sidney Holland. He stepped down and resigned due to ill health the following year. The video mentions “the Legislative Chamber” which then was the chamber of New Zealand’s former upper house, the Legislative Council, which was abolished in 1950. Their chamber has been used for special and state occasions ever since—and it’s actually quite small.

The Colombo Plan—named for the city in Sri Lanka where it was formed—still exists, though its mandate has extended into the Pacific. Founding members Canada and the United Kingdom both left, in 1992 and 1991, respectively. Vietnam technically left in 1975 when South Vietnam was defeated, then the current Vietnam was a member until 1976, and is now again a member. For some reason I cannot begin to guess, Saudi Arabia became a member in 2012.

So, here I am, a reasonably well-educated person, someone who studied not just political science but also international relations, and yet I was completely unaware of the Colombo Plan until tonight. And that meant only one thing: I had to share it in case others didn’t know about it, either. Secretly, I’m hoping others haven’t…

The things you find on the Internet can be very enlightening.

The Queen’s 2014 Broadcast

The video above is the annual Christmas Broadcast from Her Majesty, the Queen of New Zealand (and other countries), something I've also posted in previous years. This year she speaks about “reconciliation and forgiveness”, using the Christmas truce if 1914 as a focus.

Because I come from a republic, I’ve always been fascinated by the Queen’s annual broadcast. I know several of my fellow Americans who are, too. Ironically, though, I’m pretty much the only one in my NZ family who is.

Be that as it may, this year I didn’t see any of the broadcast on television; in most years I see at least part of it. Not that it matters, really, when it’s available online—lucky for me.

And that’s another Christmas tradition now on the “done” list.

AAA-14 - Answer 2 – The places I’ve been

Today’s question is from Roger Green, who said: “OK, for starters, I want you to do the map thing I just did.”

This is actually something I took a stab nearly two years ago, but this version (map above – click to embiggen) is more detailed and precise than the old one was and so, I think, more accurate.

There are two versions of the map available, one for the USA only and another version for the USA and Canada. You generate the map after you colour the states and provinces according to these criteria:

• red for states where you've not spent much time or seen very much.
• amber for states where you've at least slept and seen some sights.
• blue for states you've spent a lot of time in or seen a fair amount of.
• green for states you've spent a great deal of time in on multiple visits.

This was actually harder to do than it might seem, especially trying to determine which colour is most appropriate. For example, I think I’ve sent the night in Indiana, but I’m not sure. However, I went to Indianapolis for meetings several times when I was an activist, and I’ve driven through it many times to get to other states. So, even if I haven’t spent the night there, I’ve visited the state enough that it ought to be “amber”, anyway, I think.

Similarly, I’ve only visited San Francisco/Napa Valley and Los Angeles in California, but they were over two trips, each of which were several days long. So, I gave it blue. I also spent several nights near Atlanta, Georgia, on a single trip, but didn’t actually see that much of the state or city, so, on balance I left it amber.

South Dakota is blue thanks to a family trip in 1968, which took in the Black Hills and the Badlands, and points near each, before heading south to Denver to visit family. I think we may have stopped for the night at a campground in Kansas or Nebraska that trip, too, but I’m not sure.

The other blue states: We camped in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan when I was a kid, and friends and I stayed in St. Joseph when we were in university. I’ve also driven through it with my family to get to Ontario in 1970. New York was only New York City, but was two trips each lasting several days (and there’s a fair bit to see and do in New York City…). Pennsylvania was visiting family on multiple trips (Virginia was one trip visiting family and other, briefer trips), as well as some sightseeing on other parts of the state.

Ohio was an interesting state for me. I visited Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati when I was an activist, and stayed in each city (the Cincinnati trip I stayed across the river in Kentucky). An ex boyfriend was from the Toledo area, so we visited there several times. And, my parents and I had stopped for the night at a motel in Montpelier, Ohio, right near the Interstate, on August 8, 1974—the night Richard Nixon announced he was resigning the presidency.

The green states are obvious: Illinois, where I was born, grew up and lived until I left for New Zealand. My family and I went camping in Wisconsin many times over many years, and I’ve stayed in Milwaukee and Door County. An ex boyfriend was from Kenosha, so we spent several nights there (including some I alluded to yesterday), and they kindly showed me the sights in the area, including the outside of the Johnson Wax Headquarters building in nearby Racine, Wisconsin.

As for Canada, my family and I visited lower Ontario in the summer of 1970, over about a week, maybe. The only place I’ve been to in Quebec is Montreal, and for a weekend, but I saw the sights. Of the two, Ontario might arguably be blue, but I didn't colour it that way because I’ve only been to lower Ontario.

And those are the places I’ve been, USA/Canada version.

It’s not too late to ask a question! Leave a comment to this post, or send an email to me (click the link in the right hand sidebar).

NZMM Day 26 – Tami Neilson

And now, a change: "Country, Soul, Rockabilly" artist Tami Neilson is today’s artist. Up until now, I’ve posted pop, rock, hiphop, etc., but no country. This choice sort of fell out of the ether.

Tami was born in Canada, part of a performing family, and now lives in New Zealand. She fell in love with a Kiwi man, moved here, and they’re now married. Yes, it’s a similar story, apart from the fact that I don’t sing, of course, for which the world is grateful.

The song above, “Whiskey & Kisses”, is from Dynamite!, her first album to be recorded solely in New Zealand. The song, a duet between Tami and Ben Woolley, was just named “Best Country Music Song” at the New Zealand Country Music Awards in Gore this past Friday.

The video below is a special double video of the songs "Texas”, with a bonus performance of "Cry Over You”. The non-performance parts of the video are pretty cheesy, and not really in a good way, but her performances are solid. “Texas” was also a finalist for “Best Country Music Song”.



Finally, a completely different sort of song, "Walk (Back to Your Arms)". It’s more bluesy/souly sort of song, kind of reminiscent of Adele, Peggy Lee, among others. These days, artists don’t have to stick to one style only.



I’ll admit that country isn’t one of my favourite genres, but, neither is hiphop, reggae or hard rock, yet all have been part of this adventure in blogging. This one fell into my virtual lap when I saw a Tweet from NZ On Air, and, well, why not? After all, this whole project started with a Tweet, so why not start to wind down with a post inspired by one?

Crooked border

In this video, CGP Grey, one of my favourite YouTube explainers, looks at the Canada-US border, which makes it perfect to share on this blog. He’s also posted Google Earth coordinates (along with the script) on his site.

Well worth a look!

Funniest thing

I’d love to comment fully on the elections and where US politics should go from here, but I have too much work to do. But one thing is so funny to me that I just have to comment on it: Republican supporters who declare they’re going to move to New Zealand, Australia or Canada.

It’s not funny that they’re saying it—historically, backers of whoever loses an election say that, but they seldom mean it and even fewer actually follow through. Moving countries is a very big deal, after all.

It’s funny because it shows how little America’s rightwing understands about the world. So here are a few things they probably want to keep in mind before ringing up international moving companies:

• New Zealand, Australia and Canada all have national healthcare that goes far beyond “Obamacare”. None of us are looking to change.
• Canada has had full marriage equality since 2005. New Zealand is about to adopt marriage equality, but has comprehensive Civil Unions in the meantime. Australia is moving inevitably to follow the lead.
• You have to leave your guns at home: All three countries have strong restrictions on guns.
• Evolution is taught in schools, the reality of climate change is accepted as fact, especially by Australia and New Zealand (I simply don’t know where Canada is on that).
• New Zealand, Australia and Canada are monarchies, not republics. We don’t elect our hereditary Head of State (the Queen), and we only indirectly elect our Head of Government (the Prime Minister). All three countries have vibrant left wing parties that make the US’ Democrats look like conservatives.
• Speaking of prime ministers, Australia’s Prime Minister is a female atheist who is not married to the man she lives with. New Zealand’s Prime Minister has been described as a “church going atheist”; his wife is Catholic and his mother was Jewish (which makes him ethnically Jewish, if not religiously so).
• New Zealand is staunchly secular, even if many describe themselves as Christian. We have less of a presence of US-style fundamentalists than either Australia or Canada, and such people have little political influence in this country. A large number of New Zealanders describe themselves as atheist—a much higher percentage than in the US,.
• We have prominent politicians who are female, LGBT or from racial and ethnic minorities. New Zealand, for example, was the first country in the world to elect a transgendered Member or Parliament and also the world’s first openly gay person elected to a first term. Mind you, New Zealand was also the first country in the world to give women the right to vote, so that’s not surprising.
• New Zealand is nuclear free.

There are plenty of other things that conservatives should learn about New Zealand, Australia and Canada before thinking about moving here, but those are probably enough to make them consider a country more in line with their politics, like Russia or Iran.

And that’s not funny.

C is for The Commonwealth

The Commonwealth is the world’s second-largest organisation of nations. With 54 member countries, and a third of the world’s population, it’s a pretty big deal.

The Commonwealth has its origins in the British Empire, though two member states were never part of the Empire (do you know which two? Answer at the end), and several countries that were part of the Empire chose not to join the Commonwealth upon independence. In 1884, a British politician, Lord Rosebury, visited Australia and suggested that the empire was becoming a “Commonwealth of Nations.” This is said to be where the name originated.

By then, Canada had already become a Dominion (in 1867), a status that implied equality with the United Kingdom. It was followed by several other countries: Australia (1901), New Zealand (1907), South Africa (1910) and the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland, 1922). All countries participated separately in World War One (apart from Ireland, which was not yet a country), and signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

After World War One, the Dominions were looking to form a new constitutional structure to replace the old Empire. At the Imperial Conference in 1926, they adopted the Balfour Declaration, which reaffirmed the Dominions’ status as separate and equal nations who shared a common allegiance to the British Crown.

This was codified into law when the UK Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster in 1931. It applied to Canada automatically, but it had to be ratified by Australia, New Zealand and Newfoundland (then not part of Canada) for it to take effect. Newfoundland never adopted it because it dissolved its government in 1934 and became Canada’s tenth province in 1949. Australia ratified it in 1942, New Zealand in 1947. The British Commonwealth was born.

On April 28, 1949, the London Declaration dropped the word “British” from the name. This is considered to be the beginning of the modern Commonwealth. They also agreed that when India became an independent republic in 1950, it could remain in the Commonwealth even though the British Monarch would no longer be its Head of State. This was an issue because in 1948 the Republic of Ireland renounced the sovereignty of the British Crown and left the Commonwealth.

Today several republics are Commonwealth members, and even those that still have the same monarch as the UK (such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand), nevertheless have a separate legal identity for the monarch (the current monarch is Queen of Canada, Queen of New Zealand and Queen of Australia, in those respective countries, and not Queen of the United Kingdom). The Queen is Head of the Commonwealth, a position symbolic of the free association of the member nations. When the Queen dies, her successor will not automatically become Head of the Commonwealth.

Commonwealth member countries don't consider each other foreign in many respects. This is why Commonwealth countries send a High Commissioner rather than an ambassador to other Commonwealth members. Similarly, Commonwealth countries have a High Commission and not an embassy in each other's countries.

The Commonwealth has shared beliefs and values:

The Commonwealth believes the best democracies are achieved through partnerships – of governments, business, and civil society.

Beyond the ties of history, language and institutions, members are united through the association’s values of: democracy, freedom, peace, the rule of law and opportunity for all.

These values were agreed and set down by all Commonwealth Heads of Government at two of their biennial meetings (known as CHOGMs) in Singapore in 1971 and reaffirmed in Harare in 1991.

The Commonwealth currently has two main goals: Peace and Democracy, and Pro-Poor Growth and Sustainable Development. There are specific programmes to help achieve those goals.

One of the major events of the Commonwealth is the Commonwealth Games, also known as “The Friendly Games”, and the third-largest sporting event in the world (after the Olympics and the Asian Games). 71 teams participate because many dependencies participate under their own flags, as do the four “home nations” of the UK: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is held every four years, the next being in Glasgow in 2014. The last to be held in New Zealand were in Auckland in 1990. It’s probably unlikely that they’ll ever be held here again due to the cost and size of the event.

Commonwealth Day, the annual celebration of the Commonwealth, is observed on the second Monday in March with activities in London and around the world. Still, it’s not a public holiday in most Commonwealth countries and most people in them know little or nothing about it.

And finally, those two member countries that have no historic ties to Britain: Mozambique became the first country with no colonial links to Britain to join the Commonwealth in 1995. In 2009, Rwanda became the 54th member of the Commonwealth. Predominantly Francophone Cameroon also joined in 1995, however, it incorporated the former British Cameroon, so it does have colonial ties to Britain.

The illiustration at the top of this post is the Commonwealth flag; as a flag, it is in the public domain.

Click the badge above to visit other bloggers taking part in ABC Wednesday—there are a lot of interesting and very diverse blog posts!

Together: Stories by Pride & Google+

From the video’s YouTube description: “Pride Toronto and Google+ present ‘Together,’ a series of films by award-winning director Jeff Feuerzeig.” While this two-minute video is interesting in itself, the collaboration with Google+ is what makes this project different from many others. The social network is doing a lot of interesting and innovative things—things that most people don’t seem to know about, yet, anyway. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that they’d be involved.

Social networks, and the Internet generally, make building a political movement so much easier than it was in my activist days, but that means it also makes it easy to build a sense of community, particularly for LGBT people in distant or isolated places who might not otherwise have any community. I think that this is one of the main strengths of the Internet Age, and it’s often enough to outweigh the bad things about the Internet (like the trolls who comment on YouTube videos like this).

This project takes advantage of what the Internet has to offer and connects people by sharing human stories. This is a good thing.

Weekend Diversion: Drake Jensen

The video above is by Drake Jensen, who I’d never heard of until today, not until someone I know on Twitter re-Tweeted someone I didn’t know. So, following the trail, I read how Drake describes himself on Twitter:

North America's first open gay male country recording artist. Drake's priority? To make sure country fans in the LGBT community have a voice of representation."

I’m not much of a country fan, gay or otherwise, but I do like some songs and some artists. And yet, I’ve been aware that country music has long had a solidly heterosexual focus—actually, that’s part of why I’ve never become a big fan: I can’t relate to much of country music as easily as I can to pop music which is, more often than not, general in nature. Pop music is also more likely to have openly gay artists.

But I do like the idea of gay country performers bringing some “realness” to the genre—that’s definitely a good thing. Drake seems very positive and eager to interact with his fans—something that rates very highly for me (only a few recording artists that I follow also follow me back; Drake followed back within minutes—he gets bonus points for that).

And, fortunately, I like what I’ve heard so far. The video above is “On My Way To Finding You”, the first single from Drake’s debut album of the same name. It, the album and his second single, “Scars”, are all available from iTunes. The video below is “All You Need”, another song from his debut album, and a song I like a lot.

Drake's website has more information about him.

Well, this has been a week of music firsts for me: I blogged about a hip-hop artist and now I’m blogging about a country artist. Clearly, anything’s possible.

The Canada-cy announcement

This video is a joke. I shouldn’t have to say that, but some Americans don’t seem to get humour that pokes at them. Or, maybe they don’t choose to. In any case, I feel I need to point that out because one never knows who will find a post through a search. For the record, this video also takes a fair few swipes at Canada, too.

This video is a satirical look at the upcoming US elections and offers an alternative option: Let Canada run the US: “Canada Party. America, but better.” I thought it was really funny, because of the fun it pokes at both countries.

Tip o’ the Hat to Joe.My.God.