In a land there’s a town, and in that town there’s a house
And in that house there’s a woman
And in that woman there’s a heart I love
I’m gonna take it with me when I go

If I could choose one musician above all others, it would be Tom Waits. And his Take It With Me is such a lovely song.

As children of the mother-democracy in the United Kingdom, we here in the Commonwealth can sometimes forget that our own practice of day to day parliamentary practice has evolved since we forged out on our own. Nowhere is this more evident than when one watches the televised proceedings of the House of Commons in London, a habit I’ve fallen into of late as the debate toward (or away from) Brexit has proved compelling.

One of the more noticeable differences between the London parliament and the Charlottetown one is that in London they have division lobbies, separated physical areas, on either side of the chamber, to which members retire to vote yes or no on a given motion or amendment.

Here’s how the process is laid out in the 2013 Divisions in the House of Commons: House of Commons Background Paper:

When a motion is put to the vote, the Speaker ‘puts the question’, by saying:

The Question is, that … [for example, the Bill be read a second time]. As many as are of that opinion say Aye”, (there then follows a chorus of shouted Ayes), “of the contrary No” (a similar shout of No)…..

At this point, if there is no dissent, the motion will be carried, and the Speaker will say “I think the Ayes have it”. There is then no need for a formal division to take place.

However, if Members do not agree, the Speaker calls a division. S/he announces “Clear the Lobbies”. The division bells ring throughout the House of Commons estate, the Annunciators display “Division”, and the police direct all non-members to leave the vicinity of the Members’ Lobby; they also walk through the public rooms of the House shouting “Division”. … The Speaker has the discretion to ask each side to stand in their places in the Chamber, if s/he believes that a division is unnecessary.

Before each vote takes place, those voting both ‘aye’ and ‘no’ must appoint two Members to act as tellers. Their job is to report the result of the vote to the House. They themselves will be counted as having voted either ‘aye’ or ‘no’: reports on some websites will, for instance, report “189 + 2 tell” as having voted in a certain way.

That part about “the division bells ring throughout the House of Commons estate” caught my eye. Members have 8 minutes after the division bells start to ring to get to the appropriate lobby; 8 minutes, if you’re walking at a fast clip, will get you a fair distance, and it’s for this reason that the division bells ring not only in the House of Commons itself, but also in nearby pubs and restaurants.

For example, according to OpenStreetMap, the walk from The Cinnamon Club to the House of Commons takes exactly 8 minutes. And as there are so-called “external division bells” in The Cinnamon Club, this means that a member could be lunching there and make it to the division lobby in time to cast a vote.

The BBC News website has a 2017 story that provides a good introduction to the practice.

While we don’t have division lobbies here in the Legislative Assembly of PEI–members vote in the chamber–we do have division bells, something pointed out by MLA Wilbur MacDonald in 2004 when he rose, on a point of order, to mention a new electronic set:

7:00 P.M. Rising on a Point of Order, Wilbur MacDonald (Belfast-Pownal Bay) requested a demonstration of the Legislative Assembly’s new electronic division bell and requested that it be rung for five minutes prior to the House sitting on a sessional sitting day.

Here’s how the process of “putting a question to the house” works here in Prince Edward Island, according to the rules:

18. Putting a question to the House

Is the House ready for a question?

The question is as follows: …..   

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea. 
All opposed will please say nay. 
In my opinion, the motion is carried (or lost).   

If any member requests a recorded division, sometimes called a standing vote, the Speaker says:  

Sergeant-at-Arms, ring the bells.

After no more than 5 minutes, when the members are in, the Speaker says:  

All those opposed to the motion please rise.   

(and after the names have been recorded by the Clerk)   

All those in favour of the motion please rise.   

I declare the motion carried (or lost).

We don’t have external division bells here in Charlottetown, so members must be within earshot of the chamber to hear the bells ringing. Five minutes in downtown Charlottetown will get you pretty far, though: according to OpenRouteService’s isochrones, the distance you can travel in 5 minutes from the Coles Building on foot is reflected in red on this map:

So, in theory, a member could be at Cedar’s when a vote is called and, assuming quick reflexes and a brisk pace, be in their seat for the vote.

Over the quarter century we’ve lived in Charlottetown, I’ve never particularly thought of The Bookmark, our local independent bookstore, as a place to order books. For some inexplicable reason I thought it was more trouble than it was worth for them, and so I simply fell into the habit of ordering books online.

Recently, though, I noticed a big search box at the top of the store’s website labelled Search for anything, and that seemed like clear evidence that they wanted me to order books from them and, indeed, that they could get anything on order.

And so I’ve started to order my books from The Bookmark instead of from Amazon. The store’s prices are often a dollar or two more than Amazon’s, and it can take a little longer for books to arrive (but not much longer), but you don’t pay shipping if you pick up at the store, and you don’t have to pay until the book arrives.

What’s more, I help to ensure the longevity of my local independent bookstore by buying locally. So as part of the deal, I get a local place to browse for books that’s open seven days a week, has a thoughtful and broad approach to stocking its shelves, and that sells fountain pens and ink to boot. Here’s what The Bookmark itself says:

We believe in a local economy – we believe that spending money is a political act, every dollar we spend casts a ballot for the kind of world we want to live in. There is no right or wrong answer, but if you don’t shop locally, if you don’t support the local economy, in the real world, there won’t be one left when you step outside. At Bookmark, we are strong supporters of the local literary community. We also take seriously spending our dollars locally for marketing services, accounting, legal and other business services.

By way of encouraging others (and myself) to look to The Bookmark when our Amazon muscle memory runs so strong, using Jon Udell’s excellent LibraryLookup as a starting point, I’ve created a handy “look this up at The Bookmark” bookmarklet (ha! was there ever a bookmarklet better named!).

The idea is this: you’re readying a blog post, say, and it has a link to a book at Amazon.com. You visit the Amazon book page, click the bookmarklet and, blamo, you see the same book on The Bookmark’s site.

The Bookmark[let]

To install the bookmark, just drag the link above to your browser’s bookmarks toolbar.

Here’s the bookmarklet in action.

From the Amazon.ca page for If Cats Disappeared from The World:

I click the bookmarklet on my browser’s toolbar and a new browser window pops up with the ISBN for the book fed to The Bookmark’s search tool:

From there it’s an easy matter to order the book from The Bookmarklet (and it’s worthwhile to note that Amazon.ca’s shipping was $5.73 while The Bookmark didn’t charge any shipping at all, so, in fact, it was less expensive to order locally).

Needless to say, this bookmarklet has no affiliation with Amazon nor with The Bookmark; it’s simply a technical intervention, created by me, to encourage people to shop at my local bookstore.

When is a “student strike” not a strike? When the school’s morning announcements invite students to participate.

This cover of Dodie’s Monster by Pomplamoose ft. Dodie is brilliant.

Pomplamoose is on fire these days and Pomplamoose ft. X, more often than not, results in a version of X that’s better than X alone.

I received my copy of Robin Sloan’s Treasured Subscribers, today in the post.

The “detailed description of contents” on the USPS customs form reads “One-page work of fiction.”

Which is exactly what it is.

The best 89¢ I’ve ever spent.

Bob Newhart was 53 years old when Newhart premiered in 1982.

I turn 53 next month.

I noticed this coincidence because, watching the pilot tonight, I thought there was something strangely familiar about how he carried himself; a check on Wikipedia confirmed it.

Also, I laughed out loud more times than I can count.

The first of the publicly-funded mixed-member proportional representation referendum advertising hit PEI mailboxes today, from the No side.

MMP… Confusing, Complicated and Dangerous screams the headline, hyperbolic enough to make me wonder if it’s a parody.

The silver lining here might be that, many Islanders—most, perhaps—will see through the fearmongering and consider the referendum question in a more thoughtful manner.

Sometimes when I make an appointment for something I’m told that there’s no availability, but I’m offered the option of going on a list “in case there are any cancellations.”

I’ve always treated this option as tantamount to being told “there is no hope for you here; you might as well look elsewhere.”

But in the past month I’ve benefited twice from a real life cancellation situation, most recently just this morning.

I woke up today determined that this would be the week I took action on the vague-vertigo-like-senstation that’s afflicted me for two years, so I called Sports Centre Physiotherapy, hoping to book an appointment with the excellent Nathan, whose interventions a year ago achieved some success.

Nathan, alas, has left the building, and I was offered an appointment with Ellen instead. Except that Ellen had no appointments this week. Which would render my determination moot.

But I agreed to go on the waiting list “in case there’s a cancellation.”

And then, at 1:15 p.m., I got a call: “can you come in for 2:00 p.m.?”

You bet I can.

The excellent Ellen ushered me into the room-formerly-known-as-Nathan’s-room and led me through a familiar set of Q&A and diagnostic tests. BPPV was ruled out quickly. And “gaze stability” zeroed in on as a possibility.

I was given three exercises as homework (which I document here in part because here is the closest thing to “where I will always be able to refer to them” as I have in my life). The names are ones I made up, not official physiotherapeutic ones:

1. The Static Dot. Put a sticky note with a big dot on it about 10 feet away on the wall, about 20º below eye-line while sitting. While focusing on the dot, and looking straight ahead, move my head up and down. Vary the speed and the amplitude. Stop when it gets to be too much. Three repetitions.
2. Fingers Still, Gaze Up Down. Stretch my arms out in front of me, one on top of the other, forefingers extended, about 18 inches apart. Without moving my head, switch focus back and forth between the top and bottom finger, back and forth, back and forth, at a good clip.
3. Stare at Numbers. On the grid of numbers that I was given as a takeaway, while focusing on one number, soften my gaze to drink in the numbers around it.

I’m off traveling starting a week from today for two weeks, so I have a follow-up appointment in three weeks where I’ll get a chance to check-in and see how things are going.

Although this wasn’t a resource that Ellen gave me, I found the brief Two Modes of Visual Processing to be helpful for understanding the concepts she outlined, the working theory being, in part, that I need to offload some of the responsibility that my focal system is taking on to my ambient system. We’ll see.

I thought I knew how to play charades, but watching this 1962 appearance of The Dick Van Dyke Show cast on the Stump the Stars game show, it turns out I don’t know the half of it.