One year I gave my mother a spatula for her birthday. Except that it wasn’t a real spatula, it was one of my own construction — made of masonite and floor tiles. I expect that if you actually used it to spatulanate something, it would have disolved into a mass of sticky goo.

Although this gift, with the blue toilet seat, and the popsicle maker, has entered family lore as “one of those crazy gifts,” at the time I don’t remember Mom being anything but grateful.

It’s only been in recent years, since Oliver joined in, that I’ve come to realize my mother’s sheer fortitude. Catherine and I are often overwhelmed by the enormity of what it takes to manage Oliver’s day to day life: things like “leaving the house” that used to take 30 seconds are now a extended 15 minute drama of mit location and boot application. My mother did the same things. Except she had 2 boys. And, in a year from now relative to where I sit now, she had 4 boys.

Whenever Catherine and I take Oliver to the dentist, or grocery shopping, there’s always a part of us thinking “how did Frances ever do this with four?!” I mean, how did she keep me from eating molases while Mike was being buckled into his car seat? Or how did she keep John and Steve from wandering off into the basement when she was dressing me down for calling Mike names? What happened when the phone rang and we were all eating lunch?

Miraculous more is that when we were all still relatively little — I think I was 14, Mike 13, and the twins 8 — Mom went off and got another university degree. And then a masters. And then started a career as a librarian.

Net result: not only were we all somehow miraculously prevented eating poison, but smack dab in the middle of our formative years we bore witness to a real demonstration of “oh, and by the way, women go to university and learn Pascal and have fulfilling careers too.” I’d like to think that we’re all better men because of her example.

It’s Mom’s birthday today. I just wanted to say thanks.

Whenever my fellow bloggers talk about how their weblogging activities have placed great stresses on their “regular” lives — ruining friendships, causing family breakdown, creating difficulties at work — I’ve always looked on in silent wonder that something as ultimately frivolous as a blog could wreck wreak such havoc.

I mean, here’s me, ruminating on movie trailer music and television shows; who could take offense at that?

And so, short of a passing reference from my father to the effect that “there are no secrets in our family anymore” when I mentioned some family event from the past in this space, and that whole Sandy Peardon thing (oh, and this whole thing), I’ve remained a carefree happy-go-lucky blogger, unravaged by critics, with all relationships intact.

Until this post.

In A Mediated Approach to Disintermediation, I wrote about a new university course by Rob, something he’d written about on his own weblog.

I called into question the approach and setting for the new course. And, it could be argued that (without intending to), with the rhetorical question “Why do we need Rob?,” I called into question Rob.

When I wrote what I wrote, I truly was doing so in the same carefree ponderous spirit that you will find in evidence elsewhere here. I was being rhetorical. I was trying to stimulate conversation. I was taking a internal musing and working it out by writing about it in public. If I were to adapt a screenplay from the post, and set it in a bar with Rob and I present, I would be looking all sarcastic, and would look over at Rob, wink, and say the line. Rob would laugh knowingly.

And when I wrote a follow-up post, it was in the same spirit. I read what others, including Rob, had to say, and wrote back. My follow-up wasn’t a “retraction” of my original thoughts, simply an evolution in my thinking.

That’s the spirit what I do here.

Now I’ve known Rob for, what, 7 or 8 years. I like Rob. He’s invited me to his house. I’ve met his family. We’ve worked on some good and interesting projects together. And in a way that few others have managed, he’s groked the way I work and, what’s more, he has had the patience to deal with me petulantly saying “well, why are we doing this at all anyway?” right in the middle of a project, often at the most inconvenient moments.

Rob and I don’t always agree, but I think our disagreements, when they’ve surfaced and been hashed out have allowed us both to mature our own positions and open our minds to the others.

Rob is a rare bird on Prince Edward Island: a consultant who came, and stayed. Anyone who spends any time here on PEI quickly comes to learn about those “high priced consultants from Upper Canada” who come down to the Island with lots of big ideas, lots of intellectual piss and vinegar, ready to remake the province in their neatly ordered image. They generally last one winter, and then move back to Toronto or Ottawa or Montreal when they realize there’s no opera here.

Rob (and me, before him) certainly got tarred with that brush: the assumption when you move here as “an idea person” is that you’ll fall into that group that leave soon after arriving.

But Rob didn’t. He lived out in the hinterlands of Montague. In the winter. He survived changes in government. He saw good ideas, ideas that would really change things for the better, die for personal or political or “just because” reasons. He moved his extended family here. He bought a house and improved it. He’s laid down deep roots. He has a lawn tractor. And he’s now been here for so long that most if not all (you’ll never get everyone) accept that he’s here for good. And maybe someone to listen to.

The Island is a better place for Rob. And I’m a better person for knowing him.

Now I say all this because some — including perhaps Rob — took my post as some sort of coded way of working out a grievance with him. As a personal attack. As a public ridicule of Rob, himself.

It wasn’t. At all.

And so, without retracting the substance of my original musing, and the follow-up post that came later, I wanted to take a moment and apologize to Rob for what appeared to him and others to be harsh words, and to try and explain how they weren’t intended as such.

My general approach is if you’re living your life as a “public figure” — whether as an artist, a filmmaker, a business person, a restauranteur, an organizer of public events, a politician, a newspaper columnist, a weblogger — then I consider your output, your words, your work, your ideas, your personal zeitgeist to be worthy of comment, and of open and public debate and discussion.

That said, I never intend criticism of output, words, work, ideas, or personal zeitgeist to be taken as an ad hominem argument against a specific person.

For example, I write a lot about The Capital Commission here in Charlottetown. Like this. Or this. I figure if a public body is going to spend my tax dollars doing things in my city, it’s fair game — even necessary — for there to be critical examination of their activities. Sometimes I do this seriously, sometimes mockingly. But never in a way that is meant to say “this specific person is evil.”

The same goes when I review a movie. Or a restaurant. Or talk about the phone company. Or point to a magazine article.

I think criticism — in the spirit of “the art of judging with knowledge and propriety of the beauties and faults of a literary performance, or of a production in the fine arts” — is important to the conduct of a fruitful life.

And I think it’s even more important in a small, isolated, insular community like ours, where close quarters and social interconnectedness mean that many are loathe to do anything but offer empty praise.

The problem with this ideal, of course, is that most people — myself included — take their output very personally. It’s hard to read “your play was boring” and not hear “you are boring.” It’s hard to hear “that idea you have sucks” and not understand it to mean “you suck.”

And so I imagine that Rob read my original post and didn’t take it as a lighthearted discussion opener (as it was intended) but rather more as “That Rob’s an idiot, eh, doing stupid things with his elite buddies — ha ha!”

I’m not sure what to do about this.

Words assembled are interesting because they have power. How do I keep doing this without causing personal harm and hurt to others? Is that an impossible goal? An inevitable result?

I could stop writing about other people entirely. Or I could only comment about “good news.” Or I could stop writing about friends, family and neighbours. That would probably avoid a lot of hassle in future. But I’m not sure that wouldn’t cause more problems, and leave me unable to write anything at all. I don’t want to be the “Body Break” of the blogosphere.

I could attempt to exercise more propriety. But impropriety is sort of central to my world view. And I think trying to write with a propriety gremlin looking over my shoulder would render my writing contrived (or more contrived) and lifeless. It’s hard enough writing for an audience that includes my mother, my mother in law, my clients and my son.

Although I sent a note of apology to Rob earlier in the week, I thought that, because the “scene of the crime” was out here in public, it would be equally important to try to offer additional explanation out here in public too.

Rob: I think you’re a good guy. Really. Readership: give me your thoughts.

My ipod shuffle arrived yesterday, but Catherine forgot to tell me, so I’m only just turning it on now for the first time. First three artists in the first shuffle: Allan Rankin, Joni Mitchell, Alanis Morisette.

I have 1,118 songs in iTunes — 4.8 days worth of music. And my first song was from someone whose website I designed. Random my ass.

It’s my personal God in the aubergine jacket’s birthday today. Many felicitations from all of us here on the ruk.ca team.

I know that officially one doctor is supposed to be equally as able to provide quality care as another. But sometimes you hit a doctor that has an especially good “bedside manner.” And I think those doctors deserve special mention.

Puffy-eyed Oliver and I went to the “after hours clinic” this morning in Charlottetown, and after a [reasonable] hour-long wait, we got in to see Dr. Linda MacDonald.

We found her compassionate, helpful, and professional. She got on well with Oliver. Lollipops were made available.

So, thank you!

From Alberta reader David Richardson comes news that the CBC weekly science show Quirks and Quarks will be available starting Monday as a podcast (here’s the audio of the announcement as an MP3).

I’d like to think I had a little tiny bit to do with this. Back in September of 2004, I sent in this note to the show:

Hi there.

You very helpfully make MP3 and OGG files of your programmes available. Thanks.

I’m wondering if you would consider making an “RSS2.0 with Enclosures” feed for these audio files. This would allow me to automatically download them to my iPod for listening.

You can get more information about this at:

http://radio.weblogs.com/0001014/categories/…

Thanks.

Back in February of this, I got an unexpected followup from Tod Maffin:

Hi Peter, just wanted to let you know that this email made it to me and the head of operations at the CBC who is spearheading our podcasting strategy, so it’s not gone unnoticed. :) Thanks for emailing.

I presume there were others that made the same request, and so Monday we’ll see the results. I’ll certainly be a podcatcher.

MySQL Administrator is out for OS X.

I think the shooting of four RCMP officer in Alberta is tragic.

But I don’t understand why this means we need to “crack down on grow-ops.”

The fact that growing marijuana is illegal is what builds a criminal culture around the enterprise. The more illegal marijuana growing is, presumably the more dangerous it is for police.

If we “crack down on grow-ops,” then marijuana will be more scarce, hence more valuable, hence more “criminal.”

If we decriminalized the growing of marijuana, then police resources wouldn’t be wasted trying to stamp the “problem” out, there would cease to be a criminal culture around it, and the police would be in much less danger.

What am I missing?

The Jane Siberry took over the reins of her career 9 years ago, it was a big step. With Sheeba she took those things usually outsourced to others — managers, record companies, ‘A&R’ people — and ran them herselves.

And along the way, through Sheeba.ca and her email newsletter, we listeners / fans / groupies have watched as the enterprise has gone through its ups and its downs. “We’re closing the office,” we’d hear one month. And then “We’re open again, with a brand new web store.” Sometimes you would place an order, or send an email, and you’d hear back from Jane herself.

Here’s a snippet of a note that went out on the mailing list this morning:

I AM FINALLY CLOSING SHEEBA

It will have been 9 years on May 17, 2005. It has been a very special time of learning and struggle and sometimes deep satisfaction. I wanted freedom and it has come in a different fashion than I expected. Now as I let go of more and more things, not always knowing why I have to and resisting it, I see the signs of a greater hand at work. I am sure you know what I mean.

WHAT THIS MEANS

- Website will stay open - Webstore will be closed - we may have MP3s for sale later as they do not require inventory or staff, but we’ll see. - I am disconnecting the SHEEBA phone and email by the equinox. There will only be links to my manager, Kim Blake, for work or licensing, or the web-master for problems. I may still send out the odd Museletter. I feel you nodding – okay perhaps odd but hopefully charming.

I had to take Oliver to the after-hours clinic this morning — he had puffy eyes. On the way to have his prescription filled, he insisted that we stop and buy him an egg. “What kind of egg?” I asked. “From the Itchy Bunny,” he said.

We will burn in hell for this lack of religious education.

Of course I’m the one who answered “Sodom and Gomorrah” for the question “Who went into the Lion’s Den?” on the religious knowledge portion of the entrance exam to Hillfield Strathallan College.

I think I was actually accepted — probably under some “broadening our arms to accept the heathens” special program — but I decided to stay away. Something about the uniforms and the rigour and the well-outfitted science labs turned me off.