Once again, Ian says it better than I could ever hope to. A clip:

Instead, we were thrust into this mini-Dark Age, a paradoxical time of paralyzing cynicism and gung-ho jingoism. Subtlety has been lost in a tidal wave of moral certitude. And my beloved technologies have been trounced, killed, legislated out of existence, or betrayed by the very society that overfed themselves on their dividends.

Tim Bray writes about the new punctuation — using *stars* around important words. It’s ASCII boldfacing. I started doing this in email about 6 months ago, totally unconsciously.

Here’s a screen shot of a part of the first page of results for a Google search for CBC Home Delivery. This is what free speech is all about. And this is why the web can stimulate conversations, and enhance democracy.

In a “very special Oprah” this afternoon, a chunk of the guests were the spouses of reporters sent to cover the war. One of the spouses, a middle aged woman, casually mentioned something about some event or another being a “teachable moment.”

How did the education come to this? What the hell is a “teachable moment?” Must we reduce the richness and passion of human existence down into moments that are “teachable” and moments that are not.

I think that perhaps, along with the golfers, the teachers should be exiled to Australia as well.

This creates a problem, though, because my mother, my mother-in-law, Catherine’s aunt and cousin, and many others I know are teachers or former teachers (perhaps the former teachers could be spared exile?)

Note to Oliver in the future: if you are ever faced with a teacher who uses the phrase “teachable moment” to you, you are hereby permitted to stand up and walk out of class and call me. We will immediately fly to Peru. I don’t believe there are any teachable moments in Peru.

The U.S. and Britain are still blowing up Iraq, and already there’s a debate about what cell phone technology should be installed after the blowing up is over.

The debate is over whether CDMA — the predominant cell technology in the U.S. — or GSM — predominant in Europe — should be used.

The political “debate” goes like this, in the words of Congressman Darrell Issa (R.-Calif.):

If European GSM technology is deployed in Iraq, much of the equipment used to build the cell phone system would be manufactured in France, Germany, and elsewhere in western and northern Europe. Furthermore, royalties paid on the technology would flow to French and European sources, not U.S. patent holders,” Issa said in his letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and USAID Administrator, Ambassador Wendy Chamberlain.

Do you remember the old SCTV skit with Big Jim McBob and Billy Saul Hurok (John Candy and Joe Flaherty) blowing up famous people on their variety show — “blowed up good, blowed up real good” they would say. Is it conceivable that the U.S. and Britain have gone to war with Iraq to create market opportunities? Blow it up, build it back up. Real good.

From The Classical Music Pages, a site that provides “everything you need concerning classical music:”

In his early 60s Puccini was determined to ‘strike out on new paths’ and started work on Turandot, based on a Gozzi play which satisfied his desire for a subject with a fantastic, fairy-tale atmosphere, but flesh-and-blood characters. During its composition he moved to Viareggio and in 1923 developed cancer of the throat. Treatment at a Brussels clinic seemed successful, but his heart could not stand the strain and he died, leaving Turandot unfinished. (It is usually played today with Franco Alfano’s ending.) All Italy went into mourning and two years later his remains were interred at his house at Torre del Lago which, after his wife’s death in 1930, was turned into a museum.

In the late 1980s, I was on the Board of Directors of an artist-run centre in Peterborough called Artspace. At the time, Artspace’s home was a large, multi-purpose space in downtown Peterborough’s historic Market Hall.

Artspace was constantly in financial trouble, mostly because the costs associated with maintaining and operating the Market Hall facility outpaced the organization’s ability to raise funds to cover them. But also because running the Market Hall required an administrative infrastructure, and this led to inevitable battles between administrators and artists (and among different types of artists). By the end, the subject of the Artspace conversation was the building, not the art it was intended to house and stimulate.

It appears as though the Arts Guild in Charlottetown is in a similar predicament.

My advice: sell the building, pay off the debt, and go back to making art.

It’s not that the Arts Guild isn’t a good idea. It has provided home to many excellent artistic endeavours that would have otherwise been homeless.

But when the anchor of maintaining a facility consumes the artistic community, drains resources from it, and saps artistic energy, it’s time to cut loses and move on.

Every since a comment about BBC reporter Mishal Husain was made by “Wayne” back on March 20th, Google searchers have been showing up here looking for information about her.

As an aid to these desperate searchers, here is a brief Mishal Husain bibliography:

• Official BBC World News Biography
• News item at Cobham Hall, her alma mater
• BBC America’s World News page
• Washington Times article, February 10, 2003
• Daily Telegraph article, November 11, 2002
• Democratic Underground story, November 4, 2002
• Mishal Husain Photos

Please note that the inclusion of this bibliography here is simply a service to our accidental readers, and should not be taken as a validation of a “reporter as celebrity” culture.

One of the more thrilling developments at last night’s Maritime Electric meeting was a committment from both Jim Lea and Angus Orford to remove the annoying “crack of lightning” animation from the from page of Maritime Electric’s website.

Earlier in the week I’d sent Jim an email suggesting that it added nothing to their website; last night he told me that he’d canvassed others in the company, and found that everyone found it annoying.

Summary: sometimes the easiest way to affect change is simply to ask.

Maritime Electric held a public session this evening at the Delta Prince Edward. Hosted by President & Chief Executive Officer Jim Lea, the session was an opportunity for the company to make its case to the public over the rather dramatic increase in electric rates that is scheduled for April 1.

For a matter of such importance to the day to day lives of Islanders, the session was poorly attended: there were perhaps a dozen people present. Nonetheless, the presentation by Mr. Lea was comprehensive and compelling. He began with a thorough overview of the electricity marketplace in the Maritimes: where the power comes from, how much it costs, and so on. He then explained Maritime Electric’s position in the marketplace, its regulatory environment, and the challenges it faces going forward.

I’m not a electricity expert, and I don’t have any way of testing the veracity of Mr. Lea’s remarks. But I have to laud him, and the company, for making the effort to meet with the public: it’s certainly more than our other monopoly utilities have done.

I recorded the entire session; the recording is 1 hour and 47 minutes long. Jim Lea’s presentation from the podium is very clear; there was no floor mic for the audience, so the questions are difficult to make out.

The question I wanted an answer to I asked at 1:38:46:

Is there a situation in which it is beneficial to Maritime Electric to have consumption drop?

Mr. Lea responded:

It would depend on, which customers reduced. Some customers we probably supply at a loss. So yah there are some customers — right across the board, generally speaking, from Maritime Electric’s perspective, no it would not be beneficial. All you have is fixed costs that you have to spread over fewer kilowatt hours.

And there’s the rub, if you’re someone like me who thinks we should all work to reduce energy consumption: it’s in Maritime Electric’s best interests to sell more electricity. I don’t fault them for this and, indeed, to pursue any other course would be irresponsible to their shareholders.

On first blush this means that those working to reduce energy consumption are at odds with Maritime Electric (and, in a more general way, with all profit-making investor-owned utilities). At the same time, it’s the utilities who know most about the energy market and how it works, and we depend on the utilities’ viability to toast our toast and power our computers.

I’m not sure how to resolve this paradox.