The image pictured here is a kinder simulacrum of the real offense. The actual salsa was so wan and gummy that its face could not be shown. Worse was its taste: it was nothing more than expired canned tomatoes dumped into a ramekin and seasoned with a local condiment, rain. As one person from Edmonton aptly put it:

“It’s like an economy-sized can of smashed assholes.”

Now the reader is probably wondering where this salsa was discovered, and the answer is a shoddy place off of Granville St. in Vancouver, BC (Canada). The venue itself was hard to recall  – either that or permanently banned from memory.

*simulated image care of this photostream

60 tracks, Yes..60 of the best you’ve heard to date from Edmonton’s finest, Black The Ripper aka Samson.

Let me explain how big this is, I am more excited about this release (28th December) than I am for Christmas itself.

01. Afro Samurai (Intro) [Prod. Goodchild]
02. Edmonton Remix (Feat. Sheriff & TD)
03. My Minds Battle
04. My Destiny [Prod. SRC]
05. All I Need (Feat. Remson)
06. Holla Black
07. Midnight Love [Prod. Flava D]
08. Not Enuff Time (Feat. Special K) [Prod. By God Knows]
09. Missing You (Feat. Chantelle) [Prod. Cutta Boi]
10. Hey Lover (Feat. Ironik & McLean)
11. My Lyrics Are Forever [Prod. Smasher]
12. Are You Stupid [Prod. Rudekid]
13. Bait Faces (Feat. Cookie & Chipmunk) [Prod. Ironik]
14. Face Your Fears (Feat. Wiley)
15. Swear Down (Feat. Jeeday Jawz & Fiyah)
16. Allow It [Prod. Maniac]
17. Real On Road (Feat. Invincible) [Prod. Samplethief]
18. Last Of A Dying Breed [Prod. By K-Nite]
19. Stuck In Hell [Prod. MSM]
20. Bars Galore (Feat. Chipmunk & Cookie) [Prod. Maniac]
21. Can’t Control It [Prod. Goodchild]
22. Life Is Hard (Feat. Discreet) [Prod. Thology]
23. Look Around (Feat. Cookie)
24. Headbuss (Feat. Mclean) [Prod. D-el]
25. Floating [Prod. Goodchild]
26. Roads Are Rough (Fea. Natch) [Prod. Thology]
27. Still Don’t Give A Shit (Feat. Remson) [Prod. Skillz]
28. Turn The Lights Off [Prod. Scratcha DVA]
29. In My Mind [Prod. K-Nite]
30. Rock The Boat [Prod. War Dot]
31. Pack My Bags And Leave [Prod. MSM]
32. Underestimated [Prod. Goodchild]
33. I Just Wanna Love You (Feat. Special K)
34. Righteous Freestyle [Prod. K-Nite]
35. Still Not Loving Police (Feat. Cookie, Dimples & Frisco) [Prod. Wizzy Wow]
36. Weedman (Feat. Dimples) [Prod. Dexplicit]
37. Bars (Feat. Rayman & Freezin) [Prod. Gyles]
38. Words Of Wisdom [Prod. Goodchild]
39. Ride Or Die Remix (Feat. Ironik & Chipmunk [Prod. Ironik]
40. Rinse Out [Prod. JME]
41. Black [Prod. Goodchild]
42. Definately (Feat. Onyx) [Prod. Evo]
43. Fireing Freestyle [Prod. Ratchet]
44. Self Explanatory [Prod. Mega]
45. MMV Intro (Feat. Chipmunk & Cookie)
46. It’s Bedtime [Prod. Skillz]
47. Black Is Beautiful (Intro)
48. Wow [Prod. Dexplicit]
49. Get Money [Prod. Wizzy Wow & Blay-Z]
50. Lyrical Showcase (Feat. Trigz, Remson, Mercenary & Dynamic)
51. Poverty Poetry (Feat. Remson)
52. We Had A Good Thing
53. Ain’t Nothing Wrong (Feat. Cookie) [Prod. Gunja Man]
54. Focus (Feat. Chipmunk & Cookie) [Prod. Maniac]
55. All The Way From Heaven (Feat. Rhymestein) [Prod. Bond] [Unreleased]
56. Sextacy (Feat. Remson & Special K)
57. Can’t Believe (Prod. Nocturnal)
58. Time After Time (Feat. Ryhmestein) [Prod. XO]
59. Black & Tank (Feat. Tank) [Prod. Lewi White] [Unreleased]
60. Let Out My Pain [Prod. Bully]

click image to pre-order The Edmonton Dream (via Amazon)

I am posting this from my iPhone! It took some time to figure out how to get wi-fi working with my sister’s home network. Anyway, here are some pictures from my first couple of days here. Enjoy the snow!

A nice, snowy street near my sister's house. It's brown because they put sand on the road to prevent it from being too slippery.

Some Christmas decorations in WalMart. Which of these doesn't belong?

Yes, there's Fanta in Canada, too! This is cream soda, which I can't find in Japan.

The parking lot outside Costco.

My sister going through the self-serve checkout in a grocery store.

This is in my sister's car. See the temperature?

More snowy goodness.

Chinese takeout! They don't make it like this in Japan.

Outside my sister's house. This is her driveway. Like how high the snow it piled up?

Against my better judgment, I decided to brave the crowds this afternoon and pick up a few last-minute gifts because I am an idiot.

After purchasing my wares, I returned to my parking spot, when, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but an illegally parked sports car, hugging my rear bumper.

It was a good 10 or 15 minutes before the prissy driver nonchalantly returned to her ride without offering so much as an apology.

If there’s one thing I hate about Edmonton, it’s the goddamned drivers.

The Girls by Lori Lansens.

Published Back Bay Books April 2007.

ISBN: 978-0316066341

The Recommend:

A beautiful, funny and sad story about the lives of conjoined twins living in Ontario.

Lansens makes the twins come alive and they tell their tale in their own voices.
*
About Alexis Kienlen

*

Alexis Kienlen is a poet, fiction writer, and journalist.

Her first book of poetry, “She dreams in red” was published in 2007.

Alexis currently lives in Edmonton where she writes for a farm publication, teaches a monthly teen writers group and reads the New Canadian Library with Melanie Owen at http://www.roughingitinthebooks.com

They are in! The new canvas gallery prints, stretched over 3/4″ mount, black edges, complete with mounting wire and hardware, they are ready to hang! Complete with description cards, check them out, and let me know what you think.

Large ones are 24×32, smaller one is 18×24. Each print comes with it’s own 10×15 description card with details about the particular photo.

If you are interested in obtaining one of these, or would like a canvas print of any of my photos, contact me!

You can view them on the FivePuddles Facebook Fanpage by clicking here!

Progress is such a bully.

Progress is that mean kid who tormented you on the playground when you were little. Maybe you got good grades in school. Maybe you flunked. Maybe you were pudgy. Maybe you were scrawny. Maybe you had bucked teeth, or some weirdass mole, or big lips, or a speech impediment, or the ‘wrong’ skin colour — or, God help you, all of the above. The bully is constantly in your face with his bad breath and his snarly upper lip and his rudeness. He is unrelenting. He is derisive. He is cruel. He makes you feel like a pathetic crumb.

“What makes you think you can play on MY playground?” he says. “You suck! You’re a loser! You’re a freak! You’re nothing! You ain’t going nowhere!” And of course you want to say something cheeky, like “Ain’t going nowhere is a double negative, you big jerk, which means I am going somewhere. Na na na boo boo.” But you don’t say this, because he’s a bully and he might punch you. Instead, you say nothing. You let him get to you. Maybe you cry.

Progress, the infernal bully, is constantly there, cracking the whip, when I practise yoga. Even though I know, in theory, that every day is different for my body, progress (alias ‘ego’) is never happy. It never lets up. “You did this yesterday,” it says, “why can’t you do it today? You big SISSY. You call this progress? I call it anti-progress.” It chastises, it berates, it insults. “You suck! You’re a loser! You’re a freak!”

My expectations pipe up, too. “Why do we even bother? You call this an effort? We’re embarrassed to even be seen with you. Call us when you smarten up.”

And I feel like a pathetic crumb on my yoga mat.

Sigh.

One day my backbends feel like a million bucks. The next day I can barely hoist my arse off the mat – my biceps whine, my sacrum screams, my shoulders have a tantrum. What is going ON?

I find it helpful, when I am struggling with a posture, when I feel like I am going backwards, instead of forwards, to remind myself of where I’ve been. To reminisce, if it can be called that, about the struggles I faced in my practice in the past. Which helps put present struggles into context.

Take Sirsasana. In 2006, when I practised regularly with Rene Johnson, I could barely do headstand against the wall. My elbows skidded apart constantly. My legs refused to go up without a cattle prodder. My body was nowhere close to straight. My head felt like it was going to burst. I watched all the “good” yogis effortless float up into their headstands in the middle of the room. I envied/cursed their abilities, and thought, “My elementary school gymnastics days are over. I’ll never do that. I should just quit now.”

Progress constantly rides you, attacks you, brings you down. And yet improvements manifest themselves slowly but surely, right under your nose.

By 2007, when I was practising with Rameen Peyrow, I could do headstand in the middle of the room. OK, so my body was piked. I couldn’t hold the posture for very long. And I couldn’t float up with straight legs. But I could DO it. I celebrated that.

A year later, I could hold the posture longer. My head didn’t feel like it was going to explode. I was starting to be able to float up with straight legs.

Bit by bit. Bit by bit. Bit by bit.

I try to remind myself of this now, when I am struggling with a posture that last week felt like a cinch. I thumb my nose at progress

In yoga, I try to be present. To listen to how my body feels right now and practice bearing that in mind. But I also like to look back over my shoulder and remember where I came from. Because it puts things into perspective. Because it makes the challenges of ‘right now’ seem like peanuts.

Take that, you bully.

March 2008

October 2009

]]> http://annexd.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/37/ Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:59:05 +0000 annexd http://annexd.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/37/

Kevin is referring to a massive, pan-Canadian game of Civilization IV we’re going to be playing all day on December 22nd. And I don’t just mean him and me, I mean us, a couple of friends of his in Halifax, some Annex’d cast here in Toronto, and even some folks in cold, cold Edmonton. There will be anywhere from six to ten folks playing this game, and good god I can’t wait. If there’s one thing I love it’s getting almost a dozen of my friends together to brawl over a video game for a day (this won’t be the first time that’s happened).

Besides that though, production at Annex’d Studios in Toronto has ground to a halt and won’t really resume until January 1st. Kevin’s working on his projects in Halifax though, and we’ll get those to you in the new year. I guess I’d better get to work too, we have merchandise to figure out, and I guess I could always write another episode or something. Ah, the blissful sloth of the holidays…

-Carl

Everyday I wake up and wish I was back in England.

-30 temperatures are only increasing my depression. I do really try to remain upbeat (really!) but the thought of being here for another 6 or 7 months upsets me terribly. To say that I hate it here wouldn’t be doing my feelings justice.

I only hope to God that my wife likes England and Europe because when we do leave nothing on earth will be able to drag me back to this country. I also hope that I can maintain some semblance of sanity so that my wife still wants to be my wife by the time this prison sentence ends.

Moving here was the biggest mistake I have ever made in my life. My reasons for moving though were right at the time and unfortunately are still so now. If something doesn’t change soon though I don’t think I will be able to wait until the end of next summer before we (as plans stand) leave.

I gotta say, the Spot Longboard is performing beautifully these winter days. I’m still getting used to the geometry, and the disc brakes, but it’s coming. No problems with the belt. Every once in awhile a chunk of snow (or something) goes through the belt/sprocket and there’s a disturbing clunk sound, but it keeps on working.

The Stella 200L light is, literally, a lifesaver. What a great light! It’s such a pleasant surprise to buy a product that delivers MORE than promised. I got a Stella 150L for my helmet on eBay for half price. It’s working good too, and it’s not burning out the retinas of approaching people.

I took a few days off riding when it got real cold, but I’m glad to be back in the saddle again. I’m going to get one of the MEC balaclavas, because mine covers the mouth. My concern with these things is being able to breathe through my mouth, and the MEC one has a hole. I can’t get enough air in breathing through my nose. I doubt anyone can when riding.

Tried making it up Lungbuster, but there was no way. I think the studded tires dig into the snow. I walk up most of the way. It’s still easier than taking the stairs, which I tried a few times. I’ll tell ya, they seem to go on forever. That’s a good workout.

The city’s done a great job on the paths, with the exception of the Gateway North path from 72-69 ave. It wasn’t done last year either. It’s pretty much unrideable. Same as last year. I made it a few times, but an inch or two to either side, and you get stuck in two feet of snow, and go for a tumble. Three blocks can take 15 hard minutes. It’s like doing one legged squats for 15 mins. Lots of swearing involved. I hope they get this one cleared too.

Hashtaging – use of the # sign connected to words and phrases on Twitter to create a common search link – is a great way to build community around events and ideas. (Alternately, you can generally click on a trending topic – usually tagged – to experience the tragedy of the commons).

But using tags to effectively build constructive community is not easy. I’ve tried. (See #arounddublin and #pilife.)

More than dedicated individuals, it takes a critical mass and perhaps a spark of divine energy. So what’s in the water up in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (besides ice, that is)?

As I’ve expanded my Twitter contacts in Canada in recent weeks, mostly through fellow public servant and Gov 2.0 advocate Nick Charney, one thing is clear.

Peeps love #yeg.

A quick Google reveals that YEG is the airport code for Edmonton, and that it’s become the buzzcronym linking a significant community of Edmonton residents. A quick tweet gets you plenty of community feedback:

great people, too cold to do much but stay inside and tweet (though they also supplement the Twitter community with regular in-person meetups);

airport codes rock the Twitter form because they’re short – and wordly;

in the middle of nowhere, airport codes have more significance;

yeg is good for self-referential fun, words like “yeggers,” “yegsters,” “yegalicious,” “yeg cetera”;

Edmonton is one of the coldest places in the world, but Yegsters are a friendly bunch who want to stay connected; and,

tweeps in Victoria, BC using the #yyj airport code have just a bit of Yeg envy.

If you pay attention to #yeg for a bit, you’ll soon see that its use is as diverse as any big city (pop. 730,000). And above and beyond the tag, Edmonton officialdom has a kick-ass Gov 2.0 feel. Local civil servant Jas Darrah calls Edmonton’s success in Twitter community building a “case study in key influencers actively convincing others (institutions a key) about medium + utility” of the #yeg meme.”

I’m hoping some of those influencers, as well as newcomers to the tag and Twitter, will drop in and comment here.

Let’s write a case study, shall we?

photos by Jerry Aulenbach

Hey hey hey ya’ll,

So we went to Edmonton, played a show, slept over and made it back home this weekend!  Edmonton is a picturesque city but cold and snowy right now.  The show was lots of fun even if Voyno’s amp bit the dust at the end.  Thanks to Tomas Marsh and Blazing Violets for rockin’ the stage with us.  Always be prepared my friends for something to go wrong and hopefully it won’t happen.

So this week we’re hopefully getting everything recorded for our next 3p.  We’ll see how it goes but I’ve got my fingers and my toes crossed (this also helps to keep body heat from escaping in the frigid cold nuclear winter we’re having, El nino my frozen ass).

Something to warm ya up maybe:

Peace,Love&GoodVibes
SnowDove,ArmsUp

p.s. hot chocolate yum!

It was “brisk” weekend in Edmonton with the air temperature dropping to a record -36.5°C on Sunday. Factoring in the wind chill brought the temperature to a staggering -50°C.

Here’s some fun facts about these fun temperatures:

• Heavy duty construction cranes, from the little picker trucks to the massive superlift cranes rarely operate below -35°C.
• Heavy duty construction workers also rarely operate below -35°C. Although this is no slight to those highly skilled trades, but more of a reflection of Occupational Health & Safety guidelines.
• 100 proof vodka freezes at approximately -40°C.
• The boiling point of pure chlorine is -34.04°C.
• Pure mercury melts at -38.72°C.
• The low for Vostok, Antarctica was -37°C this past weekend.
• Exposed skin can freeze in less than a minute (Yay! Fun!)

It was cold. Edmontonians put on their long underwear and toques and mitts and survived. Social agencies and aid organizations did their best to make sure no one froze out on the streets and the AMA had wait times of up to 24 hours for a battery boost.

Fun!

Chinese astrologists call this “The Year of the Ox.”

I call it THE YEAR OF THE YOGA.

The Year of the Yoga began exactly one year ago today. On Monday Dec. 15, 2008, I was in London, England, embarking on my first proper yoga course: a week-long intensive with David Swenson. What a character he is. David proved to be a fabulous teacher and great storyteller. An explosive start to the Year of the Yoga.

Because I am obsessed, and because I had both the energy and the time that week in London, I would go to see Hamish Hendry at his studio for an early morning mysore practice (2nd series) BEFORE David’s daily workshop sessions.

I love Hamish’s studio. It is TINY. Fits maybe 18? at a time – snugly. They have little stamp marks on the floor for each mat, in order to maximize space. There’s a waiting area, and when someone finishes, Hamish calls out, in his English accent “One more!” to let the next person know to come in. More on Hamish later.

Catherine Munro

In January, I began Yogaworks training at Shanti Yoga in Edmonton with the fabulous Catherine Munro (pictured above). She is a pragmatic, down-to-earth and funny woman, just the sort of person every aspiring yoga teacher should learn from. It made for an intense six months of training (three-day weekends, every other weekend for the first two months, then once a month), plus exams, essays, reading, etc. But it was so worth it.

Catherine Munro adjusting me in Supta Padangustasana

At the same time, I started teaching once a week at True Yoga, which is run by a lovely woman named Melissa Wasserfall. Not only has she taught me so much about the practice, she had more confidence in my ability to teach than me, throwing me in front of a class when I still thought “NO WAY I could do this.” Turns out that, with some practice, I could (ish).

In June, two weeks after my Yogaworks training (finally) ended, my husband and I travelled to Maui for a holiday. Jonathan (pictured below, hiking in the Haleakala Volcano) is one of the most generous people I’ve ever met and our trip to Hawaii demonstrates this. Because you see, while Maui was a holiday, one of the main reasons we decided to go there was so I could see Nancy Gilgoff. And while I was enjoying delicious mysore-style yoga practices at Nancy’s barn-like studio near Makawao every morning, Jonathan had to do ALL his long runs alone on north Maui roads – and that’s a royal pain in the ass. We were staying in a rented suite along the Hana Highway, in a rather remote area, so Jon had two running route options, both dangerous, both hilly, both dull as all hell: 1. the shoulder of the highway, or 2. the narrow, windy secondary roads, which are deadly because they have no shoulders AND people speed like crazy on them. Every day, during my yoga practice, I worried about him on his runs while I luxuriated in a fabulous studio with a fabulous teacher and fabulous assistant teachers. His sacrifice, his big-heartedness, meant the world to me and to my practice.

Jonathan hiking in Haleakala Volcano

Liz at Baldwin Beach, Maui (that's a real lei!)

All in all Maui was blissful. Two weeks reading novels on the beach (in the shade, I might add!), eating fresh pineapple, hiking in a dormant volcano, stargazing, and practising daily with Nancy, a mysterious, gentle soul of a woman (read a BIO). Her assistant Casie (read BIO) is also lovely– and, surprisingly, a full-on cowgal who you’d swear is from Alberta. Casie works with horses, rides in rodeos, wears jeans to teach and drives a big honkin’ trunk with the words “Ridin’ Dirty” in the rearview mirror. Ha!

Then, this fall, a month with Richard Freeman. Which you’ve read about on this blog. It was the icing on the cake. No, no, it was NOT the icing on the cake. I dislike that phrase because I dislike icing. Training with Richard Freeman was waaay better than icing. It was like…a whole EXTRA cake!

My first "yoga groupie" photo: Richard Freeman, his wife, Mary Taylor and me

All in all, the Year of the Yoga has been one HELLUVA GOOD YEAR.

I am so fortunate, 1. that I could afford it, 2. that my husband encouraged and supported me, 3. that my workplace said yes to my time off requests, again and again and again and 4. that my body withstood it all. I haven’t had ONE injury this year. In more than a year, actually. Touch wood, if you believe in that sort of stuff.

Have I got yoga training out of my system? Definitely for a while. (Breathe a sigh of relief, spouse.)

Have I got yoga out of my system? NEVER! *evil laugh*

After a brief stop in Edmonton we then touched down for week of chilling out and exploring San Francisco.

San Frans Golden Arches

San Francisco is a magnificent city. It just has a great vibe about it. We stayed at the Good Hotel. It was good. Well, I thought it was great actually. Nothing too flash, but again, just a good vibe. All eco-friendly and all that.

Urban meandering, jazz bar.

Cool jazz music at a random little bar

Redwoods. I’ve always had a soft spot for trees so when I was perusing a tourist type brochure in our hotel and saw a tour going to see the Redwoods I thought I’d investigate.  As relatively seasoned “freedom”/backpacker type travelers (i.e. the ones that like to experience as much as possible while spending as little as possible and scoffing at any type of “organised” tour) it was a first for us to embark on an organised tour, but it was great. With limited time and the reality that our plans of camping up (or down) the west coast of north america was not on the cards in the immediate future it seemed like a good way to check out some big trees. The bus driver was hilarious. Or maybe I’m just getting older and my sense of humour has deteriorated to a somewhat cheesey level, but I laughed at the jokes that were most likely told day in day out to the endless stream of fresh faced tourists.

Tree hugger

Alcatraz. Well, you can hardly visit San Francisco and not go to Alactraz. I’m glad I went but I wouldn’t rush back – it’s just a prison for gods sake. The audio tour (another first) made it interesting. The history was quite fascinating. We managed to escape.

I play by prison rules...

After another day or so of wandering around I was pretty keen to board the big waka in the sky and return home to the good old Aotearoa.

Our last supper in North America

Just Returned from The Coldest Place on the Planet

Well,  my family and I spent the last 4 days in Edmonton, as I had 2 speaking engagements in Edmonton and Calgary over the weekend.  So as many of you know,  Kevin and I spent most of the month of November in Nepal, and part of my ‘bribe’ to our girls was that if I could find a speaking engagement in Edmonton before Christmas, we would go and stay at West Edmonton Mall (the largest mall in North America) and they could spend time at the enormous water park and Galaxy land the amusement park.   So off we flew on Thursday night landing in -28 Celsius weather.   No problem,  I grew up in Edmonton so I used to be OK with cold winters.  Holy crap!  I just don’t remember -28 hurting your skin that much.  Mind you we left 20 years ago.  So as my family enjoyed the +28 degree weather inside the water park, I ventured out to speak at a company Christmas luncheon downtown and then flew to Calgary to speak at Great West Life’s Staff dinner.

 Well by Saturday night the temperature had dropped to -46degrees and went on record as the coldest spot on the planet.  Yes Planet Earth.  All vehicles must be plugged in and even then it’s iffy whether they will start.  Your tires actually freeze. 

But what I found is, it makes everyone come together a bit closer.  I know that might sound funny, but harsh weather like this, makes everyone get into the spirit of the season, Christmas that is.  The houses that are decorated sparkle more because there is snow and ice frost everywhere.  Your feet make a crunching noise on the snow, that really says winter and winter wonderland.  The dads are required to go out and start vehicles at least 30 minutes prior to anyone leaving anywhere, and you don’t worry about how good your boots go with your coat, because quite frankly,  Sorrels don’t go with anything other than snow pants and a parka with a mismatched toque.  (Canadian for winter hat). 

The great part was that I didn’t even have to tell my teenage girls to put on warm clothes,  they just knew by the fact that the windows in the house were covered in ice and frost that not even the furnace at my sister’s house was keeping clear.

So with good friends, our amazing families,  add in awesome food and wine, we celebrated the holiday season. 

As we sat in the Edmonton International Airport, waiting to fly home,  and listened to flight after flight be cancelled, and at the very least be delayed,  we laughed when we heard one airline admit they were trying to get one of their planes started but the engines were just too frozen to start… I’m not sure I would want to know that bit of information about a plane I was about to board.

I will say that when we landed back in Kelowna, BC Sunday afternoon and the temperature was just near freezing,  we were pretty grateful.   I guess I won’t have to put a trip to the south pole on my bucket list.  Been there!

Get moving everyone!  It keeps you warmer and burns a few holiday calories.

Cheers

Linda Edgecombe

www.lindaedgecombe.com

PHILIP
“Did you hear about Edmonton? Their temperature dropped to -46 degrees [-51 F]. Now that’s cold.”

TONY
“But you gotta remember it’s dry cold. And I know the difference, if you know what I mean.”

By Alvin Finkel

As 2009 began, it looked as if the Alberta provincial election in 2012 would have the same dynamics as the last two provincial elections: the Conservative party, fattened by oil company donations, would dominate the right-wing vote and take the votes of those only slightly interested in politics and contented with a booming Alberta; the Liberal party, with a progressive leader, would dominate the centre-left vote; Wild Rose would take the votes of the kooky right and the NDP would take the votes of socialists and small-l liberals who do not trust the Liberals; the Greens would get the votes of environmentalists who did not trust either the Liberal or NDP commitment to the environment. The policy differences between the Tories and Wild Rose in the two previous elections seemed superficial while the policy differences among Liberals, NDP, and Greens were difficult for anyone outside their inner circles to figure out. Both on the right and on the left however, images, which have at least a grain of truth to them, were important. The Tories still had an aura of expertise about them, while WR seemed hayseed. The Liberals appeared more middle class, the NDP more working class, though their champagne socialist wing in Strathcona had become larger than their North and East Edmonton blue-collar wing (in Mill Creek, for example, where property values are twice the Edmonton average, Rachel Notley literally clobbered her Tory and Liberal opponents).

But now, on many dimensions, things look different. While Wild Rose and Tory policies remain ideologically similar–each is anxious to please oil barons and both are committed to not raising Alberta’s low taxes regardless of the impact on social programs–, it is the upstart WR party that is winning support from former Tory voters while the Tories are sinking in public esteem. On the centre-left, the Green party, after a bitter internal split, ceased to exist. A new centre-right party, the Renew Party, long on cliches but short on specific policies, is struggling to be born, while the Reboot movement, which calls itself progressive, attempts both to support and keep its distance from Renew in an effort to influence political developments in the province more generally.

The Liberals and the NDP seem static entities. Polls suggest that their relative shares of the popular vote are unchanged since the 2008 election. But they are both threatened by WR’s ability to take the votes of those who are only marginally interested in politics (the party faithful types may look down on such people, but there is no point bemoaning the fact that many people choose to take only a passing interest in politics and therefore have limited knowledge of the political parties and their programs). If they do nothing at all, 2010 may be as unkind to them as 2009 was to the Tories. The Tories were guilty of self-inflicted wounds, not only because they demonstrated at once that they were reactionary, incompetent, and dictatorial–they’ve been guilty of all of these at least since Ralph Klein became their former leader–but also because they have a leader who communicates poorly with the public and fell out of favour with the energy companies for a few months, long enough to cause them to stuff the vaults of the WR–according to a high-placed WR source, almost all of the money that the WR received in the period up to and including Danielle Smith’s election as leader came from the oil companies, led by En Cana. The Liberals and NDP will be also be guilty of self-inflicted wounds if they fail to respond to the winds of change in the province.

Both parties have very promising and quite similar social and environmental policies. But both parties need to be bolder in providing a comprehensive vision for the province. That has to include fiscal policy. Alberta has the most regressive tax system in the country–the flat tax means that someone earning $20,000,000 a year pays no more on their last earned dollar than someone earning $20,000 a year pays on their last earned dollar. It also has the most tax room, since it has one of the world’s lowest royalty rates on oil and gas, lowest corporate and income tax rates, and no sales tax. Yet the premier promises that despite lower revenues in 2009, there will be no tax increases of any kind under his watch (of course, he’s not including user fees in his definition of taxes!) That has meant another cutback frenzy that is a throwback to the first Klein mandate.

Premier Stelmach says the cuts are necessary because the province has run out of money. Really? Every other Canadian province would give its eye teeth to have the tax room that an Alberta government potentially has. According to Greg Flanagan, a Calgary public finance economist, in a study for the Parkland Institute this summer, the provincial government has been foregoing between $8 billion and $15 billion of revenue each year. But so far the Liberals and NDP have been coy regarding fiscal policy since the standard wisdom is that no party gets elected by promising to increase taxes! Promises to increase taxes on the wealthy, they worry, might be distorted into promises to increase everyone’s taxes or to scare away investment. But there have certainly been elections where promises of tax increases have won the day for a political party. Manitoba’s NDP first won office in 1969, focusing its campaign on getting rid of medicare premiums and paying for medicare from general revenues, which the other parties claimed to mean higher taxes on everyone but which the general public figured out meant lower payouts (if taxes and the premium were combined) for those with lower incomes.

Without a clear policy in terms of both spending and revenues, both the Liberals and NDP risk being placed by a cynical public in the same category of “lying politicians” in which they are now placing the Tories but significantly not the untested and in many ways phantom WR. They also risk losing ground to Renew, which is most likely to draw votes from the centre parties along with a trickle of Tory votes that don’t either go to WR or stay put.

The Liberals and New Democrats should be arguing that governments need to collect sufficient income during good times so that there is no question of an interruption of services in hard times. The Tories keep saying that we all have to endure cutbacks when the economy slows down. Why? Do our needs for physical and mental health care, education, childcare, seniors’ programs, recreation and the arts drop when the stock markets fall? Should someone who is in elementary school when the economy is sluggish have to be in bigger classes than someone who is in elementary school when the economy is booming? Should someone who needs a hospital bed be sent home, possibly to die, because there are few new private construction projects? The parties also need to be saving enough money both for investments that they keep talking about in the green economy and for the post-oil-and-gas period that eventually will hit the province (Norway is the model for such savings).

Above all, the Liberals and New Democrats, who are often more critical of each other than they are of the parties on the right because they are going after the same voters, need to cooperate, both in the legislature and electorally. The NDP argument that “you cannot trust the Liberals” and the Liberal argument that the NDP “break any promises they make to you,” which go down very well with the inner group of party faithful, have to be set aside if the centre-left is to have any hope of overtaking and then beating the WR to form the next governing regime in this province. The arithmetic that suggests that adding Liberal, NDP, and former Green votes together (about 40 percent of the vote in each of the last 2 elections) does not provide enough votes to form a government misses the point: these parties, if they are working together, can make the centre-left a competitor for the votes of those who are only slightly interested in politics and whose past votes for Tories were not particularly ideological votes. They can also draw many non-voters to the polls. Quite simply, an alliance that starts with 40 percent of voters looks like a real contender for power whereas none of its component parties on their own does. True, some opponents of an alliance suggest that large numbers of Liberal voters would rather switch their vote to the Tories than the NDP if their party has no candidate, and that the NDP therefore benefits from a crowded race. But that logic seems quite flawed when the Tories’ own supporters are defecting in droves. Are traditional Liberal voters likely to choose the WR over the NDP? If so, then the NDP might as well fold its tent in Alberta since it would mean that they have no ability to win over voters from any other party in any circumstances. But in practice the NDP does have that ability. In the federal Strathcona race in 2008, half the Liberal voters from 2006 gave their votes to Linda Duncan because she seemed to have a better chance of defeating the Tory than their own candidate; almost no Liberal voter switched to the Tories to prevent the NDP candidate from winning.

It will be interesting to see how politics develop in Alberta in 2010. Can the Tories win back some of the voters they have lost to Wild Rose? Can Wild Rose continue to grow, becoming a mop for voters from all parties who are only barely interested in politics but want to see a change in government? Can the centre-left take advantage of the split on the Right to become a force in Alberta politics? Or will it continue to be a sideshow of small parties bitterly fighting each other and acting as if the Right is the only possible winner and therefore irrelevant to the strategies of progressives?

I have been putting this off for weeks. I’ve been reading other people’s blogs, thinking up blog themes and planning out possible blog post topics and now, have finally started a blog. Coincidentally, I also have forgotten all of those fantastic ideas that I had for blog posts, so you’ll just have to bear with me.

I’ll start out by introducing myself. My name is Caitlin, and I am from Edmonton, Canada. I am a first year nurse student who is days away from completing her first semester. From my blog title you might figure that I hate where I live and, frankly, today I do (probably that -36 C weather). However, I actually am loving living in Edmonton and all the people who live here. My only problem is it is the only place I have ever lived. Hence the name.. I am the epitome of sofa travelers. I dream about future travels, currently Europe, envision myself living the expat life, watch various travel television shows, and read anecdotes by actual travelers. So I plan on using this blog as a personal sounding board on places to go. Most likely, I will end up gushing about a multitude of places, sure that this is one trip I’ll actually go on. Then I won’t. Next I’ll choose another place, and another, and hopefully, sometime soon I’ll actually be able to scrounge up the money to book a trip somewhere more memorable than Calgary. All in between studying of course.. sigh.

I’m not even sure this blog is a good idea. I DETEST writing essays, and am one of those girls who buys a beautiful journal only to fill out the first 10 pages and forget about it. This may or may not end up being a form of studying procrastination, used only when finals are dawning. For now, however, I’m enjoying it. And hoping others will enjoy it as well.
Cheers,
Caitlin.

By: Arti Patel

Photo provided by Edmonton Journal

Shazia Javed snaps away at 13 diverse Muslim women in Edmonton.

From a boxer to a single mother pizza-business owner, Javed’s photographs aim to break stereotypes against Muslim women and to celebrate their diversity. Her project titled Celebrating Muslim Women of Edmonton, will be a full 2010 calender sold this Friday.

The photographer, writer and filmmaker who poses in the calender herself, has a goal to embrace positive contributions of Muslim women.

“Mostly, when you read about Muslim women in the news, it’s about some controversy — honour killings or whatever,” Javed says to the Edmonton Journal.

“I wanted to do something positive … and replace those stereotypical images with real ones,” she says.

“I just want young girls to be able to look at it and realize that being Muslim should not be a roadblock or hindrance to achieving their goals in life,” says calender model Noreen Bashir to the Edmonton Journal.

Bashir will be featured in the calender as her occupations: a third grade Islamic teacher, a martial-arts champion and a boxer.

Bashir believes the calender is the exact opposite of how Muslim women are regularly pictured.

“The misconceptions people usually have about Muslim women are that we’re suppressed, oppressed, uneducated, homebound, and all the negative things that are usually associated with those types of images,” Bashir says.

The calenders will be sold for $15, for more information you can visit the the Islamic Family and Social Services Association (IFSSA). All the proceeds will go to IFSSA’s food bank in Edmonton.