Abigail Cleveland, my 2nd cousin 9 times removed married John Adams Jr, 3rd cousin 6 times removed of President William Howard Taft.

Jerry Milo Johnson to President William Howard Taft

Isn’t this why Harper was accused of acting like a bully, because he operated like he had a majority and forced confidence?  It’s obviously different when the shoe is on the other foot…..

Awhile Ago,

As the official opposition, the Liberals are considering what’s best for Canada in the long term while the opposition parties are playing “silly games,” Goodale said.

“We’re taking that responsibility seriously. The others are engaging in ultimatums, sabre rattling. We’re trying to look at the subject matter here, what is good for Canada in the long term and how should we behave as a responsible opposition to achieve that.”

Today,

Ralph Goodale, the Liberal MP from Saskatchewan and his party’s House leader, said the motion to be tabled Monday will be unambiguous.

“We want to play this straightforward, very straight-up,” Goodale said.

The motion could be as simple as “Be it Resolved that this House has no confidence in the government.”

Who is sabre rattling now Ralph?  Your party lost its Quebec Lieutenant yesterday, maybe you should focus on rebuilding, not ultimatums and political games…

There have been three byelections since the 2007 general election in Saskatchewan. The Saskatchewan Liberal Party has only fielded a candidate for one of these byelections. That candidate was Eileen Gelowitz, who ran in the 2007 election for the Saskatchewan Party in an adjacent riding. In 2007, Gelowitz earned  2182 votes for the Saskatchewan Party (34.2% of the vote) – but in this week’s byelection she garnered exactly 107 votes (2.6%) for the Liberal Party.

A recent article in the Star Phoenix by reporter James Wood explores the byelection loss and the possible implications for the Liberal Party.

It is clear that the Liberal Party has failed to carve out place for itself in the narrow Saskatchewan political spectrum. Former leader David Karwacki failed to get a single Liberal candidate elected in two general elections and several byelections. And he saw the popular vote share of his party decline to 9.4%.

The new Liberal leader (who was acclaimed) Ryan Bater has decided to take the Liberal Party down a different road, emphasizing personal and economic freedom (a libertarianism-lite?) and is a stark departure from the policies established by Karwacki and his team. And while there is nothing inherently off-putting in Bater’s new messages, his changes have weakened his party’s visibility. The lack of consistency further undermines these listless liberals.

Looking at the popular vote numbers in Saskatchewan, it seems clear that a third party can only surge when an established party is in decline. The CCF/NDP arose at the expense of the Progressive Conservatives in the 1930’s. The Progressive Conservatives reemerged at the expense of the Liberals in the 1970’s. The Saskatchewan Party emerged at the expense of the Liberals in the 1990’s (indeed, the emergence of the Saskatchewan Party occurred through a violent hemorrhaging of the Liberal Party). With strong base support for both the Saskatchewan Party and the NDP, it is unlikely that the Liberal Party (or the Greens or any other party) will be able to mobilize enough voter and monetary support to manage to elect any candidates in the near future.

My prediction is that Liberal Party support will sink to near all-time lows (<5%) in the 2011 election. But that’s two years away – and that’s a very long time in politics.

Liberal popular vote levels in Saskatchewan general elections:

2007: 9.4%
2003: 14.18% (Karwacki)
1999: 20.15% (Melenchuk)
1995: 34.70% (Haverstock)
1991: 23.29%
1986: 9.99%
1982: 4.51% (Goodale)
1978: 13.78%
1975: 31.67%
1971: 42.82%
1967: 45.57% (Thatcher)

If you read my post about Bistro 86 you’ll remember I mentioned during our visit to the restaurant we had the unexpected pleasure of seeing the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus walk their elephants and horses to the Grandview Avenue railroad yard down Goodale and right past our window.

This weekend the circus is back in town! If you haven’t had a chance to see this sight, head to Goodale tomorrow around 1:30 p.m. and you may see the animals on their way to Nationwide. The animals will also make an appearance around 4:30 p.m. on Sunday as they make their way back out to the railroad yard. The city of Grandview Heights mentions on their website there may be short road closures in the area.

If you have children, this is a great opportunity to show them something out of the ordinary. While you’re at it, check out Bistro 86!

I have been trying to spotlight poetry events in the Central Ohio area. I just recently found out about Poetry in the Park. Here is some more info:

Poetry In the Park will be holding its monthly summer show on Saturday, August 2, 2008. Music will begin at 6:45 P.M., and the featured poet, Steve Abbot, will perform at 7:30 P.M. An open mic will follow.

The event is FREE and takes place at Goodale Park at the corner of Buttles Avenue and Park Street in Columbus, OH.

Please keep in mind that if attend, you can bring a picnic dinner, but you will also need to bring your own seating (i.e. chairs or blankets).

For more details, visit Poetry in The Park’s website:

http://www.poetryinthepark.com/event_details

-Nicole

Stumble It!

When Paul returned from Asia, the project really kicked into full gear. Even though publishers still didn’t want to touch a book written by three upstart nobodies, we soldiered on, trying to interview as many people as we could.

On the whole, the response was good. Though most interviewees probably assumed we were naïve simpletons with pie-in-the-sky ambitions, they humoured us and offered more of their time and honesty than we deserved.

When Alex travelled to Regina to visit his grandparents, he managed to meet with former finance minister Ralph Goodale, former lieutenant governor Lynda Haverstock, and provincial Chief Justice E.D. Bayda. Meanwhile, in Toronto, we had an enthralling chat with architect Raymond Moriyama, who regaled us with stories about re-tracing the steps of the Buddha, and Bob Rumball, the former CFL star and evangelical minister who fought to get the deaf acknowledged in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In September, Paul snagged an internship at the now dearly departed Saturday Night magazine, where he had the good fortune to work under then editor Gary Stephen Ross. He took Kickstart under their wing, volunteering to sit down with the proposal we were then submitting to publishers, and give us feedback on how we were progressing.

Gary was the author of Stung, the basis for Owning Mahowny starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, and a former partner in McFarlane, Walter & Ross. He had been through the ringer, as both a writer and publisher, and had numerous insights into how to avoid being screwed. He also had many things to say about the form the book was taking.

At the point where we showed him our stuff, Kickstart was a very different book. Each chapter was written like a mid-length magazine profile. The form didn’t really work because, not only were we not yet trained magazine writers, but, in a general way, our personalities were overwhelming the real content – the interviewees themselves. Gary rightly pointed out that we were going astray and suggested an alternative.

No one likes to read long raw interviews (unless the interviewer is Michael Ondaatje or something), but they do appreciate the immediacy and authenticity of the interview form. So why not find a middle ground and do what authors of oral histories do? Why not take the raw interview, prune, polish, and shape it, and then work with the interviewee to present the heart of the interview in as clear and precise a way as possible?

Gary had edited a book like this while with McFarlane, Walter & Ross. He thought it would work for Kickstart, but he warned it would take a long time. “Do you really want to be killing yourselves for this?” he asked Paul over lunch one day. The answer was yes. It was worth it. The new form Gary was proposing was worth working to achieve. It would give the reader greater access to the interview subjects. It would be like sitting down for a coffee with the interviewees themselves – minus all the “um”s, “let me think about that”s, and “actually I think it was probably the other way around”s.

In addition to giving Paul time off whenever he needed to run off to an interview, Gary acted as a mentor and quasi-agent in the absence of both. When Saturday Night was shut down mid-way into Paul’s internship, and Gary moved back to Vancouver, he continued the conversation remotely.

Without his help, Kickstart might have taken on a very different form indeed. In fact, it may never have been published. While we didn’t heed all of his advice, we hope he enjoys the final product.