RENO, NEVADA - This week's radio pick again comes from CBC Radio One's Age of Persuasion. I don't like making a habit of choosing the same program every few weeks, but host Terry O'Riley is really having an excellent season. This week's 27-minute program provides insight into how anecdotes can be used to support a theme, in this case lessons on authenticity. Tiger Woods and Sea Monkeys are among those taking center stage along the way.
Click the listen link on this page to hear The Age of Persuasion "The Real Deal: Authenticity"
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
Economics: This is Not the Great Depression
OROVILLE, CALIFORNIA - I have often been a critic of governments for trying to put too rosy of a spin on the economic situation. Unemployment statistics, for example, do not tell anything near the real story of how the labor market actually feels, as the count does not include those who are underemployed, have temporarily or permanently given up looking for work, or who are ineligible for unemployment (in Canada, Employment Insurance) after losing their jobs. I have never been personally counted as an unemployed person even when I have spent many months unable to find a job.
Yet, comparisons made with the Great Depression in the current situation--at least as it exists today--just don't hold up very well in terms of the state of affairs of most people. The conversations I have had in the past two days with my great aunt--who live through the Great Depression--have made this clear. While there are more "tent cities" than many governments wish to admit, the amount of "Hooverville"-type homeless encampments is apparently nowhere near what it was during the Great Depression, though hard statistics on that seem to be hard to find. There are not hobos riding trains around the nation--and not just because law enforcement on illegal train riding is better, or people are using a different mode of transportation--there simply isn't the same phenomenon of "boomers" moving from place to place.
The labor market in general hasn't taken on the volatility that occurred during the Great Depression. People aren't jumping from short-term job to short-term job to the Civilian Conservation Corps back to a short-term job again the way that was quite common in the 1930's. The pattern today is much more the recession pattern of people taking part-time and underemployment to sustain themselves, which is a step above in stability.
All this being stated, it needs to be noted that if things continue to go sour in the economy, it is entirely possible that the current situation will begin to more closely resemble the Great Depression. Just as the Swine Flu (er, H1N1 virus) has the possibility of starting a pandemic, the current downturn without proper precautions could become something much worse. Just don't try to convince me that we're already there.
Yet, comparisons made with the Great Depression in the current situation--at least as it exists today--just don't hold up very well in terms of the state of affairs of most people. The conversations I have had in the past two days with my great aunt--who live through the Great Depression--have made this clear. While there are more "tent cities" than many governments wish to admit, the amount of "Hooverville"-type homeless encampments is apparently nowhere near what it was during the Great Depression, though hard statistics on that seem to be hard to find. There are not hobos riding trains around the nation--and not just because law enforcement on illegal train riding is better, or people are using a different mode of transportation--there simply isn't the same phenomenon of "boomers" moving from place to place.
The labor market in general hasn't taken on the volatility that occurred during the Great Depression. People aren't jumping from short-term job to short-term job to the Civilian Conservation Corps back to a short-term job again the way that was quite common in the 1930's. The pattern today is much more the recession pattern of people taking part-time and underemployment to sustain themselves, which is a step above in stability.
All this being stated, it needs to be noted that if things continue to go sour in the economy, it is entirely possible that the current situation will begin to more closely resemble the Great Depression. Just as the Swine Flu (er, H1N1 virus) has the possibility of starting a pandemic, the current downturn without proper precautions could become something much worse. Just don't try to convince me that we're already there.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Media: Not Even CBS Now...
PLACERVILLE, CALIFORNIA - During my undergraduate years in California, I had a number of peculiar radio listening habits. One was that at the top of the hour, I would almost invariably tune in KCBS All News 740 (which then wasn't also at 106.9 FM) to listen to the top of the hour news from the CBS radio network. While CBS did feel like my "home" network because of my many years of favoring CBS affiliate KIRO in Seattle, that wasn't why I tended to hit that button for the top of the hour.
The station I was most likely to be listening to was KGO, the Bay Area's perennial ratings leader as a talk station. KGO was (and remains) an ABC radio network affiliate. In that era (the early 1990's), ABC had started the practice of including "person on the street" comments, usually toward the end of their newscasts. Supposedly, this practice was to make the newscasts more engaging to the listener, but I have always found this practice repugnant. First, it takes away time from actual reporting during what is already a short (three and a half minutes in the case of ABC, four minutes in the case of CBS) top-of-the-hour newscast. More importantly, it was fundamentally an injection of opinion into what I wanted to be an objective newscast. ABC was doing this often enough that I decided I didn't want to hear ABC news anymore, so I got in the habit of switching over to CBS at the top of hour, and it became such a habit that even if I was listening to a station other than KGO I would often punch the KCBS button at the top of the hour.
The "infection" of the common person's opinion may have started in my listening experience with ABC, but it hardly stopped there. Earlier this decade, no less than the British Broadcasting Company, the venerable BBC, started to read e-mail and text messages that came into their news shows during those very shows. I found this practice to be even more disturbing than the edited "person on the street" comments, as clearly these comments had undergone even lesser editorial evaluation because of the obvious time constraints, and thus they became especially vulnerable to corporate public relations departments and special interest groups sending in comments to get their viewpoint on the air during a news program. To this day, I wince whenever I hear any sort of "instant feedback" on a program that purports to be a hard news program, which means that the BBC can bother me just as much as the US commercial networks.
I was reminded of all this deterioration when listening to the CBS network news on KCBS All-News 740 as I drove around California's central valley today. While it had been many years since I had been able to hold up CBS as a model network, it was dramatic just how far its standards had declined. In a newscast earlier today, one report sounded like it was a press release from a certain well-known motorcycle company that doesn't deserve any additional publicity, talking about how sales to female customers had risen from 4% to 12% over the past decade and describing how they wanted to further target women. Exactly how was this news, and exactly how was this not free publicity for the company was beyond me. I just couldn't imagine how the greats of CBS past and present, from Murrow to Schieffer, must have been cringing, wherever they might be at.
So far, the one network that I can say I have not heard stray from providing editorially uncompromised hard news on their news program is one that my tax dollars go to support, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. (National Public Radio's transgressions in this regard have been few and far between as well.) Here's hoping that the CBC will not change its practices, and there will be at least one place to turn for untainted news.
The station I was most likely to be listening to was KGO, the Bay Area's perennial ratings leader as a talk station. KGO was (and remains) an ABC radio network affiliate. In that era (the early 1990's), ABC had started the practice of including "person on the street" comments, usually toward the end of their newscasts. Supposedly, this practice was to make the newscasts more engaging to the listener, but I have always found this practice repugnant. First, it takes away time from actual reporting during what is already a short (three and a half minutes in the case of ABC, four minutes in the case of CBS) top-of-the-hour newscast. More importantly, it was fundamentally an injection of opinion into what I wanted to be an objective newscast. ABC was doing this often enough that I decided I didn't want to hear ABC news anymore, so I got in the habit of switching over to CBS at the top of hour, and it became such a habit that even if I was listening to a station other than KGO I would often punch the KCBS button at the top of the hour.
The "infection" of the common person's opinion may have started in my listening experience with ABC, but it hardly stopped there. Earlier this decade, no less than the British Broadcasting Company, the venerable BBC, started to read e-mail and text messages that came into their news shows during those very shows. I found this practice to be even more disturbing than the edited "person on the street" comments, as clearly these comments had undergone even lesser editorial evaluation because of the obvious time constraints, and thus they became especially vulnerable to corporate public relations departments and special interest groups sending in comments to get their viewpoint on the air during a news program. To this day, I wince whenever I hear any sort of "instant feedback" on a program that purports to be a hard news program, which means that the BBC can bother me just as much as the US commercial networks.
I was reminded of all this deterioration when listening to the CBS network news on KCBS All-News 740 as I drove around California's central valley today. While it had been many years since I had been able to hold up CBS as a model network, it was dramatic just how far its standards had declined. In a newscast earlier today, one report sounded like it was a press release from a certain well-known motorcycle company that doesn't deserve any additional publicity, talking about how sales to female customers had risen from 4% to 12% over the past decade and describing how they wanted to further target women. Exactly how was this news, and exactly how was this not free publicity for the company was beyond me. I just couldn't imagine how the greats of CBS past and present, from Murrow to Schieffer, must have been cringing, wherever they might be at.
So far, the one network that I can say I have not heard stray from providing editorially uncompromised hard news on their news program is one that my tax dollars go to support, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. (National Public Radio's transgressions in this regard have been few and far between as well.) Here's hoping that the CBC will not change its practices, and there will be at least one place to turn for untainted news.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Margin Notes: Travel Transitions, Static Media
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA - Traveling by airplane can be jolting. I will never forget being amazed that all the license plates changed states after taking a two-hour flight for the first time as a child. In recent years, the transformations that I have been more likely to notice have been those in atmosphere. The change in pace between the airport in Toronto and the airport in Chicago can be dramatic (and Chicago is hardly the fastest-paced US city); people just move faster and more deliberately on the United States side of the border. The pacing difference is not as pronounced between Toronto and Denver, but what I really noticed today upon landing in Denver was that people in the US airport were physically larger on average... and Colorado is actually one of the states with the lowest obesity rates!
* * * * * *
As I have written about before, there's a dramatic difference in atmosphere when making a transition between Air Canada and United. I far from idolize Air Canada, but in many ways it is reflective of its home country--quite likely to get one to the destination, perhaps a bit late but rarely egregiously so, no exceptional customer service but rarely any memorable substandard moments either, and general bilingual calm on board the aircraft as both crew and passengers follow rules in a civilized manner so the common goal of reaching the destination in some degree of comfort is achieved. United, in contrast, seems to be most reflective of the worst of the United States--smiles from employees are the exception rather than the rule, there's an assumption by the crew that passengers are always trying to get away with something against the rules (and indeed some are), and there's a general feeling that each person just wants everyone else to get out of their way. This time, though, there's no lost baggage or egregious lateness to complain about, so they actually exceeded expectations. Any way one looks at it, though, it's jarring to go from bilingual, sedate Air Canada to unilingual, stressed United.
* * * * * *
An aerial view departing Denver showed the proximity of Boulder, Colorado to the mountains on 29-April-2009; the snow-capped Front Range was to the left, and the town of Boulder to the right in the same frame.
Dramatic transitions could be found outside the aircraft as well. The flight path out of Denver to Sacramento provided a nice view of Boulder, Colorado. The home of the University of Colorado is well-known for its proximity to the mountains, and the aerial view above makes the point--the snow-capped mountains of the Front Range and the city of Boulder could be placed in the same frame. Even that distorts the situation, as there are plenty of mountains without snow closer to the town.
* * * * * *
When I last visited Boulder in 1998, I rather enjoyed the radio dial there, which is effectively the same radio market as Denver, with true community radio stations and an interesting mix on the commercial portion of the dial. I was surprised to find all of the stations I spot-checked during my brief layover at the airport still having basically the same format, from talk station KOA (though the "50,000 watt blowtorch of the Rocky Mountain west" is long gone) to adult contemporary station Alice 105.9 (which then called itself "Alice 106"). In a volatile industry, this was a surprising observation.
* * * * * *
Leni Schwendigger's "Deep Time/Deep Space, a Subterranean Journey" was viewed from the train concourse at Denver International Airport's Terminal A on 29-April-2009
A surprising observation in Terminal A of Denver International Airport was this railroad-themed sculpture by Leni Schwendigger entitled "Deep Time/Deep Space, a Subterranean Journey." For a trip that will feature some significant railroad activities, this was an appropriate piece of art to encounter, even if it was at an airport. Of course, the piece was a play on the trains that run between the terminals at the airport, which I must add have amusing organ-style sound effects of trains as they arrive and depart at their stations.
* * * * * *
The inter-terminal trains are one element of what makes Denver a quite functional airport for connecting between aircraft; were it not for the winter weather and the major airline with a hub there, I would try to connect there more often.
* * * * * *
As I have written about before, there's a dramatic difference in atmosphere when making a transition between Air Canada and United. I far from idolize Air Canada, but in many ways it is reflective of its home country--quite likely to get one to the destination, perhaps a bit late but rarely egregiously so, no exceptional customer service but rarely any memorable substandard moments either, and general bilingual calm on board the aircraft as both crew and passengers follow rules in a civilized manner so the common goal of reaching the destination in some degree of comfort is achieved. United, in contrast, seems to be most reflective of the worst of the United States--smiles from employees are the exception rather than the rule, there's an assumption by the crew that passengers are always trying to get away with something against the rules (and indeed some are), and there's a general feeling that each person just wants everyone else to get out of their way. This time, though, there's no lost baggage or egregious lateness to complain about, so they actually exceeded expectations. Any way one looks at it, though, it's jarring to go from bilingual, sedate Air Canada to unilingual, stressed United.
* * * * * *
An aerial view departing Denver showed the proximity of Boulder, Colorado to the mountains on 29-April-2009; the snow-capped Front Range was to the left, and the town of Boulder to the right in the same frame.
Dramatic transitions could be found outside the aircraft as well. The flight path out of Denver to Sacramento provided a nice view of Boulder, Colorado. The home of the University of Colorado is well-known for its proximity to the mountains, and the aerial view above makes the point--the snow-capped mountains of the Front Range and the city of Boulder could be placed in the same frame. Even that distorts the situation, as there are plenty of mountains without snow closer to the town.
* * * * * *
When I last visited Boulder in 1998, I rather enjoyed the radio dial there, which is effectively the same radio market as Denver, with true community radio stations and an interesting mix on the commercial portion of the dial. I was surprised to find all of the stations I spot-checked during my brief layover at the airport still having basically the same format, from talk station KOA (though the "50,000 watt blowtorch of the Rocky Mountain west" is long gone) to adult contemporary station Alice 105.9 (which then called itself "Alice 106"). In a volatile industry, this was a surprising observation.
* * * * * *
Leni Schwendigger's "Deep Time/Deep Space, a Subterranean Journey" was viewed from the train concourse at Denver International Airport's Terminal A on 29-April-2009
A surprising observation in Terminal A of Denver International Airport was this railroad-themed sculpture by Leni Schwendigger entitled "Deep Time/Deep Space, a Subterranean Journey." For a trip that will feature some significant railroad activities, this was an appropriate piece of art to encounter, even if it was at an airport. Of course, the piece was a play on the trains that run between the terminals at the airport, which I must add have amusing organ-style sound effects of trains as they arrive and depart at their stations.
* * * * * *
The inter-terminal trains are one element of what makes Denver a quite functional airport for connecting between aircraft; were it not for the winter weather and the major airline with a hub there, I would try to connect there more often.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Transport: Lambton Yard Closed
In a scene probably not to be seen again, a long string of power for local trains rested for the Good Friday holiday at Lambton Yard in Toronto, Ontario on 10-April-2009
TORONTO, ONTARIO - I didn't realize when I selected my current residence that I was moving walking distance from an active railroad yard, but it turns out that Canadian Pacific's Lambton Yard was located not far to the north. The base for a series of local trains and a common set-out and pick-up location for local traffic taking heat off the more modern Toronto (Agincourt) Yard to the east, Lambton has provided a nice bit of entertainment to this railfan.
All that changed on Saturday. Because of the economic downturn, Canadian Pacific has decided to close Lambton Yard. All of the local trains formerly based at Lambton have been moved to Toronto Yard, there will be no yard switch crew, and many trains that formerly worked at Lambton will just pass by on the mainline. The last run of the Lambton Transfer job pulled all of the locomotives used for local runs out of the yard on Saturday.
No longer an active office, the Canadian Pacific Lambton Yard Office stood with only inactive company vehicles around on 27-April-2009. Previously, this view would have normally been blocked by rail cars in the yard.
I headed out to see what had changed on Monday. Perhaps a transition is not complete yet, but while the yard office is definitely closed and there are no locomotives sitting nearby, the yard tracks themselves are not completely empty. Over the course of the day, the trains that normally had work at Lambton did stop to make set-outs or pick-ups. Even the local jobs came out from Toronto Yard and stopped to work at Lambton Yard before continuing on to their normal work. Had I not heard what was going on, I would not have noticed that the local trains were originating at Toronto Yard instead of Lambton.
Canadian Pacific has tried to shut down Lambton Yard before and failed. However, in the current economy and traffic downturn, they just might manage to move all its work to Toronto and also Obico Yard, to the west. The yard jobs, both the switch crews and yardmaster shifts as well as the crews of the Lambton transfer trains, may be gone forever.
All this drives home the old railfanning adage--shoot what's there, because tomorrow it might not be. In the case of Lambton Yard, what I took pictures of as recently as Easter weekend may now be impossible to see again.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Politics: Guns and Freedom
TORONTO, ONTARIO - Freedom of religion is enshrined in the constitutions of both the United States and Canada. Among libertarian thinkers in the United States, though, there has at times been a movement for "freedom from religion." (The lower prevalence of evangelical faiths in Canada and the fact that "conscience"--and thus non-practice of religion--is given equal status as "religion" in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms seems to have kept such movements from appearing here.) The thinking is that not only should a person have the right to practice any religion they choose, including none at all, but they should also be free of the impact of others' religions.
Sometimes I think the same kind of logic should be applied to gun control. The argument that concealed weapons laws lead to lower crime rates--which seems to be backed up data--combined with growing insecurity in the society seems to have effectively ended the gun control debate in the United States. As gun sales have soared over fears that the Obama administration would implement gun control, the political reality is that many elected Democrats are now pro-gun and the political prospects for gun control are almost non-existent. The details of state and local laws may be up for debate, but there's no chance for any significant change in the interpretation of the right to own firearms stated in the second amendment.
It all reminds me of a joke that was told when I was living in Texas, working at a chemical facility in Lake Jackson, Texas. People sometimes drove into nearby Freeport for lunch. The joke told during safety training was that if you drove into Freeport, you'd be stopped at a checkpoint and they'd ask if you had a gun. "If you don't have one, they'll give you one" was the punchline.
That's the danger of current direction of attitudes about firearms in the United States. Owning a gun is gradually going from being a right to an effective necessity. In some parts of the country, the social expectation is that if you don't have a gun to defend yourself, then you deserve whatever crime happens to you, regardless of the legalities of the situation.
While I do not generally have an issue with others having a gun, even concealed ones, I don't want to carry one myself. Fundamentally, I'm too lazy--not just to safely secure one, but to learn how to use it properly in the first place. I want "freedom from guns."
I suppose with my philosophy that I am living in the right city. The current mayor of Toronto, David Miller, is so committed to gun control that he had the private gun range located above the great hall in Union Station closed. Historically used to train railroad police, this facility actually allowed people who do have guns to learn to use them properly, which last I checked was what anyone should want and is not automatically at odds with a desire for tighter gun laws. However, Miller didn't want any appearance of Toronto as a gun-friendly city in any way, and the unusually-located range was closed. In David Miller's Toronto, there's not only freedom from guns, there's also freedom from gun safety, which is not what I had in mind.
Sometimes I think the same kind of logic should be applied to gun control. The argument that concealed weapons laws lead to lower crime rates--which seems to be backed up data--combined with growing insecurity in the society seems to have effectively ended the gun control debate in the United States. As gun sales have soared over fears that the Obama administration would implement gun control, the political reality is that many elected Democrats are now pro-gun and the political prospects for gun control are almost non-existent. The details of state and local laws may be up for debate, but there's no chance for any significant change in the interpretation of the right to own firearms stated in the second amendment.
It all reminds me of a joke that was told when I was living in Texas, working at a chemical facility in Lake Jackson, Texas. People sometimes drove into nearby Freeport for lunch. The joke told during safety training was that if you drove into Freeport, you'd be stopped at a checkpoint and they'd ask if you had a gun. "If you don't have one, they'll give you one" was the punchline.
That's the danger of current direction of attitudes about firearms in the United States. Owning a gun is gradually going from being a right to an effective necessity. In some parts of the country, the social expectation is that if you don't have a gun to defend yourself, then you deserve whatever crime happens to you, regardless of the legalities of the situation.
While I do not generally have an issue with others having a gun, even concealed ones, I don't want to carry one myself. Fundamentally, I'm too lazy--not just to safely secure one, but to learn how to use it properly in the first place. I want "freedom from guns."
I suppose with my philosophy that I am living in the right city. The current mayor of Toronto, David Miller, is so committed to gun control that he had the private gun range located above the great hall in Union Station closed. Historically used to train railroad police, this facility actually allowed people who do have guns to learn to use them properly, which last I checked was what anyone should want and is not automatically at odds with a desire for tighter gun laws. However, Miller didn't want any appearance of Toronto as a gun-friendly city in any way, and the unusually-located range was closed. In David Miller's Toronto, there's not only freedom from guns, there's also freedom from gun safety, which is not what I had in mind.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Photos: Tour of the Guelph Junction Railway
The "Guelph Junction Express" provided this view of a pedestrian bridge over the Speed River in Guelph, Ontario on 25-April-2009
TORONTO, ONTARIO - This week's update to my photo site features yesterday's "Tour of the Guelph Junction Railway." The Guelph Historical Railway Association-sponsored, Ontario Southland-operated train covered not only the 18.5-mile mainline between Guelph Junction and Guelph, Ontario, but also all of the major industrial leads off the mainline. An incomplete tour of Guelph was also started before a thunderstorm ruined photographic conditions.
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