Be humble

Leo Walsh, one of the Tory’s great brains, has suggest that Chief of Surgery, Dr. Barry link should step down.  Chripes, just what we need to hear - we have so many doctors you see - lets run a few out of town.  Oh yeah, for those out of towners - Dr. Barry Ling is running for the Grits. 

....and you are just thinking ol’ ::~HB~: is confused.  It is father’s day in Australia and I was just the recipient of a virtual toast with fine SA red.

Wednesday my business voice line went down.  Callers would hear a single ‘blip’ and be disconnected.  This is my main telco line and also my toll free line.  The only way I noticed this was that our usually busy office was remarkably serene and the telephone was not ringing.  Establishing that we had a problem, my assistant called the telcoheads and reported the outage.  There response was “we will look into it right away.”

24 hours later (it is now Thursday mid morning) our line is not back up, and we have not heard from anyone.  My assistant calls again - talks to a different person and is challenged that she “could not have talked to _name_ yesterday as she is on holiday”.  Hmmmm...do these people watch The Outer Limits?  Another report is taken and 2 hours later a technician calls.  Our line has suspiciously started working on and off.  He indicates he has not done anything and there is little sense in visiting as “probably someone down at the CO has been wiggling cards around - they do it all the time.” Yes, this is a direct quote.

24 hours later - Friday morning - our line seems to be up again without difficulty.  Telcohead truck is out front.  I still don’t know what the problem was.  I wonder how much business we missed or lost because of this.

...and he would like us to believe what he says..yet, even something as simple as his blog makes promises that are unfulfilled.  Note “You can expect a new entry every day so bookmark this site and we will see you on the campaign trail.”

http://www.cbc.ca/peivotes2003/analysis/an_sept9.html

(snip)..And the very last thing the public wants to hear is the government brag about what a great job it’s been doing..(snip)

http://smartpei.typepad.com/pei_election_watch/issues_education/index.html

The Guardian talked this weekend about the fact that 42% of Islanders can hardly read. In fact 17% cannot read at all.

One word, power

I spent 14 years in a North Shore fishing village.  I never thought much about fish - just that you caught them and you got paid for them.  I never fished for Tuna, but like most people living in the village, I monitored the CB radio for word that one of my neighbours had “hooked up” and we would follow the fight to the end.  The culmination would be the hoisting of the huge Tuna from the water and most of the community would drive, bike or walk to the wharf (a short distance) to watch the final deep gasps of a huge fish.  For the person landing the fish, this was wonderful - as the buyers would be eagerly competing for the fish, which I understood was immediately iced, trucked to Halifax and then flown to Japan.  Even back in the early 80’s a Tuna could be worth $10,000 + - today much more.

Recently I watched this activity again.  I saw a 500 Kg Tuna hoisted from the water - gasping and heaving for breath, fighting a battle to be free that was lost as soon as the hook was set.  This time it was different.  I was close enough to look the fish in the eye.  I swear I saw desperation - and a deep and profound sadness.

This is going to trouble me for a long time.

Driving West on Water St. in Olde Charlottetown is it hard to miss the new yellow paint marking parking sized blocks on the North side of the street.  Equally hard to miss is the new white paint noting “no parking” within these yellow blocks.

A jump from here to here.