Hey - I * AM * one of those people...

WARNING - Sure to offend someone!



I laughed my self silly, what I needed in a stress filled couple of weeks.
Then I thought about how once again, museums will be getting screwed over. Lack of funding always directly results in staff cuts and reductions in programs and limits on access to collections.

Who VOTED for these clowns? Remember this when we get our once every four year chance to try to effect the machine coming up soon...

GRAVE GOODS - Opening!

What ever happened to...

F.Braun McCash

Working on the upcoming Grave Goods exhibit, while at the same time having an old friend die on me has me taking a roll call. There are not as many empty files as I had feared, but frankly I feel like the mortar shells are incoming and starting to bracket my position.

Those who remember Braun from that same period of the late seventies and early eighties may have seen him in glimpses on film and TV. His largest body of work is the years of the Highlander TV series, where he worked as the fight master, along with a number of on camera appearances.
So it turns out that he will be showing at 'Indylander', a 'members only' Highlander fan convention coming up in Indianapolis, Indiana over the weekend of October 3 - 5, 2008. Not exactly a local event for us here in Ontario, but it does drag him over to this end of the continent from his home turf in BC.
The 'members only' thing may have something to due with local ordinances? Pre-registration only, limited to 300. Cost is $250 US for the full package (I assume includes the hotel), or $60 US per day admission. No tickets at the door.

For someone who despised even an electric typewriter, he now actually has a computer, e-mail and an honest to god web site: www.fbraunmcash.com
(Of course, in keeping with the Luddite theme, the site is broken as I pen this...)

He recently wrote me:

... Makes you wonder...it's useless old farts like (us) that just keep on going and going - the the Viagra Bunny - thump, thump, thump...
Take heart - there's a reason we're still around. We're here to serve as a good bad example.

Ad Mail from the Conservatives

I normally try to keep these postings limited to subjects related to the Viking Age and iron working. Way back when, my good friend Steve Muhlberger advised me to keep a pretty tight focus for my readers.

Sometimes though, things just piss me off...

In the last three weeks, I have had five pieces of what is no more (in my opinion) than 'simple' ad mail from my local Conservative Member of Parliament. Each boils down some of the most complex issues confronting Canada to the simplest statements. The whole approach offends me, as a Citizen, tax payer and thinking individual.

The topic statements:
Do you support the Governments actions to lessen your tax burden?
Who do you think will best represent Canada on the world stage?
Who is on the right track on supporting our troops?
Who do you think is on the right track on crime?
Who do you think is on the right track on taxes?

Today I sent the following to my MP:

Over the last two or three weeks, our household has received several mailings from your office. Each is a one sheet, with a tear off return portion 'no postage required'.

I'm afraid I find these mailings little more than Party propaganda.
Each narrows complex issues down to a single Yes / No statement and asks to indicate my Party support. Not a question about the issue mind you - but the party platform.
It is extremely hard to see this as little more than pre - election positioning.

My question - just who is funding these mailings?
If the cost is coming from Conservative Party funds (and not from tax revenues), then you are absolutely free to spend the money as you wish. There is absolutely nothing on any of the five notices I have in front of me to indicate this. The only hint may be found in the return address - your House of Commons office in Ottawa.
If the cost of these mailings is being drawn from my tax dollars, I strongly object to this use of the money.

An election is certain, and the stage managing of the Conservatives is not fooling anyone with half a brain. It is hard to see these sudden broadsheets as nothing more than simple advertising against an election that your Party is delaying. (Suddenly there is a twice weekly interest in my opinion? Funny that this was not sought at any other time in the mandate.)

As has been reported in the press - its time to 'fish or cut bait'

But make sure the cost of the bait is not coming from my pocket please.