As regular readers of this column know, I am a big fan of potluck dinners. I see them as a sort of gastronomical lottery. In a true potluck, there’s no central planning. It’s simply the luck of the draw. Participants decide, independently, whether they will bring a main dish, side or dessert… and, within these three broad categories, what recipe they will follow. The only “rule” seems to be that one’s dish be large enough to be enjoyed by a goodly portion of the anticipated guests.
If you’re hankering for a good, old-fashioned potluck… or are a potluck virgin and want to take the plunge… you’re in luck. This Saturday, January 16th, the Dunvegan Recreation Association is holding its Annual General Meeting and Potluck Supper at the DRA Hall, 19053 County Road 24.
The event will get under way around 6:00 PM when the dinner bell sounds. By 7:00 PM everyone should have strolled down the dessert table and the short business meeting will be called to order. On this year’s agenda is the treasurer’s annual report, the president’s overview of the past year’s activities and the election of a new Executive Committee. (I believe there are already candidates for all the positions, so you need not worry about being hijacked.)
Why not make this the year that you attend and show your support for this hard-working group of volunteers. Admission is free. All that the group asks is that you show up with a hot dish, salad, pan of squares, cake or pie (lemon meringue is my favourite)… or the equivalent. Piping hot coffee, soft drinks, plates and cutlery will be supplied. I hope to see you there.
No Euchre… January and February
Attention all euchre enthusiasts. There will be NO euchre luncheon at the DRA Hall for the next couple of months. As I mentioned in my December 16th column, the popular event is being put on hold for January and February because of the difficulty of winter travel. We’ll resume our regular schedule on Friday, March 18th.
The ‘Big Bang’ Reality
It’s no theory. Jim and Marlie Tilker from Dunvegan East were awoken in the early morning hours of Monday, January 4th by a series of what they describe as “huge thuds… sort of like an earthquake, but without the shaking.” Jim, who always sleeps with one ear open to the vagaries of his furnace, was the first to hear two distinct, and very loud, bangs. He quickly determined that they had come from the surrounding fields, not his basement. After Jim managed to get back to sleep, Marlie heard a third bang.
When the Tilkers first mentioned this strange phenomenon, I thought it might have been something they ate. Until I checked the blogosphere. There, lo and behold, I found reports of similar “hearings” across the region. According to Eastern Ontario Network Television’s web site, “Twitter and Facebook were alive with accounts of multiple incidents… from Peterborough, Napanee and as far east as Montreal.”
Apparently, the culprit in each of these occurances was a cryoseism or “frost quake.” As you may recall, the temperature plummeted that Sunday night into Monday morning by over 20 degrees Celsius. This huge temperature drop, combined with the fact that the ground was saturated with moisture, created the perfect frost quake conditions. As the moisture in the soil rapidly freezes solid, it expands and pressure builds until it is relieved explosively as a cryoseism.
While startling, frost quakes are not in the same league as earthquakes. Cryoseisms don’t even register on Earthquake Canada’s seismographs. But this is understandable given that seismic equipment monitors activity deep within the earth’s crust. Frost quakes occur close to the surface and, unless the seismic probe is close to the site of the cryoseism, it doesn’t pick it up.
I thought by this stage in my life I had figured out all the reasons winter is my least favourite season. Now I have to add one more item to the list. Thanks, Jim and Marlie.
36,560 Shades of Red
The New Oxford American Dictionary defines ‘masochism’ as the tendency to derive pleasure from one’s own pain or humiliation. While this tendency usually manifests itself along a sexual dimension, an article my daughter sent me from the Toronto Star identifies what appears to be a new branch: fiscal masochists.
According to an article by Rob Ferguson entitled “Ontarians urged to help province pay off its debt,” 36,560 Ontario taxpayers over the years have actually heeded the government’s call for help to fight the province’s out-of-control debt; a honking great pile of government mismanagement that is fast approaching the $300 BILLION mark.
Created by the Progressive Conservatives under Mike Harris in the late 1990s, the Ontario Opportunities Fund was intended to pay down debt that had skyrocketed through five years of Bob Rae and his NDP Roughriders. Amazingly, the program is still on the books. What’s even more astounding is that the fund has actually collected $2.8 million since its inception.
While it’s true that this wouldn’t even pay for the consultants’ lunch tab for the eHealth, Ornge Air Ambulance or gas plant cancellation debacles, it’s still sort of impressive… until you look at the numbers. Since 1997, 80 per cent of the contributions were for under $100. As NDP Leader, Andrea Horwath, hypothesized, “…people may feel their tax refund is so small they tick the box to donate it as a way of saying, don’t bother sending the cheque.”
While the article didn’t touch upon it, I think a really interesting statistic would be the percentage of Ontario politicians and Sunshine Club members who faithfully contribute to the Ontario Opportunities Fund each year… and the total number of dollars they kick in.
“Where have all the poplars gone?”
As this parody of Pete Seeger’s classic 1955 anti-war folksong suggests, one of the hot button issues of 2016, at least in the Dunvegan area, will be deforestation. And it’s a touchy one.
On the one hand, you have landowners (especially farmers) being vilified for deciding to take their unproductive parcels of land, harvest whatever cellulose they can and ready the field(s) for growing crops. As far as I can see, none of the land being cleared is old growth forest. On the other, you have folks (often of a more urban persuasion, originally) who decry the loss of forest cover and its impact on wildlife and the environment.
While I love trees dearly, I also believe landowners have the right to use their land as they see fit… assuming these uses respect all applicable provincial, county and township statutes. This is especially true of land that, at one time, was in production but then allowed to “go to seed” and return to brush. But this is just my opinion.
Others disagree and, as is their right, are trying to legislate more state control over clear-cutting. In fact, I was recently sent an invitation to sign an on-line petition to lobby our MPP to take action in the fight against deforestation.
This isn’t the first time it’s been suggested that I sign an on-line petition. And whenever I receive such a request, I ask myself: do on-line petitions really work or are they just feel-good placebo buttons? So this time I decided to deep a little deeper.
Naturally, sites like PetitionOnline.com claim that their petitions can work wonders. However, there appears to be a dearth of hard evidence in support of this conclusion.
A quick search uncovered the fact that “effectivism.net” shares my skepticism. Their more in-depth research came up with a 2007 paper on the effectiveness of petitions to the Australian government:
“Of the 2,589 petitions presented to the House of Representatives since 1999, only three have received a ministerial response…. Since 2001, petitions have been presented and discussed during certain periods of private members’ business. Only 3.3% of petitions presented to the House since then, however, have been presented in this manner…. In fact, one individual will have a much greater chance of receiving a written response to his or her letter than a group of petitioners who have collectively expressed a grievance by signing a petition (emphasis mine).”
I don’t see any harm in signing an on-line petition. It’s a fast and convenient way to express your support for a cause. However, one must be careful not to conflate the instant gratification of e-signing with the hard slog of actual change. As Snopes.com points out, “…these petitions often contain misinformation or remain in circulation long after they are outdated, and the mere collection of e-signatures is of dubious value.”
Regardless of where you stand on this (or any other) issue, I believe you will have a far better chance of actually being heard by contacting the person(s) in a position to effect change by snail mail, phone or face-to-face.
This book can change your life…
One of the ways I give back to the community is to serve on committees that help families dealing with a mental illness. One such group is the Family Advisory Committee, a sub-committee of the Addictions Mental Health Network of Champlain region (Ottawa, Renfrew, Lanark, Prescott-Russell, Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry). It meets regularly at the Royal Ottawa Hospital to promote the inclusion of families in the treatment process.
The reason I bring this up is that the FAC has just released the latest edition of its excellent 241-page guidebook called From Roller Coaster to Recovery. Designed to help families in Eastern Ontario navigate the complex and often changing addictions and mental health system, it can change your life… for the better.
If you’d like to download a free PDF copy of this guide, go to: www.ListenToFamilies.ca
-30-