Head Tale

Friday Fun Link – First Black Male President?

¶ Posted 12 May 2017 § FridayFunLink § Humour § News § Politics § United States ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: history

Mixing Libraries and Politics Old School

One interesting thing I learned at the Sask Library Association conference this past weekend was that Carlyle King, who was influential in a number of areas including academia, the arts and also in libraries as a long-time Board Chair of Saskatoon Public Library and as President of the Saskatchewan Library Association (and who has an SPL branch named in his honour), was also very active politically.

King’s second life was politics. He was elected to the provincial executive of the CCF in 1939. He ran against George Williams for leadership of the party at the 1940 convention and lost, but gained about a third of the vote. He was elected president of the party in 1945 and remained until 1960, meeting every second Sunday with T.C. Douglas. He ran a number of election campaigns and wrote CCF pamphlets including “What is Democratic Socialism?” King was also chair of the major pacifist organization in Canada, the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

¶ Posted 10 May 2017 § Library § Politics § Saskatchewan ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: history, saskatchewan

Music Monday – “I’m on my way to nowhere/I been runnin’ from my past/Runnin’ from the things I used to be”

Sometimes it pays to be a blogger.

Last week’s “Music Monday” post about Colter Wall was seen by a friend who happened to have an extra ticket to see Wall’s album release show at The Exchange last night. So because of that blog post, I ended up getting invited along to see the show.

It was a good show but a strange night – seeing a bunch of Sask Party MLAs (including someone I’m pretty sure was Colter’s dad in a black leather jacket…which is a very *dad* thing to do!) 😉 at a show that’s also populated by hipsters and old-tyme country music fans. Seeing the singer Belle Plaine do a duet with Colter when the last time I saw her on stage, she was doing a duet with Ryan Meili. Getting a notification on my phone about more Sask Party waste at literally the same time as Colter was singing a song called “The Devil Wears a Suit and Tie”. Or when he sang his other song which has a line about “don’t trust no politicians” (I thought it might get a cheer from the crowd but people were too polite for that). Getting there early and getting to see Colter hanging out with some friends outside the venue’s side entrance. Wondering if there’d be any protesters during the show. Wondering if I’d bump into any MLAs at the urinals (er, depending who it was, it might be a literal “bump”!). Drinking a beer by a local craft brewery and wondering if it was true that local craft beers were exempted from the new 6% PST charge on restaurant meals as someone had recently told me.

Anyhow, I just posted a Colter Wall song last week so instead, I thought I’d post a song that his drummer sang when he came out as the opening act buy a guy who apparently used to run with some of the more famous Texas singer-songwriters back in the day but only released a single album of his own.

“Ballad of Spider John” – Willis Alan Ramsey

¶ Posted 08 May 2017 § MusicMonday § Politics § PopCulture § Saskatchewan ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: music, saskatchewan, twitter

Regina Public Library Hosts Mental Health Trade Show

A very innovative program was held at Regina Public Library’s main branch on Saturday.

Program lead for the event, Alejandra Cabrera, said she was pleased with the turnout of people both looking for and offering support.

“Sometimes, people don’t know where to start, so if we just offer something that’s casual or drop-in for people, they may be more inclined to seek help or information,” she said. “People are asking lots of questions which is exactly what they’re looking for.”

¶ Posted 07 May 2017 § Library § News § Saskatchewan § Wisdom § Work ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: education, health, saskatchewan

Saturday Snap – #saveSKLibraries Panel at #saskLA2017 Conference

It was a fairly last minute decision but after debating back and forth for the past couple months, after library funding was restored, I decided to apply to attend the Sask Library Association conference in Waskesiu.

(I know the conference location was probably picked 18-24 months ago but the optics of having a conference at a swanky resort after facing major budget cuts isn’t that great. I debated making a motion at the AGM that the next conference be held at the Motel 6 in Swift Current!) 😉

As always, the conference was great for the program – keynotes, breakout sessions, etc. and also for networking and catching up with people. But in reality, a big part of the reason I wanted to go was to hear and be part of the conversation about the library cuts – how they happened, how we fought back, and how we’re going to make sure they *never* happen again.

I wasn’t the only one doing something at the last minute. SLA scrambled and pulled together a panel discussion on the library cuts that featured (from left to right in the above photo): Michael Shires (President of SLA), Merilee Rasmussen (who spearheaded the legally binding petition which gathered 20,000 signatures in a month), Christine Freethy (creator of the “Save Sask Libraries” Facebook group), Joylene Campbell (former Provincial Librarian and founder of the “Concerned Citizens for Libraries” group) and moderator, Judy Nicholson, Executive Director of the Sask Library Association. James Richards, who is Branch Manager for Southeast Regional Library also provided written remarks detailing efforts from a regional library’s perspective.

I might try to do a summary of the session (or share my thoughts on the entire SLA conference) in a future post but anyhow, it was great to get some more insight into the many moving parts that all worked to get library funding restored.

(At the same time, that was another realization at the conference – even though there was a bit of a celebratory mood because public libraries in the province were basically saved, there wasn’t a lot of formal acknowledgement of the impact of the cuts on other sectors. I sat at breakfast the first morning with a woman who works in school libraries and had found out that a bunch of people had lost their jobs. And I talked to many academic librarians who were trying to figure out budget cuts of around 5% in their own institutions. So still much work to do to fight back against the damage to other libraries and so many other areas of our society as well.)

¶ Posted 06 May 2017 § Library § MemoryLane § News § Photo § Politics § Saskatchewan § Travel § Wisdom § Work ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: history, saskatchewan, travel

Friday Fun Link – “Beep Beep, I’m A Sheep!”

I bookmarked this a while back. A Regina man has created a comedy song that’s topping the charts.

¶ Posted 05 May 2017 § FridayFunLink § Meme § PopCulture § Saskatchewan § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: cute, language, saskatchewan

Throwback Thursday – #tbt – Sask Library Association Conference (somewhere between 1997-2001) #saskla2017

I’m at the Saskatchewan Library Association Conference in Waskesiu right now.

It’s the 75th Anniversary of SLA and as part of the anniversary celebration, they have a photo album which includes this photo of me on a panel discussion at a previous SLA.

This would have been when I worked for the Sask Publishers Group. I can’t remember for sure when this panel was or what the topic was but I think it might’ve been when I had to pinch hit for one of our publisher members who got sick and couldn’t appear on a panel about library collections so having only a few of his typed notes to go on, I faked my way through a presentation as best I could (I’m not presenting at this particular conference but I’d observe that some things never change and I still occasionally wing my way through presentations today. On the other hand, some things do change – check out that hair!)

I recognize John Edgar on the panel who was likely representing RPL as their Collections Manager and would go on to be a colleague when I started at RPL then later, a patron I interacted with after he retired.

Unfortuantely, I don’t recognize the other two people on the panel.

¶ Posted 04 May 2017 § Library § MemoryLane § Photo § ThrowbackThursday § Work ‡ Comments (0) °

Thumbs Up From Two Cute Kids

Being “all libraries, all the time” for the past month has meant there’s been a serious lack of cute kid pictures on this blog.

Here’s a couple to rectify the situation…

¶ Posted 02 May 2017 § Family § Pace § Photo § Sasha ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: cute

Music Monday – “Don’t be picking fights/With no Mennonites/Don’t be raising Cain/When they’re planting grain/Working through the night”

I mentioned Saskatchewan Premier, Brad Wall’s musician son, Colter Wall, in a post about eighteen months ago.

He was a rising star then but he’s blown up completely in the interim – having one of his songs on the soundtrack to an Oscar nominated movie, named as one of Rolling Stone’s “10 New Country Artists to Watch“, appearing at the Grammys, getting kudos from and showcases with some pretty big names.

I have no idea of what Colter Wall’s personal politics are and I know firsthand that not everyone shares the politics of their parents. (I do know that someone posted on Twitter that “Brad Wall and Don McMorris’ children are privileged kids who never worked a day in their lives” and Colter responded “Leave me out of your bullshit political arguments. I used to work on ranches and farms before I became a musician!”) but being May Day, I can’t help but mention that I find it fascinating that someone who’s dad is a right-wing conservative would be chumming with Steve Earle and covering Woody Guthrie songs.

It’s not always the case but artists often have more liberal views than the average person and young people are often also more liberal than older people.

So that may or may not be the case with Colter Wall.

What I do know is that, no matter his personal politics or who his dad is, I’m really enjoying Colter Wall’s music, proud he’s a Saskatchewan artist selling out shows in North America and Europe to great acclaim, and I’m looking forward to his first full-length album which will be released this month.