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“Sask Has Too Many Libraries” Says MLA. “Sask Has Too Many MLAs” says Librarian. #skpoli #SaveSKLibraries #yqr #yxe

The cut to Saskatchewan’s rural library system is $3.5 million dollars.

The cost of the three unnecessary MLAs added by the Sask Party before the last provincial election is $750,000 and the NDP actually ran on a platform of cutting those three plus three more which would save the province $1.5 million dollars per year.

Hmm, which is adds more value to an economically challenged province – 300 libraries serving nearly every community in the province or 3 MLAs that the province was just fine without up until last year?

[Edit: Someone on Facebook posted a fact I didn’t know – Saskatchewan has the sixth largest population of the provinces and territories in Canada but the third highest number of MLA’s.  MLA’s have taken a pay cut but are any of them out of a job like some library staff already are and many others will be?  Maybe that would be a better way to save money then on the backs of rural Saskatchewan’s public libraries.]

Posted 28 March 2017 § Jobs § Library § News § Politics § Saskatchewan § Wisdom ‡ Comments (11) ° Tagged: , ,

Music Monday – “Libraries gave us power/Then work came and made us free/What price now for a shallow piece of dignity” #SaveSKLibraries

From a comment in SongMeanings.com…

the song is about working class perception and how everyone thinks ‘we dont talk about love, we only wanna get drunk’ whereas in reality the working class can be intelligent and useful, a lot of writers musicians actors sports people etc come from a working class background. ‘libraries gave us power’ highlights how no matter your background you can always improve and learn and ‘i wish i had a bottle…etc’ just means that you can improve as a person without being ashamed of where you come from although the upper classes do not recognise this hence the ‘what price now for a shallow piece of dignity’.

“A Design For Life” – Manic Street Preachers

Posted 27 March 2017 § Library § MemoryLane § MusicMonday § Politics § PopCulture § UK § Wisdom § Work ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: , , ,

Global TV: “Protesters Decry Steep Budget Cuts Across Saskatchewan” #skpoli #SaveSKLibraries

This is the Global News story about the protest we attended yesterday.

One relevant quote from the article:

“We tried to tell the minister just what the services are, how broad they are [and] what kind of good they’re doing for the community, but it’s obviously falling on deaf ears,” said Saskatchewan Library Trustee Association board member Elmer Brenner.

They don’t seem to have a video of the clip online so I’ll try to get around to doing my highly technical transfer method of turning up the volume on our TV and pointing my iPhone camera at the screen to record it for upload to YouTube someday! 😉

Posted 26 March 2017 § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) °

Saturday Snap – Kids Protesting Cuts to Saskatchewan Public Libraries #skpoli #SaveSKLibraries

Since the Saskatchewan Provincial Budget was announced last week, it’s pretty amazing to see the groundswell of protest at some of the most egregious and harmful cuts, especially to the province’s historic, innovative and world renowned public library system. For example, one Facebook group that sprang up is quickly approaching 4000 members after less than a week in existence!

A rally that was organized on pretty short notice in Regina for Saturday afternoon attracted over 100 people.  More events across the province are being planned as well.

Before the budget was released, many sectors were expecting cuts of around 5%.  That is what happened for the large public library systems in Regina and Saskatoon. But rural libraries got cut by over FIFTY per cent!  (And to make it even worse, these cuts were announced without any consultation *and* are retroactive to the start of the year after 1/4 of their budgets were spent on a totally different set of assumptions.)

I don’t want to be too strong in my condemnation of these cuts but some of the quotes from government officials indicate that, at the very least, there is a lack of understanding about the role that the public library plays in modern life in terms of being a community hub for long-term citizens and new Canadians, an economic driver, and providing a huge return on investment.

It’s also shocking to see the Sask Party, who have the largest part of their base in rural Saskatchewan, make a move that will drive a stake into the libraries which are the heart of many rural communities.

I’m not sure if it’s true but there’s an anecdote in libraries about an attempted cut to library funding in a small town.  The all-male town council, who weren’t library users for the most part, proposed the cuts but then their wives showed up at the next council meeting and the cuts were just as quickly cancelled.

I think there may be a similar disconnect here between the people making the decisions to cut funding to libraries and the response they’re going to get from the users.

We’ll see what happens but if the women and children (and yes, even many men) who love the libraries of rural Saskatchewan keep making noise, look out!

 

Posted 25 March 2017 § Family § Internet § Jobs § Library § News § Pace § Politics § Sasha § Saskatchewan § Work ‡ Comments (4) ° Tagged: , , , ,

Friday Fun Link – Southpaw Regional Wrestling

WWE has released some short web-only videos of a fictional 1980’s wrestling promotion, Southpaw Regional Wrestling.

Current superstars play up the stereotypical characters and tropes of that era of wrestling with love, affection and great humour – which makes this one of the most entertaining things WWE has done in the past year!

Here’s a raving commentary…

…and a taste of the real thing:

 

Posted 24 March 2017 § FridayFunLink § Humour § Meme § MemoryLane § PopCulture § Sports § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

Throwback Thursday – #tbt – Family Photo at Regina Public Library (June 2011)

When we did a family photo shoot in 2011, we decided to use downtown as our location which naturally led us to include a few shots around my employer, Regina Public Library.

Posted 23 March 2017 § Family § Library § Pace § Photo § Shea § ThrowbackThursday § Work ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Some Random Thoughts on #skbudget #skpoli

Brad Wall and his Sask Party buddies released their latest budget today and depending on the commentator you’re reading, it was either (borderline) cruel, cruel & unusual or a bloodbath.

Some thoughts…

  • Who goes through a massive resource boom and ends up raising PST?  If you said the NDP, you’d be brainwashed wrong.  That decision to raise taxes would be your (supposed) tax-hating friends in the Sask Party.
  • There are a lot of Internet forums filled with true-believers defending this budget. But politics isn’t sports, you’re not supposed to cheer for your team no matter how bad their management is or how poorly their players perform.  And I think a *lot* of less vocal Sask Party supporters will be quietly regretting their decision as the full impact of this budget starts to hit.
  • Speaking of, there are a couple things in this budget that may get more pushback from Brad Wall’s rural base than he realises – on one hand, cutting STC seems like low-hanging fruit if 25 of 27 routes are unprofitable (but then, why not go to less frequent service or use vans instead of buses or other cost-saving measures instead of cutting in completely?  It’s not going to look good to the townsfolk when old Granny Jones out in Dog River can’t take the bus in to her opthamologist appointment in the big city or Farmer John can’t get a part delivered quickly and cheaply.) Also, big cuts to rural libraries could really backfire as I’ve seen firsthand how much libraries mean in small communities.  (The anecdote in libraries is that the men on council will try to cut library funding since they never use it but then their wives will get wind of the cuts and suddenly funding gets restored!) 😉
  • Although they get a small tax credit to compensate for some cost increases, there is also lots of pain for lower income people including the incredible indignity of the government no longer paying the minimal costs of funerals for people on social assistance.
  • The Sask Party government got us in this mess in large part by overestimating resource prices over the past few years.  Yet they are disproportionately trying to get savings on the backs of workers – low-wage government cleaners, STC employees, public sector workers.
  • The government not only raised the PST but added it to numerous items (restaurant meals, children’s clothes, construction projects, snack foods) that were previously exempt which means all those things are basically getting a 6% price increase.  They estimated how much this would bring in but I wonder if they based that estimate on previous total sales for these categories or if they also accounted for a likely drop in sales since the prices will jump so much?
  • I guess my biggest complaint is that this budget didn’t have to be so brutal at all except…
    • The Sask Party spent like drunk sailors the past few years when times were good including whistling through a $1+ billion surplus left to them by the NDP when they left office in 2007.
    • They never created a sovereign wealth fund like pretty much every major oil producing region in the world (including left-wing socialist bastions like Alberta, North Dakota and Texas have.)
    • They did create three new unnecessary MLA positions that cost the province around $3 million a year, money that could be used much more effectively.
    • Saskatchewan corporation, Cameco, potentially owes around two billion dollars in money hidden via tax loopholes.  The Feds are going after their share but Sask isn’t going after our province’s share which could amount to $350 million.
    • Honestly, if I summarize all the ways that the Sask Party has mismanaged and abused our province’s finances, I’d just be re-hashing the much better work done by Tammy Robert over at OurSask.ca (and she’s not exactly a left-wing shill.  She used to work for the John Gormley show and admits that she had a Sask Party lawn sign as recently as this last election.  But she’s also a hard-hitting, tell-it-like-it-is journalist who puts many of our mainstream journalists to shame with her in-depth work.)

The only good news in this budget?  The odds of the Sask NDP making a big comeback in 2020 just increased greatly!

Posted 22 March 2017 § News § Politics § Randomness § Saskatchewan ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged: , ,

What’s Something The Average American Doesn’t Understand About Being Poor?

How expensive it is.

Posted 21 March 2017 § Jobs § Politics § Sad § Wisdom ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Music Monday – “To feel the ground beneath my feet/Knowing I’m free/To walk the walk and talk the talk/Sounds okay to me”

This song has a few scenes shot in Shea’s hometown (including shots of a community store and grain elevator that figured prominently in our wedding reception which we held the summer after our destination wedding for all the friends and relatives who couldn’t make it to Mexico.)

“The Hobo Song” – Bob Westfall and Westfall Mountain

Posted 20 March 2017 § Canada § MemoryLane § MusicMonday § Saskatchewan § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

When Donald Trump Is The President, Should Canadians Travel To the United States?

I’ve seen a few debates on social media sites as well as some media articles about whether Canadians and other non-Americans should “boycott” the United States with our business and/or personal travel?

Those who say we shouldn’t boycott, say that it will hurt ordinary Americans.  Or the non-Trump supporters need us more than ever.  Or that nothing’s much different down there than it was before Trump was elected – Disneyland is still Disneyland is one way to think of it.

Those who are in favour of a boycott say that it’s one of the few tangible ways non-Americans can send a message to Americans that we don’t support their President or current government.  The analogy I think of is that if you don’t agree with a corporation’s policies, you can boycott the company and if you don’t agree with a country’s policies, you can boycott a country in the hopes of creating change.

It’s a tougher call for some colleagues who are inclined to boycott the US for the reasons listed above but maybe got accepted to a conference or planned a personal vacation or are visiting a blue state.

Ultimately, it’s everyone’s own call but I do know that Shea and I are *very* unlikely to go to the States while Donald Trump is President – either on a big Hawaii/Florida/California holiday or even a short hop weekend across the border to Minot or Williston North Dakota as we’ve often done in the past.

We’re not Muslim or part of any targeted group (er, unless you could liberals who believe in science?) but at the same time, entering the US is a privilege and not a right and even many of my previous blog posts or Reddit comments about Donald Trump could conceivably get me hassled or even turned back at the border.

The world’s a big place and for the time being, Shea and I are happy to vacation near home in Saskatchewan, elsewhere in Canada or in beautiful tropical locations like Mexico.

(Hmm, okay, maybe Hawaii wouldn’t be so bad?)

Posted 19 March 2017 § News § Politics § Sad § Travel § United States ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: , , ,