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Music Monday – "Now the lounge is full of farmers for the 7:30 draw/Teammates all left before they had to buy a round/When they pull the 50/50 and I've lost again, I'll go"

Posted 18 May 2009 § Main Page § MusicMonday § Video ‡ Comments (0) °

Dirt? I Didn't Eat No Dirt!

Posted 18 May 2009 § Humour § Main Page § Pace § Photo ‡ Comments (0) °

Friday Fun *Links* – Some Randomness From Around The Web About the NDP Leadership Race (May 15, 2009)

Here are some random things I'm seeing around the web as the Hale Report seems to have only poured fuel on the fire rather than clearing things up. 

The amount of attention being paid to the NDP leadership race seems to have grown greatly but unfortunately, not just because people are paying more attention now that we're down to less than a month until the Leadership convention. 

For example, The National Post picked up a Saskatoon Star-Phoenix story about the membership controversy.  Except they chose to illustrate it with a photo of Dwain Lingenfelter with Calgary's Banker's Hall behind him. 

Here are some more things I've seen…

CBC – Opponents Call for Police Probe into NDP Membership Controversy
Here's a comment that has 34 “Agree” votes and 0 “Disagree” votes as I type this:
“The big corporate outsider hoping to return the ndp to
its glory days is brought down by his own arrogance. I was thinking ndp
in the next election, but if he is in charge no freakin way.
I am sick of the ndp sense of entitlement. We don't need him. He went to alberta, he can stay there.”

NewsTalk 650 – “Putting A Name to the 'Over-zealous' Volunteer“
The name of the “over zealous” volunteer is apparently Earnest Morin (did some news outlets refer to the volunteer as “overly earnest”?  If not, they should start!), a former President of the Aboriginal New Democrats of Saskatchewan.  (You'd think someone who was that involved in the party would know the rules, no?)

Dwain Lingenfelter Announces First Nations Endorsement
Of course it came from a long-time supporter of his and was announced on the very day that the Hale Report was first supposed to be released.  Can you say “damage control”?

Brendan Pyle Link to Ryan's Campaign Videos “Liked” by Pat Atkinson
The Meili Campaign's Regina co-chair, Brendan Pyle, has done an awesome job of sharing a constant stream of Facebook links to relevant stories from across the web about all aspects of the NDP leadership race.  I was a bit surprised to see a recent link to Ryan's YouTube campaign videos “liked” by Pat Atkinson.   Obviously you can't read too much in this (I think the Agriculture video features a man named Roy Atkinson who may be her father?) but it was a small show of support for Ryan's campaign by someone who, at least based on their donations, is in the Deb Higgins camp. 

CBC Political Panel (mp3 link)
CBC Radio has a great podcast up featuring a discussion with Leader Post columnist Murray Mandryk and CBC reporter Stefani Langenegger moderated by CBC Regina morning host, Sheila Coles.  Line of the night goes to Langenegger who observes: “A good source told me that Brad Wall would rather run against Dwain Lingenfelter than Ryan Meili, a social democratic doctor living a social democratic life rather than a guy who, whether it's his fault or not, has more baggage ending the campaign than he did at the start.” 

Also in the podcast, there was a brief discussion about how Lingenfelter's scandal and the subsequent release of the Hale report managed to overshadow the final day of Lorne Calvert in the Legislature – one last blow to someone who was almost universally regarded as a genuine good guy.  (Mr. Calvert, it's not too late to change your mind!)

Accidental Deliberations Comment
I haven't seen this posted anywhere else or in the mainstream media but user Sunnyside, posted the following on Accidental Deliberations:

“On Tueday night all the leadership candidates were asked about their
commitment to the NDP, and how they will continue to support the NDP if
they lose. Deb Higgins, Ryan Meili and Yen Pederson all said they would
run for a seat. What did Link say, “I am only on leave from my job, I
will go back to my job”. Yes, that's right, he will leave the party and
go back to his big oil company in Alberta. Is that the kind of leader
the NDP need, or want.”

On top of that, Mr. Lingenfelter who has spent most of the last decade in Alberta working for an oil & gas company without even contributing in any way last year – financially or otherwise – to the party where he spent nearly twenty years of his life.  (In fact, rumours are that he was looking at the possibility of running for the Alberta Conservative Party while he lived in Calgary.)

Now to be fair, Ryan Meili didn't donate to the party either – though I'm willing to give him more leeway – not just because I'm a supporter of his but also because he's much younger than Mr. Lingenfelter, much less connected to the party and has spent much of the past eight years either as a student or doing international development work – both things that pretty much guarantee you'll have fewer resources than a high-paid oil executive.

RiderFans.com – “Lingenfelter Stuffing the Ballot Box“
You know you're getting attention from more than just the political junkies when you get seven pages on a Rider fan board! 

YouTube – “The Missing Link” – Saskatchewan Party Version and Mid-South Championship Wrestling Version

Oh, and only tangentially related to the topic at hand, the husband of one of my co-workers got a really good anti-Nuke Letter to the Editor printed in the Leader-Post today.

Posted 16 May 2009 § Main Page § Politics § Saskatchewan ‡ Comments (0) °

An Open Letter to Premier Calvert

Hello Premier Calvert,

I know that you don't know me – I mean, we're Facebook friends but I see that you don't log in that often – so we don't really get a chance to chat.  So I thought a letter on my blog might be the best way to reach you.

First off, congrats on your final day in the Legislature today – I'm sure you're experiencing a huge range of emotions now that you're a free man for the first time since 1986.  Still, I know you're also  busy getting ready to hand over the reigns of the party in less than a month to only the ninth leader in the CCF/NDP's 77 year history and prepare for your new job at St. Andrew's College.   So I'll get right to the point. 

I strongly believe that you should endorse Ryan Meili as your choice for the new leader of the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party. 

Now, I know that you and other party elders traditionally stay neutral in a race like this so that the best person may win without any hint of bias or controversy.  I don't remember Roy Romanow endorsing anyone the year that you won the leadership and I suspect this would hold true going back through the other various leadership races the NDP has held. 

Except that this year it feels like something different is happening and the stakes feel much higher than they've been in at least a generation when Mr. Romanow defeated Grant Devine after two years of disastrous Conservative rule in Saskatchewan. 

The leadership race's current front-runner, Dwain Lingenfelter claims he can hold Mr. Wall to one term but in his quest to win the leadership of the party at any cost, he may have done serious damage to the NDP and its chances for electoral success in 2011. 

The Hale Report has basically cleared Mr. Lingenfelter of any wrong-doing but as a new party member, I still find it extremely troubling that an experienced business executive (and the people around him) could let this happen, that the Lingenfelter campaign would pay $10 000 in small bills rather than cutting a single cheque for these purchased memberships “for ease of processing for DLC and provincial office” and most troubling, the underlying but unstated implication that those involved in this situation accept that that all First Nations people are destitute and can't afford their own memberships.  These are not the marks of a 21st century leader in my mind and not what the NDP needs at this critical juncture in its history.

On the other hand, we have a young candidate in Dr. Meili who is fairly new to the party but who is already showing (and has shown through his previous work in the far north, in your own constituency in Saskatoon's inner-city and in developing nations overseas) many of the qualities and convictions that have linked the NDP's leaders from Tommy Douglas to Mr. Lloyd, Mr. Blakeney to Mr. Romanow to yourself.  This is a very exclusive group and I believe Ryan Meili has so much more potential to add to the NDP's legacy, should he join that illustrious group than Mr. Lingenfelter.  (Meili's SaskPharm idea is just one example of the idealistic, innovative thinking that our greatest leaders have shown – brilliant for tying together so many strands of Saskatchewan life – the healthcare needs of an aging boomer population, value-added production of our agricultural products and all of the economic opportunities that will come from being involved in one of the world's most profitable sectors.) 

Ryan Meili is the reason I've joined the party, volunteered, given my time and expertise.  I know lots of other young people (and people who feel young again because of Ryan) who have similar stories.  Now it feels like, should Mr. Lingenfelter prevail on June 6, all of these gains will be lost if many of these young new members become disillusioned. 

I know that you're loyal to your party and the thought of endorsing a candidate will feel incredibly wrong.  But at the same time, I believe this is about more than politics, it is about no less than the future of our province.

Sometimes we have opportunities placed before us that show the depth of our character, our values and our principles.  I strongly encourage you to do the right thing for the party you've given much of your life to (and which has given you so much in return) by endorsing the one candidate who's best suited to lead the NDP into the future and continue its legacy of innovation and compassion for the people of this province. 

If you agree, please consider my proposal (and if you have any further thoughts, feel free to send me a message on Facebook! )

Thank-you,

Jason Hammond
Regina, SK

Posted 15 May 2009 § Main Page § Politics § Saskatchewan ‡ Comments (3) °

Referrer Madness & Pushing Buttons

With the big increase in traffic to this blog because of my writing about the NDP leadership race (sorry everybody who comes here for library & technology related stuff – less than a month till I'm back to that beat), I thought it might be interesting to see some of the search strings that are bringing people here.  I only looked at my May stats though I'm sure that you'd see a similar array for the last couple months since I started writing about the leadership campaign.

Obviously, there were all kinds of results which were variations of any of these terms: “ndp”, “leadership”, “saskatchewan”, “race”, etc. 

“Ryan Meili” and “Dwain Lingenfelter” each had tons of hits as search terms – I didn't count but would say it was probably neck and neck, maybe with a slight edge to Ryan.  I saw “Yens Pedersen” a couple times (and “Shea Pedersen” as well ) but no results for “Deb Higgins”. (Note to self: write more about Deb Higgins!) 

“Obama meili librarian” was actually searched for a couple different times which
kinda surprises me – could more than one person have remembered that
I'd done a blog post about the similiarities between Ryan and Obama
and that I was a librarian?  Oh, speaking of Obama, I can add another
similarity to my list of those similarities – I didn't know this
before but apparently Ryan spoke at the NDP convention a couple years
ago – echoing how Obama introduced himself to the Democratic party
with his speech at the 2004 DNC convention.)


Some other one-offs which probably give a pretty good indication of what's on people's minds out there (or at least where it intersects with the things I've written)…
“Ryan Meili nuclear”
“membership northern Sask”
“CBC news Saskatchewan NDP leadership”
“lingenfelter blog”
“saskatchewan NDP blogs”
“lingenfelter membership scandal”
“lingenfelter facebook”
“dwain lingenfelter memberships may 2009”
“dwain lingenfelter first wife”
“facebook faceoff meili”
“ryan meili wife”
“link saskatchewan ndp”
“waterhen gate lingenfelter”
“the jurist lingenfelter”
“saskatchewan ndp membership list”
“reliable property management saskatchewan”
“ryan meili arrested”
“youtube ryan meili”
“yens pedersen grandstanding”
“Tommy Douglas thousand member button” 

I want to write a bit more about that last search string because when I saw it, I had no clue what it meant and it was so different than the other types of queries I was getting, my curiosity was piqued. 

I looked all over the web trying to find what this was about but couldn't find anything even though there are tons of sites dedicated to Tommy Douglas, his legacy, his quotations, his policies and so on. 

I finally let it go last night around midnight and was planning to come into work today and go back to the librarian's best friend – real books! – to see if they would provide any clues.  But then, while doing a web search this morning for the different candidates (I wanted to see if my assertion yesterday about Ryan Meili having more photos on Flickr than any other candidate would also hold true for YouTube videos), this clip popped up, having just been uploaded a couple days ago.

The Bob Hale Report into Waterhen Gate (I suspect he's not going to call it that in his report ) was supposed to be submitted late yesterday but I don't think it's been revealed whether it will be fully made public, released with some of the details blacked out or withheld completely.  But in light of the confirmed purchase of 1100 memberships for everyone on two reserves near Meadow Lake by Dwain Lingenfelter's campaign, this clip is pretty damning. 

(Frankly, it's hard to believe that Tommy Douglas and Dwain Lingenfelter are part of the same party sometimes…and I guess depending on the year and the location, maybe that's not so far-fetched after all?)   


Posted 13 May 2009 § Main Page ‡ Comments (1) °

Meili 2.0: Party Renewal In The Information Age

I slipped over to the University today to sit in on the press conference for Ryan Meili's official launch of his campaign videos.  The release of these videos was tied into the larger theme of the changing role of technology and especially its abiility to level the playing field in modern politics. (See his press release below.)

Of course, all of the NDP leadership candidates are doing the tech things you'd expect in this day and age – having a web site, having a Facebook page, having online donation forms – but Ryan has taken his use of technology to another level with a personal blog, a Twitter account, an up-to-date Wikipedia page, tribute videos from supporters, more pictures on Flickr than any other candidate plus his utilization of a popular online project management system for his behind-the-scenes communication with campaign staff and volunteers. 

And of course, his YouTube videos which are probably the single best demonstration of any of the campaigns' embracing and understanding of Web 2.0 technology that I've seen.  (Online broadcasting is a personal interest of mine so I'm following this aspect of the campaign particularly closely.) 

(I just noticed that Dwain Lingenfelter's Wikipedia page has finally gotten a long overdue update after being pretty basic, even up to…(looks at page history)…today actually!  And honestly, if i had to pick a winner just based on the look of their sites, Deb Higgins' site is really well-designed.)

Ryan's press release announcing his campaign videos [Edit: I used a draft of the press release originally and have replaced it with the final version.] and the role of Web 2.0 in his campaign is after this brief message…

NEWS RELEASE
May 12, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NDP leadership candidate Ryan Meili wants to reach a new generation
of political activists. To do so, he’s using the power of online social
networks to change the way politics is practiced in Saskatchewan.

Today, the campaign officially released a series of digital videos
on party renewal, agriculture and rural life, the environment, First
Nations and Métis issues and health care. Meili hopes that his
supporters will promote the videos across their online social networks
and in the blogosphere.

“When M.J. Coldwell and Tommy Douglas were building our party, they
depended on people sharing the CCF story and vision with their friends
and neighbours,” said Meili. “We’re just doing the same thing in a 21st
century way. Online communities created through social networking allow
people with common political values to organize and to inspire each
other.”

The rise of social network sites like MySpace and Facebook has had a
profound effect on election campaigns in the United States. Although
federal parties in Canada have successfully adopted some of these
techniques, the use of new technology in Saskatchewan politics has been
limited to fairly staid websites. The use of online video in
Saskatchewan has been limited to posting traditional political speeches
on YouTube.

“The Meili campaign is different because it’s exploiting the full
potential of the Internet as a campaign tool,” said Dr. Chanchal
Bhattacharya, an Alberta political scientist who studies the use of new
technology in political campaigns. “Three of the campaigns are using
the internet like it’s still 2000. Despite very limited resources,
Meili is effectively using Web 2.0 social media like YouTube and
Facebook to reach new voters and energize existing ones. It’s a
21st-century Saskatchewan campaign.”

It isn’t just the mode of delivery that’s new. The videos are also
different from the usual political commercial, online or otherwise.
More like short documentaries, the videos tell the stories of people
from across Saskatchewan; north and south, rural and urban, young and
old.

According to Meili, “This is a test run for the next election
campaign, where we will use technology to share the voices of real
people.”

“These online tools equalize the playing field and empower those who
were once excluded from the political process,” says Joshua Hannigan of
Loud and Clear Marketing and Communications, the producer of the
videos. “Social media will be one of the most important tools in the
next election. Electoral success will depend on using these tools to
their full potential.”

-30-

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
Malcolm French
(306) 550-2277
504 – 20th Street West
Saskatoon SK S7M 0X5
(306) 370-4334
www.RyanMeili.ca

Posted 13 May 2009 § Internet § Main Page § Politics § Saskatchewan § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Music Monday – "Either side of Saskatoon/That is the longest leg/813 miles, she's my prairie girl/And the longest stretch of road in the world" (May 11, 2009)

This song was going through my head while driving up to Saskatoon for the SLA conference last weekend…

Posted 12 May 2009 § Main Page § MusicMonday § Video ‡ Comments (0) °

Happy Mother's Day! (to the three mothers in Pace's and my lives…)

My mom…



Shea's mom…


And our favourite mom of all…


Posted 11 May 2009 § Main Page § Pace § Photo § Shea ‡ Comments (0) °

Canada Commuter Challenge

This got sent around at my work so I thought I'd pass it on to readers elsewhere who may be interested in participating.  It's a Regina-specific e-mail but people in other places across the country can register as well.

—
Hello Everyone!

Regina's 11th Annual Commuter Challenge is coming soon.  And, that means it's time for Regina workplaces to start gearing up for another great event!  It's set to take place during Environment Week, May 31-June 6, 2009. 

You can sign up yourself and/or your workplace at www.commuterchallenge.ca. For those of you that already have, thanks for getting things moving so quickly.

As you may recall, the Commuter Challenge encourages employees in Regina's workplaces to find a 'green' way to work, such as walking, jogging, cycling, inline skating, carpooling or taking the bus.  As compared to driving alone in an automobile, these modes reduce the amount of energy consumed as well as harmful greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. As an added bonus, using many of these modes helps people work physical activity into their busy days.

Everyone who participates contributes to Regina's participation in the national Commuter Challenge where communities go head-to-head to see who can get a greater of percentage of their citizens to participate. 

After a few years of coming in second, last year Regina broke free and placed first in our size category!  But, it wasn't easy…and this year is all about defending that title!  So, we're asking everyone to think about what they can do to both participate themselves as well as how they might encourage others to track their participation.

Regina-specific posters and prize information to help you promote the event within your workplace will be available shortly.  

To sign up your workplace today, visit www.commuterchallenge.ca and get ready to have some fun while doing something good for the environment!

For more information on the Commuter Challenge, please contact [contact info deleted].

Happy GREEN Commuting!

Kim and Sheri
City of Regina

Posted 10 May 2009 § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °

Friday Fun Link – "If there was one book you could read again for the first time, what would it be?" (May 8, 2009)

Ask.Reddit has some interesting responses to the question “If you could read one book again for the first time, what would it be?”

Hmm, one book?  There are a few that pop into my head and it's pretty hard to pick just one.  Whenever asked the other impossible-to-answer book question, “What's your favourite book of all-time?”, I usually pick “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut.  So I guess I'll make that my pick here too.

Posted 09 May 2009 § Library § Main Page § PopCulture ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: