Stand up for Thursday, Canada

You know, Thursday is a pretty darn good day of the week. I think all too often, we overlook it, thinking past it to the weekend, to the highly coveted Friday night. Consider this: the Ottawa Xpress with its delicious food review (by none other than my last co-worker, Lucy) and Dan Savage Sex Advice Column (which this week might be politically suggestive instead of bedroom specific) gets print on Thursdays; The O.C. and the Office runs Thursday nights; Jonathan cooks; it's almost Friday, and it never ever rains.

Okay, that last one is a lie. I was getting desperate. I wanted a nice long string of items in my list. So I panicked and made something up. So what? Politicians do that all the time...

They also do this too - Uh, so thanks to Amish's excellent photo-tech advice (we love your camera-geekishness), our picture snapping is now oh-so-bright-white. Here is a picture of Jonathan's 3-second chop and drop spinach greens with orange and red pepper salad which he made tonight. Topped with a bit of balsamic vinegar, it is deeeeelish.

We also took a picture of Jonathan's chicken with eggplant and quartered tomatoes, but in retrospect, the picture looked ugly so we decided not to post it. Since the dish was very tasty and flavourful, it's safe to say that its beauty can only be captured in bites, not bytes. Hahaha. You will just have to visit our abode sometime to experience the real thing.

Jonathan forgot to set his alarm last night and missed his 8:00am bus to the ski mountains this morning. I was secretly happy because it spared me an entire day's tormented visions of Jonathan hitting a tree, Jonathan getting lost in backcountry and freezing to death, Jonathan falling off a cliff, and Jonathan being buried under an avalanche. Last night, Jonathan attempted to ease my spirits by saying, "You shouldn't worry - at least I'm going alone so you know that I won't be tempted into anything risky". Great. Just great. Isaac - I hold you personally responsible for that statement.

Well that's it I suppose - this was not much of a post. To be honest, it has been a long (rainy) day and oddly, no particular rant comes to mind. Well that's not true. I have one thing that had my blood boiling today. Today, Hamas won a majority in the Palestinian election. The entire process was remarkably peaceful and entirely legitimate. The voter turn-out was around 75%. That stated, I haven't heard a single newpaper run an article entitled "How wonderful. How wonderful for the Palestinian people that they have had their voiced heard and expressed peacefully in the successful and democratic election of their new government." Instead, we, the West, have stated that we will not recognize the Hamas government - all I have heard is what a travesty this is. After all, WE wouldn't have elected them, the Hamas. In secret, WE wish that WE could overthrow the democratically elected extremists, and force a corrupt-Fatah majority on the Palestinian people.

How undemocratic, hypocritical, ethnocentric, and selfish of us, the Western world. I need a smoke.

Well, that's it. Jonathan's in the midst of putting up a centre fold of Stockwell Day over the bed, so I must go stop him...

Job Prospects

Sorry for not posting in the last few days, especially in the aftermath of Monday's election. We are pleased to say that our "dear leader" was elected, and that despite a slim majority, he will still be able to govern effectively. This is just the begining!

Related to this, one of the main reasons that we have not posted lately is that we have been in conversation with Stephen's Chief of Staff. If things go as planned, we should both be doing some interesting work on his behalf, and the people of Canada.

Jonathan will hopefully be working on foreign affairs issues, mainly regarding deeper integration with the US, as well as developing a plan for bulk water exports across the border. He will be traveling to Washington with the new ambassador as soon as he/she is selected, to network with key public and private officials.

Sima on the other hand, will be helping out in the environmental policy area. Environment Canada will most likely need to be gutted and streamlined, so she will be working on that file, while at the same time developing some proposals to make sure that an arctic pipeline hooks up with Alberta smoothly and without a hitch. The plan is for the pipeline to hook up with the US in Alaska once drilling in the arctic wildlife reserve begins.

Although we will most likely be traveling quite a bit in the next little while we can still be reached by Blackberry.

Our Little Apartment

Today it rained in Vancouver. Again. So like other Vancouverites, we stayed inside. Jonathan slacked off with a vengence today, and I did a hundred pages of reading on the Canadian Political Economy. And after that was done, we did two things we've been meaning to do for a long, long time.

1. We cleaned.
2. We took pictures.

With our house feeling finally complete, we thought we would give you guys a visual idea of how things swing at Oak and 12th. (Sorry it took us so long Katie!) But before that, let me say, from my family to yours - Happy Election Day-Eve!

BEFORE:







Aaaaaaand, AFTER! (Thanks again Jonathan, for licking all that dust off the floor).

























































































































And finally (if you are still scrolling), our more artistic attempts. Hey, it was really raining outside! What would you do?

Foot in your mouth?

Well my friends, today we put aside our political obsurdities for a moment and discuss something from the Ivory Towers of Academia. This week in my Urban Policy course, I read "Urban Demographics in Canada" by Dr. David K. Foot, an economist at the University of Toronto. I'm not sure if Dr. Foot was slowly getting drunk while he wrote this ACADEMIC book chapter in 2002, but I will leave that to you to decide. Here are some of my favorite excerpts:

"The peak use of public transportation occurs in the late teenage years ... By their thirties, individuals have probably married, moved out to the suburbs, started a family, and are commuting to the office [using automobiles]...The [public transportation] 'problem' cannot be solved by attempting to modify behaviour regarding auto use ... Neither [car pools nor more bicycle paths] provides a necessary service or quality transportation medium, which is what the aging and busy Boomers require."

"Meanwhile, the aging boomers, driving their families and themselves, are crowding the roads and are becoming 'eyesight-challenged', which will increase the demand for larger and clearer road signs, not to mention large print maps and so forth."

"Most crime is committed by teenagers. ... [With the echo generation] entering their youth ages in the mid-1990s, a return to a rising crime rate would not be surprising. Meanwhile, the aging boomers, who can no longer run as fast, move into 'white collar' crimes..."

"Just as with criminal activity, there is a life cycle in drug use. Glue sniffing is followed by 'soft' drugs, which in turn are followed by 'hard' drugs. Hence, the boomers were sniffing glue in the 1960s, smoking pot in the 1970s, and shooting crack in the 1980s. However, the drug preferences of those in their forties moves away from illegal drugs to legal drugs, such as tranquilizers and sleeping pills."

"In general, population aging is gradually moving the nation and its communities away from sports and towards more cultural activities... Gender bonding for men increasingly takes place at the hunting lodge not at the hockey arena and, for women, at the ballet or opera."

Foot has taught me many things in his 2002 article - 1) Public transit is eewey and rich people and old people will never use it, therefore 2) We must make traffic lights and stop signs larger so blind people - pardon me, "eyesight challenged" baby boomers can continue to drive SUVs. 3) Teenage robbers grow up to be out of shape CEOs who steal lots of money from their shareholders. 4) My parents have been on drugs since the 1960s and no wonder they were so well-stocked with cold medicine over the holidays, and, 5) The hunting lodge. I think I'll just leave it at that.

Oh, forgot to mention - Foot's 19-page article had six sources for his bizarre facts. Five of those sources, were his own publications...

In other news, today is a big day for us - Since our dilapidating dining room table is no longer in stock at our furniture store, it is being taken away from us tonight and replaced with our new, square, stainless steel, black-glass table. While the new table is hip and cool and trendy (highly appealing to Jonathan), like a good pair of old jeans, I am going to miss our little round, wooden black table very much. He was so good to us for the short period of time we had with him.



A silence, I think, is in order...

Harping on Politics

It saddens me to report, as a member of the Oak and 12th editorial board, that for two weeks time now, Jonathan has been on crack. The end of the holidays hit him pretty hard and quite frankly, I think this (his new found infatuation with Stephen) is his coping mechanism, as well as a cry for help. I have sat by and watched our beloved blog transform into puppet-string partisan propoganda. Our favorite Oak and 12th editor means well. The question is, will the Oak and 12th editorial board survive its political fractions? Go Christian Heritage Party! As they say "a Member of Parliament who believes he or she will one day answer to Almighty God is much more likely to tell you the truth."

January 16th, 2006

For Immediate Release:
The Editorial Board of "Musings from Oak and 12th" formally endorses Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada.

Vancouver- In a bizarre twist of events the editors of Oak and 12th have thrown their full support behind Stephen Harper.

Disillusioned by Paul "Dithers" Martin, and Jack "Don't Trash the 'Stash" Layton's inability to propose anything remotely intelligent, and furthermore fearing that voting Green consists of "throwing away your vote", the editors stated "Stephen, and his reformist pals/gals, are the only party to propose a viable solution to the complex problems facing Canada....rationally, it only makes sense to throw our support behind him".

One editor went on to say "we really hope more people follow our lead; we really want to send the Conservatives to Ottawa with a strong majority, otherwise, nothing will get done".

Harking back to his roots in La Belle Province, one editor stated: "I wish our offices were located in Montreal, that way I could vote for Gilles and his pretty blue eyes". The editor strengthened his argument for voting seperatist when he stated "at least an independent Quebec would mean another competitive international hockey team....Canada would no longer have to fart around playing teams such as the Czech Republic, the USA, or Russia".

Despite their inability to vote for the Bloc, the editors were comforted by the fact that Stockwell Day would soon be representing them, as well as other Canadians, as their Minister of Foreign Affairs.

We are Back

Yup, That's right. After a nearly month long hiatus, we are back in lotusland. I must apologize for not posting during the last month or so, but let's just say that the build up to Christmas break was so intense, and the relaxation following was so blissful that I could not bring myself to posting anything in cyberspace. Anyways, hardly any of the other blogs listed on this site were posting - so why bother. Ha!

So what's up for us in the new year? Well, there will be classes, a thesis, some comprehensive exams, a trip to 'toon town, hopefully a trip south to the beaches, new jobs, some skiing, and hopefully other fun things! We will definitely keep you up to date on events as they unfold.

Also, when we get a hold on a tripod, we will be posting a few pics of our "pad". Lots of things happening at Oak and 12th in the next little while. So stay tuned.