6:22 PM A: you know these cbc budget cuts?

I don't care.

B: no?
A: no...

and it's not difficult to explain

6:23 PM I'm really sorry that a lot of people are out going to be out of work, particularly in jurisdictions like the maritimes that have small newsrooms as it is

but when I looked at the cuts

they're still keeping stuff like "wild roses" and "the border"

and

6:24 PM basically

B: yeah,

the cbc is going commercial

of course

that's what i hate

A: maintaining the directive of competing with private networks

B: but i just don't want them to cut

A: which is not the cbc

B: radio 3

and shit like that

which is being considered

A: I bet it is

because the cbc is not what it was

it's not cbc anymore

6:25 PM B: well,

on the radio it is...

largely

it's the radio side of things

that i'm more concerned about

A: I really think people who say it's the jewel of canada are just being nostalgic

well, I don't know if you remember

but back in september

they took radio two

6:26 PM from an exclusively classical and jazz station

to something to compete with private networks

and when they do so

they're no providing the content we believe, out of habit, that they providing

ie

B: yeah

well

nothing is the same

A: unique, intelligent, and nationally-reflective

B: as it used to be

canada is not

nothing is

6:27 PM but i will

involve myself in the occasional

symbolic gesture

which allows my voice to be heard in some small way

to symbolize

my discontent

A: such as?

B: such as complaining about cbc budget cuts

6:28 PM i know very well that the cbc is not what it used to be

they have fucking wheel of fortune

on tv now

but my bottom line is that

A: (like, clearly, the cuts are happening in the wrong places. but they're being used to supplement the same shit. the cbc has to change. it has nothing to do with the current government; this has been unfolding for years)

yeah, exactly

6:29 PM B: what is that?

(_______ ) ?

A: hmm? like a turn down commericial road?

B: no, i meant

6:30 PM why did you write that in brackets?

A: because it felt like an afterthought

B: but man, it DOES have something to do with the current governement

just as it did the liberals

and mulroney before

it has to do with certain fundamental

or what once were

canadian values

6:31 PM which cannot be sustained under economically neo-conservative governments

decades of cuts in every sector

lead to depletion in cultural

arenas

in canada

and man....

cbc radio three has been

6:32 PM AN AMAZING

way for independent canadian artists to be exposed

anyways...

i'm not gonna scream about it

i know that the cbc is fucked

but it is still upsetting to me

6:33 PM A: yeah, well it is upsetting

I would listen to radio two day-in

and now I turn it off every day at 3pm

before buck 65 pollutes my living space

6:34 PM but I'm not sure I'm with you on the connection between eroding values and conversative trends

6:35 PM the cbc has a tendency to hire outside leadership

they want to make a profit

6:36 PM I don't think you could say that new the bbc has thrived when they're governments have necessary taken write turns in the past decade (think "new labour")

they survive because of different funding

and a commitment to original content

6:37 PM the cbc seems to want to take ANYTHING and put a made in canada stamp on it

6:38 PM the fact is, the incursion of US network programming shouldn't affect the orgnaization, because poeple should be able to take refuge there

instead they've tried to compete

and they lost.

and maybe, at rock bottom, they'll sort this out

6:39 PM B: yeah well, this is exactly what i wish wasn't happening

A: the fucking heritage minister said as much

B: obviously

you are suggesting

A: well, not that, but that a better system could be implemented on another model

B: no shit

6:40 PM anyways, i think that there are things worth salvaging even in the recent years of the cbc

which haven't been

like the show 'play'

like the different documentary programs on newsworld

6:41 PM most of which just show commercial garbage now

i mean,

obviously i know that the network is going to go in the direction its going to go in, anyways

because the execs

don't care

about preserving those things

have been unique about the cbc

but the reason, one might say,

6:42 PM that the cuts could be protested

has to do with the fact that the harper gov't

is bailing out canwest

etc

and the fact that we have a government which is willing to do that and not help the cbc

6:43 PM suggests the reality of a political environment which supports networks which draw their audience

from the mainstream and commercial

6:44 PM a political environment in which it makes sense for the cbc to become more commercial and lame and stupid because that seems to be the direction in which the mainstream audience wishes to go

and which therefore the body politic

will defend

in the name of being populistic

A: that's interesting

6:45 PM I would have said that it follows

B: populism kills democracy

period

A: that in the desire t promote competition

B: tyranny of the majority

A: they woudl do so

would do so

you know

6:46 PM I sometimes think that "canadian values" are defined by intellegentsia

and sometimes that they belong only to independent communities

6:47 PM B: yes, well,

A: and it leads me to think that

in some cases

B: i honestly think that this is a just reality...

for canadian values to stem from an elite class...

because this class of 'elites'

A: the people who incubate these values with their lives are not considered canadians in their values and consumption habits

B: provide the only opportunity for the defending of

minority opinion

6:48 PM which is the most interesting and vibrant source of cultural strength

in this country at least

almost every truly democratic political act, in my opinion, involved forsightedness...

in the sense that, for example,

6:49 PM years ago the majority of canadians would not have been in favour of a woman's right to choose

it was an ELITE opinion

held by those who had it

A: right

B: but in order to protect the rights of a minority

and to allow canada to maintain its reality

6:50 PM as a (at least in terms of legalities and human rights)

progressive nation

there needs to be an elite class

of individuals

who are able to fight for the rights of marginalized canadians

6:51 PM and take political action that is not in the least populistic

avoiding a tyranny of the majority

and, for example,

the idea that senators should be elected is trite...

6:52 PM senators should be there to represent the rights of canadians whos rights may otherwise fall to the wayside in light of the strength of the majority

and if canadians elected senators

they would be representing the majority of canadians

6:53 PM and therefore not fulfilling their obligation to defend the charter and use it to help disadvantaged canadians

so, for example,

6:54 PM pierre trudeau was certainly an intellectual elitist.... he was not an average canadian. he came from a position of privilege and used that position to open the country to a kind of (potential, not actualized) diversity....

and...

point being....

YES, canadian culture at its best

comes from an elite group of people

6:55 PM and this is how an independence in canadian thought can be preserved

and also how the rights of less privileged canadians can be defended

and the vital existence of our cultural institutions

A: it at least is constituted by an elite

6:56 PM B: of which the cbc has traditionally been one of those institutions..

i mean, really..

A: or, in some instances, a creative class

B: there most certainly is a connection between

A: this is nuance

B: the harper gov't

and the state of the cbc

A: and cultural erosion, yes

B: the cbc does not function in a vacume

A: but I think the cbc's problems are insidious

6:57 PM you can't liken it to

as I heard today

the closure of the museum of contemporary photography in ottawa

or even the fabled national portrait gallery which harper wanted to build in calgary or, apparently, not build at all

6:58 PM B: obviously the cbc are doing most of this to themselves,

yes,

but what i mean is

6:59 PM that if the elite class of culture-bearing canadians had not been forced to the sidelines by decades of cultural erosion... the cbc would not be justified in ruining what it used to be, in defaming its own spirit

7:00 PM and no, i don't think that it's the beacon of canadian culture or anything

or that it ever has been

but i mean

look at cbc archives

on the website

and the extent to which there used to be such a vastly more discernable canadian culture

7:01 PM which the cbc was on the pulse of

i lament the cuts not because i think that the cbc is doing a good job and shouldn't have to do this

i lament the cuts because the are indicative of an outward reality

7:02 PM A: indeed

above all

B: yes

A: the cbc

was

7:03 PM that unifying culture element

that maintain an edge of intelligence

you could argue

that because canadian culture is necessarily a feeble idea

7:04 PM a weakened cbc is a weakened canada

7:05 PM B: yes, we have lost our sense of order....

7:06 PM the sense that we were a more civilized and intellectual and ordered society than those worshipers of 'freedom,' the americans

our conservatism

and our socialism,

in days of old

gave canada its unifying strength, i do think

7:07 PM but now conservatism is modern and american

and a social democrat in canada

is the equilvalent of a liberal democrat

from the states

man, i'm such a weiner

Univeristy of Fredericton

There is indeed such a place. Based out suite 101, 371 Queen Street, the University of Fredericton's programme's are nonetheless administered entirely online. They seem particularly enthusiastic about their Executive Masters In Business Administration. An MBA is a popular degree, particularly for its networking opportunities, so this is understandable. But, you ask, this is a correspondence program. And, the minimum GPA is 2.5 our of 4. And, tuition for this programme is $24,000.

Their slogan, as you'll see, is "Accessible. Affordable. Accredited."
Yes, we were curious.

Land of the Bad People (2005)

Miramichi, NB.

this month's edition, hot off the press

Just thought I would post this post-produced news feed from the forerunners of grassroots media, volunteer radio-style.

This month's edition of Groundwire.

Molly's IV.

A friend I worked with in 2003 told me that she'd gone into Molly's one summer when the popcorn machine in the doorway was working. My friend had bought some popcorn, but had accidentally spilled a fair amount on the floor. Molly, irate, had made her sweep it up herself.

Woodlot trumps Woodside: Costco poll favours new location

An online poll initiated last week by Fredericton Mayor Brad Woodside and circulated on Facebook produced some unexpected results. Pushed primarily through a Facebook group set up to gauge public sentiment toward a Costco on the UNB woodlot, the poll initially favoured the proposed location. The group was overwhelmingly visited by consumers, most largely indifferent to economic or environmental impact. The poll then swung from an enormous lead to favour a Costco at another location. This seemed to test the patience of organizers, who wrote

It was taken down when it was brought to my attention that the same response was repeatly (sic) being selected. The poll registered more than 300 votes for "Not in the woodlot" in less than 15 minutes.

A response repeatedly selected is something that generally happens when people vote, Mayor Woodside.

But regardless, a mobilized opposition should do nothing to effect the validity of the result; the fact (we're speculating here) that the folks at Woodlot Watch may have turned the tables by soliciting votes on their mailing list should not nullify it. If the poll was technically flawed, it was probably being exploited by both sides. The City, it seems, thinks undesired results are not a results.

UNB Woodlot: Costco Poll

A poll that appears to have been informally organized by the city of Fredericton is circulating on Facebook.

A Facebook group called Costco for Fredericton is inviting feedback on its wall and forum and asks that people take time to vote here. It would appear that they're encouraging readers to vote yes to Costco.

We encourage you to vote no.
And, to do so as many times as you like.

Molly's III.

Sunday, supper time. I hadn’t slept, eaten or bathed since Friday morning. I’d spent all my money trying to be the same place as him last term. All he'd done in the week I'd been back at school was wave once. The past weekend had been spent in suspension. No hope, no lesson.

When I knew he wanted to see me I was ready in 20 minutes. I grabbed a copy of Slaughterhouse Five, which I had finished for the second time last week, because I knew it would fit in my coat pocket. I paid for a cab and was breathless on his doorstep because he said he and his friend were going to study and I could come hang out if I wanted. I sat self-conscious, the basement room smelling like raisins. Those boys always smelled like raisins.

Us three tripped into the hall. I’d forgotten a hat. I pulled my fox tail hood over my eyes and the snow fell warm like down. I tried to tell him about Billy Pilgrim, shouting against the falling insulation in the empty street. I started to just plod along behind the boys, wet gripping at my long pants.

We climbed the stairs to the upper level. Dusty rafters, dusty kites. Peter Gabriel was on the hi-fi. A small card was on one of the thrift-store bed-stands that served as dining tables: “There is a seating fee of $2. Please spare us the embarrassment of asking.”

I stared at the same page for an hour. He got up and put his jacket on without a word. He left me with his friend. I wouldn’t allow myself to ask what was going on. I saw that it was nothing.

On the way back to my dorm, I broke into his bedroom. I left a photo of us together, as a last gesture, and slept thickly that night. When he wrote the next day to confess his infatuation, my heart sank as it does when another part of life ceases to make sense. I refused to control what happened between us in the years after. For that reason, it is all my fault.

Train bridge

There, on the wood that spans the always surprisingly great river, it was tempting to look forward, and to look back, but most tempting to stay in suspension. Nostalgia and hope were poised above the water and ready to dive in and disappear, or maybe they were the supports, or the substructure. It is tempting to extend the analogy, but then to call it an analogy isn't even quite right, because, as I remember, the physical character of the bridge bore marks, scars, and memorials of other's hopes and memories and jokes. Its body retained so much wisdom and confusion and nonsense. It was that, not just an analogy of that.

And meanwhile this wood deserved to be danced upon: the sound was perfect, and it did not matter who passed, who was ahead or behind watching, because over the water everyone with a passionate spirit became just a little tipsy, even if the deep lead-coloured sobriety lurked beneath. Maybe it was sobriety that functioned as the substructure, keeping people from falling in.

The passersby, if they stopped midstream, might be tempted to forget their direction of movement and be drawn to a standstill by the colours instead. Even on a grey day the iron stood out brilliant in its revelation of fiery reds and oranges, the wood of softer browns, greens, and greys, and the water reflecting or even foreshadowing the mood of the sky, sometimes an uncanny blue, sometimes industrial grey. In one of the slowest places I've lived, change was always just beneath the bridge.

And I wonder, being now a fair distance from that place above the water, if it's still frozen in winter's grip, or if islands of ice are flowing towards the ocean. And what is it carrying with it?

Bridges are clichés, and like many clichés, they are still important: they are still powerful symbols of passage, of change, of forgetting; and yet they tend to stand (unless we burn or otherwise destroy them) longer than the life of an individual, longer than the life of a childhood, an adolescence, a university "career", an adult's mid-life crisis, or a an old woman's Sunday walks to the cathedral, one of the few times in the week she might breathe the fresh air and say hello to the younger ones, the ones who wouldn't initiate a greeting like that nowadays, but are willing to return one most of the time. It is an image of forgetting, but of our forgetting; and yet so often it bears the harsh wounds or gentle touches of its builders, its present and sometime users. Its body is shaped and aged, by water and by hands, and it holds what we may have forgotten, for a little while longer, at least, as long as someone is there to walk on it.

And yes, this is the sort of bridge that captures the eye because of its picturesque placement over a wide river between a still thickly wooded north and a colourful south side. It was the subject of one of my first photographs in Fredericton, and one of my last long walks. And for however many times it's been the subject of yet another tourist's (or resident's) photographic mediocrity, it is still a brilliant, present thing.

VI. Fredericton -- The Celestial City

Excerpt from Canadian Cities of Romance (McClelland & Stewart LTD, 1922) by Katherine Hale

AND some miles up the river one comes upon the capital of New Brunswick, Fredericton, lying all blue and gold in the sun, encircled by her hills and rivers. The traveller sees a peaceful yet thriving place, a cathedral city as well as a capital, the military centre of the Province, the seat of the Supreme Judiciary and of the Provincial University. He knows that it is also a centre of lumber trade, and a summer paradise on account of good roads, good fishing, and the joys of motor boating.

The historian harks us back to the days of Villebon, when the site of the present city was an Acadian settlement called St. Anne's Point. It was an Indian camping place as well, and down the St. John came the canoes of the Malicetes, piled with beaver skins. They came to trade with the gentlemen adventurers of France. Villebon, Governor of all Acadia, made the fort just opposite St. Anne's at the Nashwaak's mouth his citadel, in place of the abandoned Fort Royal. No one pretended to look for peace in those days. If it was not the Indians it was the New Englanders. Villebon had a certain 'old Ben Church' and his fleet of New England vessels to fight. But the Nashwaak guns were too many for them.
Generations later the Loyalists built St. John, and when New Brunswick was made a Province, the first Governor, Thomas Carleton, must have remembered the ancient prowess of St. Anne and her invincible fort, for he made Fredericton its capital. In a little building still standing near the present Queen's Hotel, known as the King's Provision Store, the General Assembly met for its third session in July 1788. Two years before the first sermon ever preached in the settlement was delivered here. It was later remarked by the Rev. Samuel Cooke, the Rector, that the inhabitants of Fredericton number four hundred, "of whom one hundred attend church, but many of ye common sort prefer to go fishing."

I do not know who first named Fredericton the Celestial City, but I think it must have been a poet, for the vision of the poet includes all that the historian knows and all that the traveller sees. That vivid background, Indian haunted and pierced by the conquering note of the French, sharpens his imagination, but he also feels the romance of his city of to-day.

The shimmering waters that surround it, rimmed by green hills, suggest to him certain celestial qualities. They imply a life of leisured intellectual pursuit, an unhurried happy state that seems to mark this community as a thing apart from the usual scramble of modern life.
In a charming account of his early home, written by Charles G.D. Roberts years ago and never before published, the well-known poet and short story writer describes the beautiful setting of Fredericton. "Drawn about her, the broad and gleaming crescent of the St. John, and opposite to her wharves the lovely tributary streams, the Nashwaak and the Nashwaaksis."

To look over the city from the cupola windows of the University buildings, across Queen's Park and the spires of the church steeples, piercing the elm tops half a mile away, is to see far. Beyond the house roofs there is the blue sweep of the river and the white villages of St. Mary's and Gibson, and further still the town of Marysville where the lumber king, Alexander Gibson, rules his domain. The blue river is often dotted with the sails of wood boats. To quote Mr. Roberts again, "Here and there puffs a neighbouring tug, towing an acre or two of dark rafts, or a gang of scows piled high with yellow deals. On all sides is evidence that Fredericton is the centre of the lumber industry . . . The scene is one that fills the eye with gracious colour and harmonious composition. In the Autumn when the trees flame out with amber and scarlet and aerial purple, when the air swims with a faint violet haze, the picture is one that neither the painter's brush nor the poet's pen can do more than dimly suggest..."

A gentle charm lies everywhere. I remember the overhanging elm trees, which it seems to me should be part of every Cathedral town. The Cathedral itself, though small and plain to the point of austerity, is one of the most perfect examples of Gothic architecture on the continent. Queen Street, with shops on one side and lawns and trees and river glimpses on the other, is equally typical of tranquil Fredericton. Speaking of the public buildings on Queen Street, Mr. Roberts refers to "the severe gray pile of the Barracks where the men drill behind high walls, that the glints of their scarlet may not bedazzle the passing demoiselles..."

It may be that only one out of every hundred of the travellers who tarry at the Port of St. John, knows the ancient lovely Capital of the Province, for Fredericton has not yet been discovered by the tourist. Charles G.D. Roberts says that is because "she has sat long aloof, Narcissus-like, admiring her own image in her splendid threshold of water, too loftily indifferent to proclaim her merits to the world."

Arresting Exodus

New Brunswick faces many long term economic problems, the greatest being changing demographics and the decline of the population. The average age of New Brunswickers has increased by five years in the last ten: from 35 to 40 between 1997 and 2007. The birth rate in New Brunswick is less than half of what it was 1960 and more than half of the babies born in New Brunswick leave the province permanently (a rate much higher among university graduates), while more than half of those immigrating to New Brunswick from other provinces and other parts of the world are retirees (GNB Department of Finance, 2008). Consensus among economists is that this trend will bankrupt the province by 2020 if nothing is done.

The result is a ticking time bomb, where New Brunswick will not have enough productive workers paying income taxes to pay for students and retirees. These demographics benefit most from health care and education, which together cost roughly 3 billion of New Brunswick's 6 billion provincial budget.

Retaining students with Post-Secondary is essential as they constitute 1/6th of the population while making up 40% of the tax base. For the $50,000 cost of educating a university graduate the government gets back about $500,000 in the form of income taxes.

There is no question that the disproportionately high levels of tuition fees and student debt in NB compared with the rest of Canada are driving university grads away to jurisdictions with higher income earning potential. Even premier Shawn Graham admitted this in his 2008 state of the province address.

Ireland, 15 years ago, was in the same demographic and economic tailspin that the Maritimes are currently experiencing. Now they're known as the Celtic Tiger for their astounding economic turnaround. How did they do it, you ask? By eliminating tuition fees, focusing on retaining university graduates and using this demographic as an engine for economic growth.

Eliminating tuition will make the province richer, but only if we bite the bullet and invest in retaining university grads in New Brunswick in order to turn their newly acquired skills and knowledge into productive capacity.

Chuck Fournier

Molly's II.

When we met she was living with someone else. We sat at the back beneath the dart board at a time when the corner was sentried by wing-back chairs. I asked her about her wig. We laughed and talked about politics and Molly's kitsch. At the end of the first hour, Molly sauntered by and, collecting our beer glasses, voided but for their foam, switched the record player on. There was something, after the accustomed silence, about the way we stared at each other.
Four months later we parted ways, the summer wasted on mattresses and impossible expectations.

V. The Port of Saint John

Excerpt from Canadian Cities of Romance (McClelland & Stewart LTD, 1922) by Katherine Hale

STEEP streets and the ringing of church bells; the distant sea; sunset, and the lovely irregular lines of masts and spars and rigging; the view of a hazy hill topped by a martello tower;–these are some of my pictures of St. John.

An old town long ago linked by trade relations with the West Indies, a port filled with foreign sailors, it contains bales of romance never yet unpacked. I remember crossing Queen Square on a fine spring morning with a lover and historian of his city who spoke not of beauty spots, but of old buildings. "I could show you some shacks, hardly taverns, just shacks, where rum was stored and barrels were opened; and the tales of far lands that came in with the cargoes, the songs, the gestures of the South, were all a part of the old days of St. John."

When this city plays the pageant of her past she will have nearly every romantic element of the early days to draw from. As she is the oldest incorporated city in British North America such pictures mean history. Four years before Quebec was founded, Champlain cast anchor at the mouth of the river and christened the region in honour of the Saint whose day it was. That was on the 24th of June, 1604. Before that the site was known to the prehistoric peoples. The Micmacs and the Malicetes loved it; 'Glooscap,' greatest of their demi-gods, had favoured it. Their descendants wondered as they saw a white man plant the golden lilies of France.

The next picture has to do with the Lady of St. John. Her husband, Sieur La Tour, who had taken a desirable site for his French fort, was a friend of Louis XIV. Lady La Tour was a Huguenot and her dream was to found a colony. D'Aunay Charnisay, an enemy, opened a campaign against them. La Tour slipped away to Boston for help. Charnisay entered the Fort. And then occurred the heroic defense by Madame La Tour, who pitted all her slender resources against the enemy, only to meet with tragedy. Her garrison was hanged, and the lady herself died a few weeks following her husband's return. Her dream lives on in a poem by Whittier and a story by Harriet Chesney. La Tour married his rival's widow, and for 'diplomatic reasons' became a British subject...

To-day there is not a great deal in the outward aspect of the place to remind one of a romantic past. St. John is sufficiently picturesque in herself, and beautiful enough in natural surroundings to make one fully content with the present. Still at the foot of Middle Street, in West St. John, may be seen the remains of earth works, marking the site of Fort La Tour erected in 1631. But, alas, the Electric Light Station now stands on the site of the old French Burial Ground where lay Governor Villebon and the heroic Lady La Tour. Indeed the city does not even possess a statue in honour of the latter. Everyone goes to see the old Burial Ground lying near King Square, once on the outskirts of the town and still tree guarded, where many of the founders of St. John are buried. The Court House is an elderly and dignified building that fortunately escaped the fire of 1877 which destroyed two-thirds of the city...

As remembrance the permanent pictures of St. John have to do with her unique setting. She can transport you, in a morning's drive through Rockwood Park, to Scottish hills and gemlike lakes. An hour later you are on the Atlantic seaboard, facing dancing waves, or else black rocks and tawny sands if the tide is out. The fascination of her rivers is inexhaustible. The 'Reversing Falls' is of course one of the wonders of the world, and any guide book will explain the action and reaction of the swirling waters in the winding gorge. But to be interesting it should remain a mystery. I remember two great bridges, shelter houses and rainy weather. I remember that waiting for the tide, staring at red mud where I had imagined glittering waters, seemed more awesome than the spectacle itself, and the rocks, like those of Niagara, more wonderful than the waters.

Molly's

The perfect place to plot the revolution, Molly's Coffee House on Queen street in Fredericton is a cabinet of curiosities and haven for artists, writers, bridge players, outsiders and first-daters. It is an opium den in your grandmother's basement. It is the place you read How to Win an Argument and were censured for putting your feet on the coffee table. It is the place you went three nights in succession and were I.D.'d each time.
This photo, and those that will follow, were shot at Molly's by Marlo Burks. We'll continue to post them throughout the month.
If you'd like to contribute a photo or Molly's memory, do: naked.east.the@gmail.com