Ever have something in your head that you keep repeating over and over to make sure you don’t forget it? That was me yesterday in preparation for this Wrap.
Author Brigitte Pellerin (Link) posted yesterday to their Facebook this:
“Tradition – Peer pressure from dead people.” – unknown
All yesterday, and up until I typed this in just now, it’s been running through my head. I could have screen captured it, or written it down on a piece of paper. Instead I stubbornly refused to do that, instead fighting to remember what the saying was. When I did write it above, I then had to check it against Brigitte’s original post to make sure I got it right. So to avoid the work, I kicked the can down the road, fought to remember the can, then did more work when it was time to write. No one can claim efficiency in my thought or writing processes.
Why this saying stuck in my head is I have been thinking a lot lately about how we are tied up by looking back. The fear of changing something relates a lot to the fear of getting in shit for doing something “not like you’ve always done it.” I hear this a lot working for a weekly newspaper. Try to take a photo differently of the same thing you’ve covered year-after-year and hear “that’s not how XYZ always did it.”
This goes for sports too. When I go to cover a hockey game, I move around; take photos from different places; different angles; different elevations. I don’t want my photos to all feel like they were taken from one place, one angle, like you didn’t do the work. I also don’t over-saturate the crap out of my photos like a one-trick pony. But some don’t like my take on this.
There’s a lot of traditions we hold on to, which anchor us. Christmas always has a turkey. I can only stomach turkey a couple times a year. Maybe a roasted turkey in June is better? Some year, I’d love to have Chinese food on Christmas Day on year.
Like many people, I was shaking my head listening to the testimony of the big giant heads of the three big grocery chains who testified before the House of Commons committee about the record grocery profits and high inflation. He said that a $25 basket of groceries means a $1 profit for the corporation. Does Galen Weston shop in his own stores? A basket of groceries costs a lot more than $25. And if he’s making $4 on $100 in groceries, that’s a four per cent profit (not mark up) which is double what American chains make with far more shoppers than in Canada. Weston et al seem intent on killing the golden goose with high prices. I call BS on the grocery stores, but also suppliers and even producers like the supply management cartels. Note, I write this having just gotten back from the grocery store for our weekly shop. Now that a significant amount of money has been lifted from my wallet, I can walk a little easier for the next week, and continue writing.
What is up with radio news? I listened to the news stations out of Ottawa today. There’s three: CBC Radio One, 580 CFRA, and CityNEWS (1310AM). All were pulling nearly wall-to-wall coverage of the head of OC Transpo possibly leaving to go elsewhere. Must be a slow news day. I’d think with less reporters thanks to corporate greed cutbacks, that there’s plenty of diverse stories to cover with little competition. I think wrong.
And on the topic of corporate greed cutbacks, GlobalTV/Corus really pulled a shitty one. Last week, it axed a bunch of journalists including Rachel Gilmore. Gilmore has taken a lot of abuse online in the last 12-13 months. She covered the unlawful occupation of the downtown Ottawa area by trucker convoys and other unhappy people in 2022. During and since then she has been harassed online. It’s disgusting that one person would do that to another, but that’s what happened. After Gilmore got the axe (good job Global/Corus), she shared a message that someone let her know that people are posting her information for escort ads. That is fucking disgusting. If you don’t like a person’s reporting, fine. But resorting to online hate, and now this shit, is low. Keyboard warrior, mouth breathers, who still live in their parents basements pull this shit.
Global/Corus, in fine fashion, do nothing because… well… it’s Corus. I am an ex-Corus person who got downsized years ago. Not bitter anymore. But that doesn’t mean I can’t call out people or companies for not doing right by others. Even though Corus downsized Gilmore, they should offer her some help (security, counselling) considering she was working for that company when the issues started.
What I’m reading (actually it’s re-reading): The Little Book of Hygge by Meik Wiking.
That’s all for now. Hockey tonight, weekend off, scramble to write on Monday. Situation normal.
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