Limes with Orange

Do you live in a swing riding?

There are 65 "swing ridings" in Canada, ridings where the race between the Conservative and a non-Conservative candidate are extremely close. Voters in these ridings have the capacity to dramatically shift the outcome of the election by being strategic about who they vote for.

To find out if you live in a swing riding, you can go to VoteForEnvironment.ca and enter your postal code in the handy box on the side.

I would, however, like to comment on what the website will say if you live in a riding considered "safe" for a non-Conservative candidate. Just because it was "safe" previously, don't assume it's still safe. That non-Conservative incumbent still needs to be voted back into office on October 14. Remember, every single vote counts.

Labels: politics

I found this when I was visiting AnyoneButHarper.ca:


I also wanted to take a moment to remind people that voting for a candidate who doesn't win, is NOT a wasted vote. EVERY VOTE for a party gives them up to $8 of federal funding between elections, regardless of whether they win or not. These tax dollars are offered to parties upon receiving 2% of the popular vote. All 5 major parties -- Conservatives, Liberals, New Democrats, Bloc Québécois and the Green Party -- receive federal funding.

So even if you live in a Conservative stronghold like Calgary (which I do) it is ABSOLUTELY WORTHWHILE to vote for the party that you really support. Even voting for a candidate who does not belong to one of those 5 parties counts. It's a protest vote. You're showing the government that you don't support them (and hopefully showing them the ideas that you do support). NO VOTE IS WASTED. So please vote on October 14!

(If you have any questions about the candidates or polling stations in your riding, head over to Elections Canada.)

Labels: harper bashing, politics

I'm currently watching the presidential debate and I'm moved to ask...

Is McCain really that dense? Or is he simply willfully misunderstanding everything that Obama says? Because he keeps repeating his misrepresentations of what Obama is saying and it's pissing me off. I believe it's the latter, which makes it no better really. Neither scenario makes me comfortable with the possibility that this idiot man might become president.

Labels: politics, rant

Okay, I know I said I was trying to avoid talking about politics right now because it's just so frustrating, but...

Stephen Harper is trying to tell us in his content-free TV ads that "it's a time for certainty," not for the actual concrete proposals that other leaders such as Dion, Layton and May are putting forward. Well, Mr. Harper, one of the few things that I am completely certain about in this election is that you have spent the past two years destroying this country. But I agree with you about one thing: it IS a time for certainty. The certainty of electing somebody who can put this country back together. And I am CERTAIN that leader is not you, Mr. Harper.

P.S. "Ordinary people" do care about the arts! (Check out this article by Margaret Atwood that I posted on Weirdgrrl's Words.)

P.P.S. This post has made me want to add a new label to my blog. Now, there won't just be a "bush bashing" label, a brand new "harper bashing" label has just been added to keep it company.

Labels: harper bashing, politics

I've been watching the audition shows for the Canadian version of So You Think You Can Dance, because I got quite caught up in the American version this summer (and if Katee couldn't win it all, I'm glad the title went to Joshua). I was impressed that the show actually included some world dance this season, in the form of Bollywood routines and a Russian trepak with its impressive kazotskys. I hope they continue that concept in the Canadian version but expand on it... after all, we have some fabulous "world dance" right here in North America.

There's a movement in Native American dance that is taking off at the moment: dancers are combining traditional Indigenous dance practices with contemporary techniques and creating an exciting fusion of form. I would LOVE to see someone like Santee Smith of Kaha:wi Dance Theatre on the show as a guest dancer or guest choreographer. (Speaking of guest choreographers... I thought Sonya was a fabulously fierce addition to the SYTYCD arsenal.) I also hope to see some Celtic flavour included in some of the routines. This is Canada, after all, and whether you're from the Maritimes or you're Métis, Highland dance and jigging are part of the Canadian identity as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, I certainly hope that the show's producers here in Canada will continue to expand on the tradition started by their American counterparts this season and incorporate more world dance into the So You Think You Can Dance repertoire.

Labels: dancing, pop culture, tv

Well, I've decided to utilize my new feature already... and I've also decided to distinguish between "Things That Make You Go Ha!" (strange but funny) and "Things That Make You Go Huh?" (stuff that doesn't make sense to me). So this one falls in the latter category:

If the Calgary International Film Festival has a program called "Best of Alberta Shorts," why do they only select films that have never actually been exhibited within Alberta? Does that make sense to anybody? Isn't the "best of" usually referring to the best of things that have proven themselves already?

Labels: film, odds and ends

From now on, I won't be updating "Things That Make You Go Huh?" That blog was really set up for a trial of Wordpress but I've obviously decided to stick with Blogger, so I don't need it anymore. Perhaps I'll use that blog title as a regular feature on "Limes with Orange" instead. I've also decided to let "Music Musings" go... "Limes with Orange" is a perfectly good place for me to talk about all pop culture stuff, including music. "Inner Game Geek" will continue because that really is a niche blog with posts that most people who read my other blogs would have no interest in. I doubt that my film blog on MySpace will continue, because I've just become to busy trying to BE a filmmaker to continue reporting on my development as a filmmaker. I will, however, continue to update "Coda in G Minor" for as long as that film is on the festival circuit.

So my main blogs will be "Limes with Orange" and "Weirdgrrl's Words." "Limes" will be for personal stories, rants, political jokes, cartoons, pop culture and other random odds and ends. I'm trying to not comment on politics at the moment, even though there are two very important elections coming up. But, quite frankly, the choices alternately depress me, anger me, or make me worried about the future Canada, our next-door neighbours and the rest of the world. In my utopia, Bob Rae would be the leader of the Liberal Party and become the next Prime Minister of Canada and Hilary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee (at least for VP!) and become the next President of the United States. Obviously, neither of those scenarios are real world options, so I'm keeping the rest of my political disappointments to myself. (But if I lose control and feel the need to rant about politics, "Limes with Orange" will be the blog for that rant.)

"Words" will be for writing, reading and editing related posts, art festivals and events, poetry, inspiration, design and anything else that seems relevant to that world. I have also added a blog feed for "Limes with Orange" to the sidebar of "Weirdgrrl's Words," so you can find out on that blog if I've updated this one. Plus I've included a box to announce upcoming screenings of my short films. So that's the one-stop spot to find out what's going on in my life.

Labels: blogging, politics

I decided to post this here, since the news has been pretty wishy washy about the role of the Conservative government in the listeriosis outbreak. And the Conservatives are actually claiming that they haven't made food inspection cuts, they've just handed over most of the inspection process to the food industry itself. Um... (a) If you've handed over responsibility to someone else for something, one would assume that means you're spending less on it. So that means there HAVE been cuts. And (b) industry regulating itself ALWAYS works so well.

So here's an article that I found interesting. Yes, it's from the Liberal Party but, out of everything I've seen and read about the outbreak, this makes a heck of a lot of sense to me...

The Conservative government continues to show a blatant disregard for Canadians with its secrecy and unaccountability around the listeriosis crisis, Liberal Public Health Critic Carolyn Bennett said this week.

"Our warnings last week that cuts to critical food inspections will endanger the health and safety of Canadians have proven to be valid," said Dr. Bennett.

"First it was a leaked Treasury Board document revealing the Conservatives' secret plans to make cuts at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and now it's the head of the union that represents food inspectors telling us that some of these cuts have already taken place. And now we have had multiple deaths linked to this tainted meat crisis.

"The death toll continues to rise and people continue to be hospitalized from tainted meat, and yet the Conservative government is misleading Canadians about its plan to abandon critical food safety inspections. This government's cavalier attitude towards Canadians' health is astonishing," she said. "Food inspectors should be inspecting food, not paper."

Read the full article...

Labels: health, politics

I stumbled upon another Battlestar Galactica personality quiz. My last BSG quiz said I was Laura Roslin, which I was certainly pleased with. But I'm equally pleased with my result from this latest quiz:

Labels: battlestar galactica, quizzes

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was up at the arts festival in Inuvik in July. My dad's band Razzamajazz was doing a couple of blues workshops at the festival. And I had a chance to screen "Coda in G Minor" and "Persephone" alongside a couple of short films of my dad's and one that they made during their film workshop last year. But the highlight of the festival had to be the visual art. My two favourite artists were Jennifer Walden (no website that I could find) and Gilad (Gadi) Katz. Unfortunately, the piece that I coveted by Jennifer was out of my price range and sold already anyway, but here's a photo:


The piece that was thankfully in my price range was a print by Gadi entitled "Cuts":


Call me crazy, but this print makes me think of my film "Persephone" so I just had to have it. And maybe someday I'll be able to afford one of Jennifer's paintings and hopefully, when that day comes, she'll have another one that leaps off of the wall at me the way this raven in flight did.

Another artist that caught my attention was Nicole Bauberger and her 100 dresses series. I contemplated buying some of her small paintings, but felt that it would be better to have a grouping of three rather than just a single painting for a series like this. But, again, most of the paintings that I was drawn to were already sold. I did ask her if she had thought about publishing a book of her 100 dresses series (of which she's done eight series so far and is scheduled to do two or three more, so that will be over 1000 dress paintings in all!). I hope she actually considers the book idea because I, for one, would love to buy it. She hasn't posted the Inuvik 100 Dresses on her site yet, but here are a couple of examples of paintings from previous 100 dresses projects:


I also met basket maker Jennifer Bowen who turns out to be a filmmaker as well. I gather the filmmaking was put on hold while her children were young (she's married to filmmaker and musician Dennis Allen), but she seems to be putting a project together for the near future. I'll be very interested to find out what that project will be.

Labels: art and photography