Jun

2018

When writers don’t know what to write about

If you’ve ever wondered what writers write about when they don’t know what to write about, that incident might give you a clue.

We retreat into the commonplace world, the world we actually know about from personal experience, and hope to connect with larger events.

The problem is not having nothing to write about. The problem is having too much to write about.

Take this last week, for example.

Boatloads of refugees get sent back to sea in the Mediterranean, by nations unwilling to assume responsibility for disasters that they didn’t create, while the nations that caused the problems stay a comfortable distance away.

Volcanoes demonstrate that they can have different personalities. The one in Hawaii is relatively benign – dangerous, but not explosive. The one in Guatemala erupts explosively, searing its victims in hot ash and gases. The one in Washington… well, enough said.

The G-7 summit in Quebec, that became the G-6 summit after Russia got kicked out, became the G-5 summit when everyone was out of step except one man.

And then the world’s two most unpredictable national leaders met in Singapore, to hatch a vague commitment to make the world safer.

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Categories: Sharp Edges

Tags: Trump, Trudeau, Kim Jong-Un, Singapore, haircuts, barbers

13

Jun

2018

Work together for the good of all

Author: Jim Taylor

Being polite isn’t always the best policy.

I’m not suggesting that it’s good to be rude, harsh, contemptuous, or difficult. Not at all. But if being polite, being nice, gets in the way of true cooperation, social manners may need to take second place.

I doubt if my father ever said an angry word to another human. He was the kind of person who tried to see the best in everyone. Who would never push his way to the front of a line. Who always let someone else go through the door first.

But there were occasions when the usual rules of courtesy didn’t work. Entering Lion's Gas Bridge in Vancouver, for example, where eight lanes of traffic have to merge into two,

or sometimes into one.

On one occasion, though, my father couldn’t break the habit of being polite. When it was his turn to mesh, he gestured to the car on his left to go ahead.

The other driver jammed on her brakes, expecting my father to slip into his slot.

Dad waited for her.

Both cars came to a standstill, waiting for the other to make the first move.

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Categories: Soft Edges

Tags: courtesy, Lions Gate Bridge, merge, mesh, traffic

10

Jun

2018

We could have made flooding worse

Author: Jim Taylor

The flood danger seems to have passed, at least for this year. Okanagan Lake has peaked. Grand Forks is drying out. A half million people in the lower Fraser Valley, who had been bracing for the worst flooding since 1948, can relax.

But things could have been worse -- much worse -- if a couple of political ploys in history had been carried through.

The difficulty, you see, is that God -- or plate tectonics, if you prefer -- didn’t design the land west of the Rocky Mountains very efficiently. Highways, railways, and lines of communication run east/west. But the valleys and rivers mostly run north/south.

Only the Fraser and Skeena river systems lie entirely within B.C. Every other major river ignores national boundaries. Especially the Columbia.

In negotiating the Columbia River Treaty, General MacNaughton brought in diversion as a bargaining chip. Unless the Americans agreed to a fair deal for Canada, MacNaughton threatened, Canada could divert the Columbia into the Fraser, leaving three U.S. states high and very dry.

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Categories: Sharp Edges

Tags: floods, Columbia River, Columbia River Treaty, McNaughton, Kootenay, Creston, Canal Flats

6

Jun

2018

Friendships need maintenance too

Author: Jim Taylor

Last week, I attended my high school class reunion – 64 years after graduation. We didn’t bother with reunions for a long time. Perhaps we were too busy carving out careers for ourselves. Or rearing children. Or paying off mortgages.

We had our first reunion – if I remember correctly – in 2012, a multi-class reunion with several grades above and below us. We enjoyed that occasion enough that we have had a class reunion every two years since.

I’ve noticed something about the nature of our conversations.

The first couple of times, we talked about the old days. This time, though, the talk wasn’t as much about the distant past, but about current concerns. About how our lives are changing. About downsizing into smaller housing that requires less care. Into apartments or condominiums. About getting rid of a lifetime of accumulation that our children and grandchildren don’t need, don’t want, and won’t know what to do with anyway.

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Categories: Sharp Edges

Tags: reunions, friendships

3

Jun

2018

Not much hope for common sense

Author: Jim Taylor

John Horgan and Rachel Notley, look what you’ve started!

Once, you were the kiddies having a spat in the sandbox. Horgan blocks Notley’s pipeline; Notley blocks B.C.’s wines. You hit me; I hit you back.

More recently, the sandbox has become the law courts. As an opinion piece in the Vancouver Sunnoted earlier this week, Horgan could have lawyers arguing two different sides of the same coin, in two side-by-side courtrooms. In one courtroom, that a province has a legal and constitutional right to restrict the shipment of petroleum products; next door, that a province does NOT have the right to restrict shipment of petroleum products.

But now the sandbox squabbling has escalated.

The laughing-stock president in the White House just dumped a big bucket of sand on Canada -- and on Mexico, though the Canadian media have largely ignored Mexico. Steel and aluminum imports into the United States are now subject to hefty tariffs.

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Categories: Sharp Edges

Tags: pipelines, courts, Horgan, Notley, tariffs, steel. aluminum, maple syrup

Jim Taylor's Columns - 'Soft Edges' and 'Sharp Edges'

When writers don’t know what to write about

Work together for the good of all

We could have made flooding worse

Friendships need maintenance too

Not much hope for common sense

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