Separatist Victory

Tomorrow is the Alberta 'referendumb' I wrote about previously. It is an exercise in pandering, gaslighting and excretable leadership; a $136M poll and unpopularity contest designed to distract from the CorruptCare scandal, the rebellion within Danielle Smith's caucus and a barely-msaked and racist attempt to scapegoat current terrible conditions on immigrants (that the premier explicitly requested) instead of on UCP mismanagement. 

Our household (and most of the people we know) requested special ballots that we mailed in and confirmed receipt or over a week ago, but the advance polls are busy. Elections Alberta at one point said that if the pace continued from peak, we could be looking at maybe 80% participation, but liekly clsoer to 70%. Given that the 2023 provincial election didn't reach 61%, this is pretty impressive for our generally apathetic province. 

Polling numbers for the separacists (sic) have never looked great, and the rallies held by both them and the Forever Canadian group heavily favoured the "remain in Canada" side. 

The disheartening thought now is the repeated message that the Alberta Independence movement is unlikely to go away, even if they do miserably in this nonsensical "vote on a chance to vote" referendum. Their hopes at this point seem to hinge on vaguely disgruntled folks who have bought into their misinformation and who do not want to separate, but agree that "sending Ottawa a message" could have some use.

Yeah, it will be extremely useful to the Manifest Destiny knows in the U.S., agitators in Russia and greedy oligarchs and tech bros eager to plunder Alberta resources in an even more corporate-friendly and deregulated Alberta. 

But the indefatigability of the seppies, normally a cherished characteristic, is wholly frustrating in this context. As long as separatism is allowed (or in the case of the UCP, a party currently teeming with separatists, encouraged) to fester, uncertainty will dominate. Investors are unlikely to bring money or business into the province. Doctors, healthcare workers and teachers are likely to look elsewhere for work.

But their selfishness and irrationality ensure the separatists care not a whit for these consequences so long as their pipe dream of independence from Ottawa is indulged. And to that end, I fully expect that whenever the final vote is tallied (by hand, because the conspiracy-addled luddites in the UCP banned tabulation machines) and regardless of how damaging the vote may or may not be for them, they are going to declare victory anyways.

My predictions are:

Anything less than the 16% polling for Alberta independence earlier this year will be hailed as "a moral victory in the face of biased media coverage and a flawed referendum question and process."

Results of 16-20% pro-separatism will be characterized as "an upswell that we can capitalize on next time when we are not held back by current UCP leadership" (brrr).

And heaven forbid, if there is a turnout collapse tomorrow and they get 21-33% support for a binding referendum on some future date, they will be ecstatic.

Please note that no scenario at this point foresees the seppies getting more than 1 in 3 votes regardless of other factors. As a result, there is no likelihood of a majority and a future binding referendum that has the potential to actually break up Confederation and set up years of legal wrangling over the treaty implications with Alberta First Nations.

So what happens then? It is tough - no, impossible -to say with any certainty since we are already in uncharted territory. This nonsense should never have been allowed to progress this far. 

In a perfect world, the UCP would clean house, driving the seppies out of caucus, making them sit as independents until they could form a legit separatist party and field a slate of candidates. It turns out compromising a supposedly loyalist, federalist party from within is a much easier say to set the tone for separation, as opposed to the way, say, the Parti Quebecois had to do it. (And this was all enabled by former premier Jason Kenney by the way, reuniting the fractured small-c conservatives of the Progressive Conservatives and "lake of fire" Wild Rose Party, and who was chased out of the party he created for not sufficiently pandering to the Christian Nationalist/ independence minded elements.)

But Premier Danielle Smith has a tiger by the tail. She is beholden to two major stakeholders now: the separacists and ChristoFascists who voted in her into the premier's seat on the narrowest of mandates (and only after six interminable rounds of balloting), and the oil and gas companies who fund the party and her own election hopes. Small c-conservatives who don't actually believe trans folk are destroying society and just want to pay less taxes and see a smaller government? They don't really have much of a forum. 

And everyone else in Alberta who hates the Premier's use of the notwithstanding clause to put striking teachers back to work? Who think carving up a world-recognized public health system into four separate branches with its own leadership is completely unsound? Who resent all the clawbacks and damage done to disabled and severely handicapped Albertans? Who are still waiting for any kind of investigation or inquiry into CorruptCare and the party's relationship with sketchy businessman Sam Mraiche?

Yeah, they have even less of a voice. 

There is a non-zero chance of Dani getting turfed by her own party, the way almost every Tory leader meets their end in Alberta, but the rest of us won't get a chance to vote on Alberta's future until sometime next year. 

Or maybe the referendumb is what finally splits a divided party held together with baling twine and desperation as opposed to jointly held policies and ideals. One can but hope!

But! One problem at a time, eh? Let's sort out this separatist nonsense first. When they don't quit, maybe they will end up hanging around the neck of the UCP, the worst thing to hit Alberta since the damned Spanish Flu, and give the NDP a fighting chance at deposing them. 

I don't how you win against a side that refuses to acknowldge defeat, but establishing a rejection of separatism in tomorrow's referendum will be a good start, regardless.

The Evolution of Campsgiving

Next year will be the tenth anniversary of our family (in whole or in part) travelling to Jasper in September or October for a visit to Miette Hot Springs. We haven't gone every year, and even when we've gone, we haven't always camped (usually due to trailer mishaps of one kind or another). But I wonder if this might be our last year out there with Bride of Frankentrailer.

After having our shelter destroyed by high winds last year, and the Jasper forecast not only being cold but also wet (at one point including the possibility of up to 20 cm of snow!), we still elected to camp, but chose not to do any cooking.

I was a bit heartbroken by this, as I adore cooking for my familywhen we camp, breakfast in particular. French toast is the breakfast of choice, and I had back bacon ready to go. For supper, we intended to do the same savory s'mores Audrey and I made when in Blue River this summer.

But in addition to the challenges of cooking in cold weather, it is not particularly pleasant to eat outdoor when it is below zero and windy, and we have never allowed food in the trailer dince we camp in bear country so often. So I agreed it was just impractical this go-round and we resolved to eat out instead. This also made packing the trailer itself unnecessary, as mostly kitchen stuff and camp chairs go in there.

Night one was just around freezing, and we only got the trailer fully set-up by about 10:45 pm. The new space heater has a timer setting, so we went to sleep cozy and woke up cool but not frozen.

It turns out The Inn Grill on Geikie street has a breakfast buffet from 7-10 am and we glided in at 9:45 for a big plate of scrambled eggs (two styles), bacon, sausage, french toast and hash browns, in additn to fruit, yogurt and oatmeal. It is tough to imagine a better deal for $22 a plate!

After breakfast we perused a few of the shops and the new indigenous art park next to the visitor's centre., then made our way up to Miette Hot Springs. 

There was next to no snow in Jasper or Wapiti townsite, but the trees along Miette Road were laden with wet, heavy snow, some of the smaller ones bent right over like the fellow on Led Zeppelin IV. The road itself was relatively clear, either from being plowed or just perhaps overrun with traffic. Thankfully we didn't have to wait to enter the pool, as we have in past years.

Wapiti campground, mostly barren since the 2024 wildfires

After an hour's delightful soak, while a light snow deposited flakes on our heads and eyelashes, we headed back to town for dinner at Mad Grizzly Bistro and Bar. A delightful Asian-inspired, fusion-style menu with local ingredients reflected in bison, elk and boar, they also have a very decent cocktail selection and the service wa great.

Spotted on our way to dinner, not on the menu...

Back at Wapiti, there were a handful of campfires, but vey few groups clustered around them as itwas already below freezing. We curled up in the Bride and watched The Blues Brothers on my iPad, but for whatever reason could not get warm - the space heater struggled to heat the space inside, despite the blankets and coats we piled on top of ourselves. Maybe the wind gusts we kept hearing and feeling just siphoned the jeat aay from the canvas? 

After a brief walk to the (blessedly heated) washrooms, we crawled into our sleeping bags, and the space heater helped maintain enough of an equilibrium that we woke up to a trailer that was cool, not freezing.

By this point, however, we had already agreed it would be fun to spend next Campsgiving in one of the red cabins or bungalows next to the hot springs instead. Less driving around, multiple dips in the pool and I can cook our meals again!

And who knows how many trips the Bride has left in her before we upgrade or she gives up the ghost (like the original Frankentrailer did in 2018)?

But at any rate, Thanksgiving is a great time to express gratitude for a family still willing (and available!) for small adventures like sleeping outdoors during the season's first snow in the Rockies!

More Light But Less Bright - Lanterns, Reviewed

Spoiler-free, as always!

Given that modern Green Lantern comics are a rollicking space opera featuring the titular space cop using their immensely powerful ring to fight menaces even more terrifying than the ones we have to deal with IRL on Earth, such as an entire spectrum of power ring corps on an emotional spectrum, it is not too surprising that a lot of comic fans have decried HBO's more grounded Lanterns series, some calling it a travesty for the way it depicts one of its two characters: the original Silver Age GL, Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler).

And you know what? Fair enough. If you tuned into the first live action series expecting a sci-fi buddy comedy in space, you were bound to be disappointed. If you were looking for a show picking up where animated predecessors like Justice League or Green Lantern, where the Hal and his traine/ replacement John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) have a barely masked antagonissm towards each other, you were bound to be a little bit put off. 

Or if you were anticipating a focus on adventure and wer then forced to 'settle' for an unsettling, time-jumping procedural featuring a deductive infiltrator investigation and murder mystery, one of which takes more than a decade to resolve, your disappointment makes sense to me. I see you.

I don't see you closely or super clearly though, because I really liked Lanterns.

I will not outline much of the plot becuase dang, they take their time playing this one out, and they pack a few great twists along the way, but I feel they tied things up, both logically and emotionally by the eighth episode and season finale.

They answer some great lore-type questions along the way, too, like "who is the real Green Lantern of sector 2814?" and "wait, how can there be more than one?", but that feels almost incidental.

The real story is about personal growth and courage, and the role fear has to play in that. As well as the role race has to play in fear. This prespective caused more than a few people to step off the fan train, calling the series woke and saying race politics has no place in a superhero adaptation.

This, despite the fact that when the character debuted in 1972, he was clearly an anti-authority figure committed to black empowerment, not unlike the Black Panther Party spokespeople of the day. And Neal Adams even had to fight to give John Stewart a darker skin tone than black characters had up until that point.

Taking a lot of cues from HBO's True Detective series in terms of tone and pacing, there is more than enough galactic scale and science-fiction shenanigans to differentiate it from other shows, even if they are a bit selective about overtly using the power ring and it's constructs a little sparingly. Chandler's arrogant crusty, worlde-weary test-pilot superhero has been critiqued as being too much of an asshole, but two things about that:

1) a lot of fighter jocks, especially test pilots, will tell you that ego is at least as big a part of their makeup as willpower (the core requisite of being a Green Lantern) and a lot of people will register that level of confidence as arrogance and yeah, potentially assholery.

2) there are times when John Stewart is every bit as much an asshole as Hal, and Pierre carries off the balance of fearlessness, frustration and ambition with considerable aplomb.

To tell you much more runs the risks of spoilers, which I will not do, so I will say this: Lanterns also has a similar feel to producer Damon Lindelof's brilliant Watchmen (2019) series, if you have any interest in a mature approach to questions like how do we determine the character of people carrying unimaginable power as well as what sort of tasks could challenge such individuals, then don't listen to the haters, many of whom are misguided and simple, but some of which are racist and oughta know better. 

Even if you are not that big on superheroes at the moment, check out Lanterns quickly before they announce season two and recap the finale in the headline or something else daft, and let me know what you think of it.

The contrast of darkness and light might entrance you, as it has me.