Thoughts on culture, education, and having been a Canadian in the US

This recent speech by Al Gore is great and speaks to a lot of the questions I’ve been asking myself as I look at American “news” on television and contrast it to what one sees on Canadian TV, the CBC in particular.

Here’s some of what Gore said:

Clearly, the purpose of television news is no longer to inform the American people or serve the public interest. It is to “glue eyeballs to the screen” in order to build ratings and sell advertising. If you have any doubt, just look at what’s on: The Robert Blake trial. The Laci Peterson tragedy. The Michael Jackson trial. The Runaway Bride. The search in Aruba. The latest twist in various celebrity couplings, and on and on and on.

And more importantly, notice what is not on: the global climate crisis, the nation’s fiscal catastrophe, the hollowing out of America’s industrial base, and a long list of other serious public questions that need to be addressed by the American people.

[. . .] This was the point made by Jon Stewart, the brilliant host of “The Daily Show,” when he visited CNN’s “Crossfire”: there should be a distinction between news and entertainment.

And it really matters because the subjugation of news by entertainment seriously harms our democracy: it leads to dysfunctional journalism that fails to inform the people. And when the people are not informed, they cannot hold government accountable when it is incompetent, corrupt, or both.

It’s hard to read something like this without asking oneself again why this man is not the President today. Ok, it is a bit long-winded at times, but still very insightful. I wonder if he would have been able to make these same arguments while serving in office, or if his role in the private sector today has given him a newfound freedom of speech.

A great story in yesterday’s Globe and Mail about the Battle of Alberta. Roy MacGregor really captures the heart of this rivalry between the Edmonton Oilers and the Calgary Flames. It definitely took me back…. Cool to see the battle entering the blogosphere, too

Of course, this being the morning after the opening night of the NHL season, it behooves me to point out that the Oilers beat the Colorado Avalanche 4-3 while the Flames were humiliated by the lost to the Wild 6-3.

If you’re reading this, you might want to take some time to explore this fabulous site on hockey from the National Library in Canada.

You’ll also want to check out this unit on Understanding Hockey/Understanding Canada from a Canadian Studies site we worked on a few years ago with Spotted Cow Press. That unit is written by my sister Heidi Jacobs, who also wrote this great profile on hockey literature for Northwest Passages.

Had a great day on Tuesday attending David Allen‘s Roadmap seminar. What luck to find myself in Vermont these days, where the Green Mountain Coffee Foundation sponsored his seminar here and opened it up to the public. I’ve wanted to hear David in person since I discovered his work way back in 1997 and it was great to finally get that chance.

At a point where my semester is quickly becoming extraordinarily busy, it was very enjoyable and worthwhile to spend a day as a student for a change. David’s a master teacher and I left there feeling that getting things done will be less of an issue for me this fall.

I’ve spent part of the last week trying to close the gaps in my system and to make a complete list of all my projects and tasks at hand. I even discovered a few that I’d forgotten about while I was sitting in the seminar! It was a great refresher for me in the nuances of David’s system. The greatest part of the seminar for me, though, was in getting a better sense of how the horizontal axis of his system (clarifying, organizing, and engaging with your “stuff” to transform it into actions) connects to your ability to focus on the vertical horizons which takes us beyond projects and actions to things like one’s goals, vision, and purpose. I have to say that over the last three years I’ve been so consumed with dealing somewhat inefficiently with my stuff that I’ve not thought much about the larger picture.

Already in the last couple of days I am feeling more relaxed because I am more certain that my system has caught all the open loops. It’s given me time here and there to think a bit more about that vertical horizon. And that has been a great thing for me.

Sounds like David had a great time, too.

Here’s a great site that I just came across on Canadian pulp fiction from 1940-52. It’s one of the many great online exhibits created by Library and Archives Canada. They do amazing work there. Being so close to Ottawa now, I am looking forward to going back there to do some research in the near future.

Later this month, I’ll be attending a one-day workshop with David Allen. I’ve been a fan of David’s work for years, long before his book came out and brought him a great deal of attention.

If you’re reading this from UVM or somewhere nearby, it would be well worth trying to grab a seat before they are all gone. David’s visit here is being sponsored by the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Foundation and the seminar price is far below what David usually charges.

You can learn more about David and his work at davidco.com. I highly recommend his books Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity and Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life. His blog and newsletter are also great sources of hints and ideas about being more productive.

Anyone who has seen my office of late will know that I’m not quite there yet, but I’m sure that David’s seminar will be a great inspiration to get my inbox finally under control.

This interview with the mayor of New Orleans, something that everyone needs to listen to, says it all. One of the real tragedies and perhaps the most inexplicable part of the whole event is how long it has taken for anyone to help the people of New Orleans. It’s staggering.

I don’t know if Bush can pull this one out of the fire, but his Air Force One fly-over and glib press conference about all the aid that they are supposedly pulling together for the region is not impressing anyone. Apparently he’s now on his way to the scene, but that’s too little, too late.

Just when you thought Canada was a nice and friendly place, here is McSweeney’s list of “Reasons to Fear Canada”

The first podcast for my English 005 class is now available at iTunes. It’s a short test podcast that I did to make certain the feed was working, but I’ll be following it up in a day or two with a longer podcast describing the course. I’m hoping to make that podcast a chaptered one with a few images. I also hope to post the syllabus as a PDF so that people subscribing to the podcast can download that as well.

Caught the link to this AP story over at the Quill and Quire blog. How great is this?

PARIS – Readers craving Homer, Baudelaire or Lewis Carroll in the middle of the night can get a quick fix at one of the French capital’s five newly installed book vending machines.

[. . .] Stocked with 25 of Maxi-Livres best-selling titles, the machines cover the gamut of literary genres and tastes. Classics like “The Odyssey” by Homer and Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” share the limited shelf space with such practical must-haves as “100 Delicious Couscous” and “Verb Conjugations.”

“Our biggest vending machine sellers are ‘The Wok Cookbook’ and a French-English dictionary,” said Chambon, who added that poet Charles Baudelaire’s “Les Fleurs du Mal” — “The Flowers of Evil” — also is “very popular.”

Regardless of whether they fall into the category of high culture or low, all books cost a modest $2.45.

Of course, I have more than enough books waiting to be read on my shelf if I ever need a late-night reading fix, but wouldn’t it be cool to be able to grab a cheap copy of Les Fleurs du mal on the run?

One of the things I’m doing this fall in my contemporary Canadian literature course is having the students propose and, by election, select the final book that we will study in the course.

The great thing about this exercise is that it will oblige them to start looking to see what’s out there. The other fun thing about it is that they and I will likely be discovering this book simultaneously. I’m looking forward to going along with whatever they choose.

That said, here’s the book I’m hoping they won’t pick, even if it is written by a fellow Albertan. I’m looking forward to reading it eventually, though. The website for the book has some great features.

If you’re interested in reading Paul Anderson’s Hunger’s Brides: A Novel of the Baroque, you can buy the Canadian edition right now from Northwest Passages.