Post 3494 - Wednesday

Pushing 11pm.

Just filed my most recent media column for the next issue of Frank. Ahead of deadline, which is the way I like it.

I am not sure what it is with this laptop. It works well, but my damn palm slips or I do some gesture and I find myself sending an email or a tweet or something when I do not mean to. It is all very frustrating indeed. I accidentally sent two emails to my editor tonight. The first one was sent when I was half way through writing a sentence and before I had added the various attachments I had to include. So I sent the second email with the attachments. I feel like a dummy.

We had our bi-weekly TM meeting tonight. Not many members there. Between the snowstorms and the teachers protests, there was no place to park in the main part of the downtown. Whole blocks with parking meters on them are covered on one side with snow, and most of the other sides are already in use. I ended up parking on Barrington in front of the Lt. Governor's mansion. I got so frustrated at one point, I nearly gave up.

After the meeting, Patricia was at the car. I had a couple TM'er with me, and we drove them home, in the Clayton Park area. We got something at Wendy's and drove home. I started rewriting my Frank column article around 9:15. I sit her in the living room while Patricia snoozes on the couch next to me.

I don't get too involved with politics here. I am a provincial civil servant, and nothing good can come from getting too political. But I need to state something about the teachers.

They have to shut the hell up and move on with things.

A couple of years ago I interviewed Don Connolly. A good chunk of that interview ran in Frank, and I have yet to run the full version here. I really should do that. But at one point, I asked Don about a time when he hung up on a guest, other than Al Goldstein of Screw Magazine fame.

He told me of a time in the 1990's I guess it was, when the teachers were in the news about something. They got a new contract or something. The hue and cry to the Information Morning phone lines was remarkable. He said something like how, most civil servants get a fair break from the public, many people have a deeply-seeded resentment for teachers. As he summed it up, "The teachers? Fuck the teachers".

I think it goes back to when we were all in school. We can all, every one of us, remember a teacher or three who was hateful, vile, disgusting, and just there to collect a bloated paycheque. I remember a teacher who spouted his religious nonsense at us, and we didn't dare disagree with him, because he was a jerk who did not like contrary opinions about things. He was our history teacher in senior high. He found ways to work his religious beliefs into his classes. The little turd went on to become Vice Principal, and I am sure he was the most efficient VP that school ever had. That is not a compliment. How I hated that man.

You can think of a jerk teacher or two, too. Don't lie to me.

Anyway, the teachers do not have a tremendous amount of good will. What they have, is running out quickly. You hear about parents supporting teachers in their quest for yet more money, but I feel that their fervor is lessening.

After the government passes that bill next week, the teachers will not stop fighting. They have to, or they will lose whatever support they have left. And that is not much.

See you tomorrow.

Bevboy