"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Saturday 17 October 2015

INTERESTING TIMES

 I've never been terribly confident with numbers. As I grew older and realized my memory was better than adequate,confidence grew.  Still,I was always glad for someone else to present the numbers.

Then experience taught me I had to use my own resources there as well. 

Last week-end, people voted at the advance polls and media told us the percentage each day. First day 26%, second 34%,I never caught the third but it seemed likely to have reached 40%.

It occurred to me ,since turn-out is never 100% , that high advance vote must mean the election was all over bar the shouting. The last week of campaigning is a waste of everybody's time. 

It didn't seem right.The leaders were working harder than ever. More ads being churned out. Campaign officials with fingers on the pulse twenty-four-seven. Media working itself into a gesticulating frenzy.

Trudeau's campaign co-chair got caught with fingers dabbling in the cookie jar which reminded all of sponsorship scandals in Chretien's time that brought Paul Martin down and gave us Harper's Party.

Was there still time for disaster to strike any one of the three? It seemed maybe.

Wikipedia  is like The Oracle in pagan times. Priests went in to the temple to obtain answers for problems.
In Wikipedia I found numbers entitled to vote in previous elections. Half a million increase in each election brought me to a  current figure  of almost twenty-seven million. 

3.4 million were reported to have voted already. How could the calculation have been 26% on the first day. 

26% of what? Obviously I missed something.

Since broadenung the focus of the blog, statistics have become a factor. I don't know what to make of
them

American visits now top Canadian by 3 sometimes 400. It was opposite before. 

France comes next,then Russia, Germany, Italy, Netherlands,Indonesia.  Romania and Vietnam complete the list . The U.K. and Ireland vanished from the screen then returned. . 

Totals have more than doubled . Blocking  spam changed nothing. I thought visits might include robots firing out promotions.

A particular post has been read over seventeen hundred times. The one about unknown impact of social media on the future. It had a snippet of what  life was like for my grandparents and for my great grandchildren now.  I said we can't  know how social media  might change their future.

Isla  my great-grand-daughter is not yet three. She has taught herself ballet poses from a video. I can watch her and her two younger sisters progress every day on the iPad. How great is that?

Last Sunday before I got home from the family gathering ,photos of two of them on my knees on the scooter competing for control of the controls, were waiting for me on Facebook. 
Their memories will really be photographic, amply supported with photographs of events.

It must make a difference. 

It sure does to me.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I suspect much of the in-coming garbage will stop after the election. I did see a lot of that electronic stuff on the American
blogs - the same comment would turn up again and again separated by many others which appeared to be doing to same thing.
So you just quit reading - or I have.
As to the advance polling - it was a super run of weather and most of those I know have voted and are really glad
they did. Monday could be chaotic.

Anonymous said...

We hear about numbers and percentages on this election daily. I've been taught numbers don't lie, except when the media spews them out.

Anonymous said...



How many SELFIES (one of the stupidest of the new words of the new language) will disaffected political has-beens take to pad their memory banks?

A few of the most outrageous ones will surely skyrocket on "social media" - another stupid phrase of current day language.

An occasional nude photo will head to the top of the class.

Good riddance to one and all of the above.

Anonymous said...

I think evelyn is right. The advance polls did it

Anonymous said...

Get out early if you still have not voted, Looks like it could be very heavy turn-out

Anonymous said...

Have a great election everyone - hope the good guys win.

Anonymous said...

It could be a squeaker and Harper has shown signs that he will hang on even if the thing gets tied up in the courts.
It would be easier if he did not attach such importance to the 2 Aurora ridings - I do not want his attention anywhere
near our town,

Anonymous said...

8:06 What is your problem with selfies ? It lets me keep track of the kids without intruding other than an odd question about
some new faces. Would you rather be totally out of a place in their lives?

Anonymous said...

Wikipedia is the scourge of the world. People use it like it is some sort of all-knowing source of information. There is one blogger in particular that likes to quote from it. However as life-time member of the IT industry (since the days of punched cards) we had a slogan... GARBAGE IN.... GARBAGE OUT. Wikipedia relies on it's readers for content.

Anonymous said...

19:22 - I guess parents of past generations were totally out of place in their kids lives? And by asking them where they're going, doing and who they're doing it with, was just intruding? Wow.

Anonymous said...

10:10
You misunderstood. That comment was about tracking growing families who are scattered about & busy with their lives.
Texting only provides so much information,