It was 15 “belows” this morning. It felt downright balmy. The furnace wasn’t constantly cutting in, and when our two cats wanted out they didn’t change their minds half way through the door. What’s more, they stayed out.
There wasn’t much talk this time about the cold spell being needed to kill off the Mountain Pine beetles. Was it not cold enough for long enough to do them in? Or are there too few left to worry about?
My druthers are for snow. At least when you’re wading through it you can keep telling yourself there’ll be less danger of drought or fires this summer. I don’t know what –35 C is good for.
***
It was encouraging last week to hear that B.C. Labor Minister Margaret MacDiarmid “basically heard that everything is great” in Williams Lake, and that having too few people to fill the available jobs is a problem. Sounds like we have nothing whatsoever to worry about.
***
Corporations can promise until they’re blue in the face that their pipelines, tankers, mines, whatever, are fail safe and will never, ever have any adverse impacts, environmental or otherwise. Their equipment and technology may indeed be stellar, but how can they promise there will be no human error? The Exxon Valdez, the Queen of the North, and the Costa Concordia wrecks were caused by human failures.
***
Everyone with a telephone knows about unsolicited calls from scam artists, etc., but a recent call from a political pollster had the recipient especially annoyed. The call was automated, and the person on the receiving end was to push the numbers on the phone to respond to the questions. The trouble, my informant told me, was that if you didn’t agree with any of the programmed responses there was no way to express your opinion.
What next?
Diana French is a freelance columnist for the Tribune. She is a former Tribune editor, retired teacher, historian, and book author.