Archive for Uncategorized

2013 in Film

2013 was a bit of a strange year for film, from my perspective. Whenever I think back on films I saw in a particular year, I’m always struggling with the knowledge that my movie-watching habits are skewed by the fact that I don’t tend to see much of anything in cinemas any more. So, for me, “films I saw this year” usually includes a handful of films that many people saw the year prior. And this year, a number of my top 5 come from the last quarter of 2012. Oh well.

Here are my top five favourite films:

Number 5: Looper (Rian Johnson). Yup, it suffered from wibbly-wobbly time stuff that makes no sense when you think about it. But it was surprisingly strong. I really enjoyed the vision of the future it created (clearly devastated by economic depression) — it felt like a fresher future and more interesting worldbuilding than I’d seen in a long time. The ending of the film came as a surprise (so many time travel tales are bogged down with the weight of oppressive inevitability), and the scene where Emily Blunt gets in the safe was such a wonderfully constructed scene.

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Poor, misunderstood cop has suffered enough for beating someone

A Toronto police officer convicted of assaulting a protester during the G20 summit has been sentenced to 45 days in prison.

Const. Babak Andalib-Goortani was convicted in September of assault with a weapon for using excessive force during the arrest of a protester on June 26, 2010.

[…]

Andalib-Goortani’s lawyer, Harry Black, had asked for the officer to receive an absolute discharge.

Black said his client had suffered enough already, adding he has post-traumatic stress disorder, his psychological state is fragile and his marriage has fallen apart.

“G20 assault: Babak Andalib-Goortani gets 45-day sentence”, CBC.ca

Thought for the Day

Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times — times in which the world boasts breathtaking advances in science, technology, industry and wealth accumulation — that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social evils.

[…]

Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.

And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.

While poverty persists, there is no true freedom.

— Nelson Mandela’s speech in support of “Make Poverty History”

The Assassination and the Coward Rob Ford

Often, when I’ve commented on Rob Ford antics, I’ve used a headline that parodies the movie title The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. It seems less cutesy given how signs now suggest that someone was actually assassinated because of the Ford video.

Those Irish Holmes

I’m not exactly sure, but I think I was in high school when I was given a copy of a family-tree-filled booklet called Those Irish Holmes. I’ve only found a few references to it online, and those references suggest that it was published in 1987 (but with a question mark after the date) — I would have been in university in ’87, and I’m sure I had my copy before that. My parents moved during my first year of university, and I never saw the book after that move.

I’ve never really known how the Holmeses arrived in Ireland, but I’ve always known that my Holmes ancestors were Irish. My father strongly identified as Irish; my mother didn’t express any particular affinity with any national origin, although she has a lot of Irish in her with a French streak as well, based on the family tree.

I’ve found enough information from that original book, online, that I can reassemble the fragments I recall about how the Holmeses came to Canada. It starts with the family of Andrew Holmes and his wife Susan/Susannah. In 1845-49, the Great Irish Famine was in full swing. Compounding the problems of the famine was Irish fever — a typhus epidemic that took hold in Ireland, and moved to England.

It appears that Andrew and Susan packed up with 6 of their 7 children (the eldest, Mary Ann, stayed in Ireland with her husband) and sailed off to Canada. I have conflicting information about whether this took place in 1845 or 1847. New York had enacted some legislation with the goal of keeping Irish immigrants out in an attempt to prevent the epidemic from arriving and Canada knew full well that it was going to see a dramatic rise in possibly sick Irish arrivals. The arrival station at Grosse Île, Quebec, ramped up its quarantine procedures and prepared for the influx. Today, there’s a monument on Grosse Île which reads, “In this secluded spot lie the mortal remains of 5,294 persons, who, flying from pestilence and famine in Ireland in the year 1847, found in America but a grave.” One of the names recorded on the memorial is Andrew Holmes, who died in 1845.

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Relationships

Genealogy things:

  1. It’s interesting to be able to finally say, “Oh, so that’s where Aunt Bonnie fits in the overall family!” There are all these relatives that I finally understand in context.
  2. Because old records are more available than recent records I have, in some ways, a clearer picture of great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents than I have of aunts and uncles.
  3. I have a few memories of my father’s father. He died in 1968, when I was just under two years old. That kinda boggles my mind.
  4. Every time I encounter a never-married relative, I wonder if they were queer. I’m sure that most of them probably weren’t, but I see the world through queer-coloured glasses, and I wonder what kind of evidence I’d ever find to confirm one way or the other.
  5. Don’s mother (whom I remember as “Grandma Smith”) had a brother, William Bantam, who married a woman named Hattie (Harriet) Rose. According to Don’s notes, family legend has it that Hattie ran off with an American fisherman/boater and no one in the family ever heard from her again. I, of course, read too much true crime and can’t help but wonder if she’s buried in a back yard somewhere. It doesn’t help that I can find five other family trees in Ancestry.ca, and none of those trees have any details about what happens to Hattie. No date of death. No records of any kind. Just gone.

“Don’t leave us!”

Can’t. Stop. Laughing.

Back to the drawing board

On the weekend, I started to suspect that one of the key family tree connections in the Houle line was based on extremely weak evidence. At this point, I’m pretty sure that connection is wrong.

This whole process feels, in odd ways, like programming. I’m reading a document that I didn’t produce, and I’m having to glean from it what the original author was thinking. It’s a lot like reading someone else’s code. “Why did you put that there? What made you think it was important?”

The problem goes back, again, to Pierre Houle. It’s pretty crucial to understand who his parents are. Once he arrives in Dover Township, he and his family are fairly well documented. There are certain circumstantial hints about his parentage available in the documentation:

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Thought for the Day

We’ll start with the good news. After a second move discussion, Wikipedia has decided to move the article on Chelsea Manning back to her actual name instead of misgendering and misnaming her. This brings us to the bad news, which is essentially everything else, and in particular everything surrounding the arbitration committee case. This case has led to the declaration that calling out transphobia on Wikipedia is unacceptable, that trans activists are disqualified from working on articles involving trans subjects, and that it’s more acceptable for people employed by the US military to covertly edit the Chelsea Manning article than it is for trans advocates to do so openly.

[…]

Because that is how these people work. It’s not that they hate trans people consciously or actively. They just hate the thought that they might have to change some aspect of their lives, however trivial, for them. […]

— Philip Sandifer, Wikipedia Goes All-In on Transphobia

Follow that Herd

I think I’ve reached the point of needing an Ancestry.ca subscription. All the good data is in there.