Plawiuk for Premier

As I announced on Facebook this morning
Eugene Plawiuk announced today that he is throwing his hat into the ring for leader of the Alberta Progressive Conservative party...."I am the only progressive in the race" he said, "the rest are Conservatives" His hat did not comment....

I Can Be A Senator

Finally I qualify for the Senate. And the news is that Harper is planning to appoint 18 new senators.

Eligibility to Be a Canadian Senator
To be appointed to the Canadian Senate, a person must be
at least 30 years old
be a resident of the province or territory they represent own property worth at least $4000 in the province and have a personal net worth of at least $4000.

My partner and I bought a house this summer, which has been a harrowing yet exciting experience. One of the reasons I wasn't blogging regularly, and the reason this blog will be offline for the next week over Xmas. I am finally moving into my house.

We bought the house when the market went down. Our landlord decided, too late, to sell his house and it was way out of our price range. We decided that it was time to buy a house, after all a house has value, and our mortgage was just slightly more than what we pay in rent, and rent always increases.

And I discovered we were able to scrap together the 5% downpayment to get CHMC backed mortgage.

The house we bought is not on the southside, which is where I was born and preferred to live but the Old Strathcona area is way overpriced.

So we got a house in the Centre of the city by Commonwealth Stadium. So I move from one NDP riding; Edmonton Strathcona to another NDP riding; Edmonton Highlands.

We were supposed to take possession in the middle of October but due to the owners not leaving in time we got it at the begining of November. And for the past month and a half we have been renovating it.

And that is a tale in itself. But for another day.

Suffice it to say that I am over 30, and now qualify as a property owner to be a Senator. It's the Alberta dream, well the dream for some Albertans like my old nemisis Link Byfield.

If Harper appoints me to the Senate I promise to continue to fight for its abolition.

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Birthday Boy

Hey its my birthday so here is another version of the Beatles birthday song I have been sending to my facebook friends for their birthdays. It uses scenes from one of my favorite movies of the silent era; Metropolis.




And here are my previous posts about my birthday. for your erudition and enlightenment.
B-Day
Today In History

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Work, Life and Blogging

Thanks to those of you who wrote me or commented here about my absence from blogging, its nice to be loved.

I have been away from blogging for two months now due to work and life changes. During June when I last posted, I was busy with work commitments especially around training and teaching.

I was elected President of the Edmonton Branch of the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians, and thus this has taken up much of my time as we celebrate our 90th Anniversary and look forward to making ourselves a prescence in the progressive community once again. Our hall is being used again by the progressive community after several years of inactivity.

I was also elected to Chair the Gaia Gathering, the Canadian National Pagan Conference, which will be holding its fifth annual conference in 2009 in Vancouver with the theme Left Coat Paganism's.

Finally I was involved in organizing this years PanFest which took up much of my time as Programming and Events coordinator.

Because of these commitments I have not had the urge to blog as much about local, national or world events. It doesn't mean I haven't had anything to say, rather I did not feel the urge or urgency to blog.

However I will be blogging on an occasional basis and will probably return to more regular writing by the end of summer.

Oh yes and I should mention that with the nice weather we have had I have been enjoying my backyard and garden. Beer in hand, reading interesting books and listening to music.

Work and life trump blogging.

"Love, work and knowledge are the well-springs of our life. They should also govern it."

- Wilhelm Reich

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1

Ya Miss Me

Thanks to everyone who commented here and sent emails inquiring as to my absence from blogging.

I took an unannounced break considering I have been blogging almost daily here for four years.

But I appreciate the concerns, my health is fine thanks. Just took a needed break. I do that occasionally.

What began as a week off ended up being a month off line.

Anyways I will be back to blogging on a regular basis again as we approach May Day.



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5000 Posts

As of March I have officially passed 5000 blog posts. Whoa. 5023 blog posts since I began blogging back in November 2004. Pop the champagne and read on.

Of course that's just my blogspot count. Originally I had three blogs when I started, the other two defunct blogs, Red Between The Lines and Heresiology, can be found in the side bar. Total blog posts would then be closer to 6000.

And I of course also blog over at the Carnival of Anarchy.

So again even more Plawiuk pontifications.

Which began on the web way back in 1997.




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B-Day

I got a reminder notice today from the nice folks at Blog.ca.

Happy Birthday plawiuk,

today is your birthday and we wish you a day filled with your favourite things, with sunshine and laughter and lots of good cheer.

How about writing something about your birthday in your blog? Your friends and the blog.ca community will certainly be glad to hear about how you have experienced this special day.

Just log in http://www.blog.ca/login.php to write a post on your blog to your friends or to the whole blog.ca community .

We wish you all the best and are looking forward to seeing you again soon.

Your blog.ca-team

As if I would forget. And since they asked me to post about my birthday well shucks who could resist. Here is my post..... from last year; Today In History.

Modest ain't I.


And here are two versions of Beatles doing Happy Birthday. I like the second one best. Both are rockin'. The original Happy Birthday song was called Good Morning To You.


Happy Birthday - The Beatles






Birthday by the Beatles
From The White Album

,


Unfortunately these guys forgot about me;

December 1 Birthdays in History - December 1 Deaths - December 1 Events

And I didn't make the news like these folks.

Today in 1982 Michael Jackson released his autobiographical video;
" I am not like other guys' Narrated by the great Vincent Price. It created the culture of mass music videos.

And of course Birthdays are a pagan celebration.

Birthday

It is thought the large-scale celebration of birthdays in Europe began with the cult of Mithras, which originated in Persia but was spread by soldiers throughout the Roman Empire. Such celebrations were uncommon previously so practices from other contexts such as the Saturnalia were adapted for birthdays. Because many Roman soldiers took to Mithraism, it had a wide distribution and influence throughout the empire until it was supplanted by Christianity. The Jewish perspective on birthday celebrations is disputed by various rabbis.

Celebration of birthdays is not universal. Some people prefer name day celebrations, and Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate either, considering their origins to be pagan festivals along with Christmas and Easter

And I have that statue of Mithras at home...coincidence? I think not.

Also 'coincidentally' Mithras shares the same birthday as Jesus, as does Krishna and Horus. Since it is the Sun's Birthday.

They are after all Sun Gods.



And don't forget today is World AIDS Day. I noticed a lot of Harpocrites were not wearing their red ribbons this week neither in the house or while doing interviews on Mike Duffy.

Hmmm.....I guess for them it is still a Gay Disease,

despite evidence to the contrary.

Harper also can focus more attention on AIDS in Canada, where more than 62,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS. New infections are often among young people, especially girls 15 to 19 years old.

But at least one Cabinet Minister was wearing his Red Ribbon...why am I not surprised?




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