Merry Christmas, Happy Yule

The First Christmas Card

In the early 19th century it was common practice to hand write seasonal messages on calling cards or in letters. In 1843, in order to save himself having to hand-write dozens of Christmas messages, Sir Henry Cole had his friend, John Calcott Horsley, design and print a batch of cards. The words printed on the card were 'A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year' much the same is still found in cards today.

As Habermas points out in his seminal work on the Public Sphere, the post office and communications are key to not only the development of capitalism but also the concept of public space that is public communications arising out of private communications. This post card reflects the reality making public what had been a private matter, that is letter writing. The result would then be a whole communications industry devoted to greeting cards, which then created the conditions for public holidays and the resulting mass consumer society of department stores and mass advertising.

Donalda and I are taking our dogs; Trooper and Tami, off for a jaunt in the mountains for Xmas. So I won't be blogging for several days.

We are going to Jasper. Like Banff a national park created by slave labour, after WWI, using Ukrainian Internees. I will raise a glass in their memory.

Have a great Yule all. Drink a cup o' cheer to keep away the winter cold.

Here are links to my previous articles for this season.

Fiat Lux

Bad Headline

Virgin Birth Announced

WWI Xmas Mutiny

Christmas In the Trenches

Merry Christmas Red Baron

Merry Christmas

Cat Carol

Santa's Sweat Shop

Tannebaum

Rebel Jesus

Chavez Puts Christ In Christmas

Merry Christmashkah

Keeping the 'X' in X-Mas

Chuck Jones Explains It All





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Return Of The Work Camps II

An excellent article from the Guardian on Fort McMurray reminds us that homelessness is not just an urban issue for Calgary and Edmonton but a way of life for construction workers, the folks who did not protest at the Leg last week. Work Camps have returned to Alberta, not unlike the old Relief Camps for unemployed workers during the dirty Thirties or the internment camps of WWI which built the Banff and Jasper national parks. The difference is of course these camps are full of volunteer wage slaves.

For many, purpose-built work camps provide the best solution, and are often the only option for the blue-collar workers needed to build the sites. The work camps are small towns in their own right - Suncor's Borealis camp, the largest such facility in North America, sleeps 7,500, as does CNRL's Horizon camp - but with few of a small town's compensations. The only plus is a negligible commute. It's a short walk from Syncrude's Mildred Lake camp to the refinery. The long, low trailers are surrounded by barbed wire and sandwiched between, on one side, belching silver towers and pipes, and on the other a highway and seas of mined-out sand. Inside the trailers, men in dressing gowns wander down interminable, hospital-bare hallways; the rooms are cells, maybe 7ft by 14ft, furnished with a small single bed. Men - it is usually men, though there are some women, in separate facilities - can spend anything from a few days to years living in these rooms. A Somali cab driver who worked as a security guard at one of the camps told me they all developed coughs. "And their faces started to look like they were made of rubber."

H/T to Galloping Beaver


SEE:

The Other Alberta Boom

Padrone Me Is This Alberta

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