Eating fesikh at Shamm El-Nessim?

Shamm El-Nessim, the Egyptian national holiday marking the beginning of spring, falls on May 6 this year.

But if you’re planning to observe the holiday, be aware of a Health Canada warning about the fish preparation “fesikh.”

Egyptian’s celebrate by visiting parks and zoos, going on picnics, colouring eggs and eating fesikh.

Fesikh is a traditional Egyptian dish consisting of gray mullet prepared by drying the fish in the sun before preserving it in salt. The elaborate process of preparing fesikh has been a heritary occupation, known as fasakhani. Egyptians in the West have used whitefish and shad as an alternative.

However, in a recent advisory Health Canada warns that that the way fesikh is prepared make it botulism risk.

The fish used to make it not gutted before the ripening and salting process. This provides an opportunity for Clostridium botulinum bacteria that may be in the gut of the fish to grow and produce the toxins that cause botulism.

These toxins are not eliminated by any smoking or drying of the end product. Refrigeration, freezing, washing, and open air or vacuum packaging will not make the fish safe. This applies to whole fish, fillets or parts.

According to Health Canada, the most recent botulism outbreak in Canada caused by the consumption of fesikh was in 2012, when three people became ill. Internationally, the consumption of ungutted salted fish, including fesikh, has been linked to many cases of botulism, the agency states.

Food contaminated with Clostridium botulinum toxin may not look or smell spoiled. Symptoms of botulism can include nausea and/or vomiting followed by one or more of: double vision, blurred vision, drooping eyelids, dry mouth, difficulty speaking, difficulty swallowing, weakness, respiratory failure and paralysis. In severe cases, death can occur. Symptoms generally begin 12 to 36 hours after eating a contaminated food, but they can occur as early as six hours or as late as 10 days after eating.

So you may want to hold off on the fesikh. But then Health Canada doesn’t want you to raw oysters either. They’re not even keen on unpasteurized cheese. And fugu? Don’t ask.

Historic Red River Settlement letters released

This year is the bicentenary of the Red River Selkirk Settlement, and in connection with that two historical letters from the National Records of Scotland have been released. 
They were made public by Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs Fiona Hyslop on the 200^th anniversary of the Red River Selkirk Settlement in Manitoba.

The settlement -- which become the city of Winnipeg -- was founded during the Highland Clearances by Thomas Douglas, the fifth Earl of Selkirk.

From the text of the September 4 announcement:

“The papers have been discovered by Scottish archivists in the Melville and Dalhousie collections, which were acquired on behalf of the public by the National Records of Scotland.

“One is a draft letter from Lord Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty. Dated June 22, 1812 - just a few days after the United States Congress declared war on Britain - it turns down a request to protect settlers from the “press gang” and for a naval escort for their ship. Despite Lord Melville's refusal to help the settlers, they made it safely across the Atlantic.

GD51/2/1045

Draft letter from Robert, 2^nd Viscount Melville at the Admiralty to Sir James Montgomery, MP for Peeblesshire, 22 June 1812.

Admiralty

22 June 1812

Dear Sir James,

We cannot grant the protections which Lord Selkirk desires for the passengers on board the Robert Taylor;  if they are Landsmen, & not liable to the Impress; they require no protections. If any of them are liable, it will be the duty of the Naval Officers to detain them for the King's Service; but you may be assured that no Officer will impress a Landsman if he is satisfied that he is really not a seafaring man.

It would totally derange the service if the vessels employed in raising men were to be detached on convoy duty off the Coast, or on any other occupation than the one to which they are specially appointed. I apprehend that in fact no such convoy will be requisite, & at any rate V[ice]. Admiral Thornborough will grant it if he shall think it necessary.

Believe me ever, Dear Sir James

Yours very faithfully

[Robert, 2^nd Viscount Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty]

“The other document is an account of the notorious Battle of Seven Oaks in 1816 by Angus Shaw of the North West Company (NWC) - a rival fur trading company to the Hudson's Bay Company in which Lord Selkirk was a majority shareholder. Lord Selkirk was criticised for his conduct following the violent confrontation and was not able fully to vindicate himself within his own lifetime.

GD45/3/17

Copy of an account by Angus Shaw, one of the Proprietors in North West Company, to James Fraser Esq at Halifax of the events at Red River, 14 October 1816.

Mem[oria]l

North West Company[']s Affairs - Upper Canada

Quebec 14^th Oct 1816

The Colony which L^d. Selkirk had established on the Red River having left that place in 1815, another Emigration consisting of 160 souls having arrived from Scotland that fall, proceeded to the same Red River, & there spent this last winter; but in consequence of quarrels between them and the Indians of that district, aided by the half breeds; (a numerous and formidable set of independent men inhabiting that country,) the person in charge of the colony (a M^r Semple) found it necessary to build a strong fort mounting cannon in the vicinity of the huts of the Colony, in order to protect them from the Indians & half breeds who constantly hovered round the banks of the river.

In June last, a party of Indians, half breeds and four of the North West Company's servants having passed the said Fort, M^r Semple observing them, ordered his men to arm & attack them; M^r Semple sallyed out with about 26 Officers & men with one piece of Cannon.

On their approaching the Indians &^ca a Parl^y took place, but it is incontestably proven that M^r Semple ordered his men to fire in the first instance, by which fire 1 Indian was killed & a half breed mortally wounded. This fire was unfortunately so successfully returned that in a few minutes M^r Semple 4 Officers and 19 men were left dead on the spot.

The Indians then went to the Colonists, told them to leave the Country immediately, that they would not molest them, but never again to return, as they were resolved never to permit any whites to settle on their land which they never did sell to the King, nor to L^d. Selkirk.

Accounts of this Catastrophe having reached L^d. Selkirk on his way to the red river, accompanied by about 150 Soldiers who had lately been disbanded from the Reg^t. De Meuron, all well armed, & having 10 or 12 pieces of Cannon; it was thought by M^r. M^cGillivray (who was then in latter end of July at our Depot called Fort William at the West end of Lake Superior) that his Lordship intended to build and fortify a Port likewise on the borders of Lake Superior; but instead of this, his L ^dship on arrival at Fort William sent a person with a Warrant from himself as a Magistrate for the Indian Territory, who apprehended M^r. M^cGillivray in the Fort, with all such Partners then in the Fort as might be useful in carrying on the business.

M^r. M^cG. & these Gentlemen having quietly submitted to legal proceedings, tho' put in force for selfish purposes, Lord Selkirk with his foreign Soldiers took possession of the Depot of Fort William, & in a couple of days sent down M^r. M^cG. & the other Gentlemen as Prisoners, likewise all the other partners & Clerks there, as Witnesses, and by means of those forces his L^d.ship has retained possession of the Depot, containing furs, which he w^d. not permit to be removed, to the amount of £50,000 Ster^g. likewise Goods & Provisions to the amount of £60,000 more, turning all those of our Servants & Clerks out of doors who would not enter his service, in short acting as if the whole place & property were his own, tho' it is situated 800 miles from the nearest limits of the Hudson's Bay territory.

M^r. M^cG. & those who came down with him, have been bailed over to March next, when they are to be tried "for aiding & abetting the Indians & half breeds" who in their own defence killed several people, more than a thousand miles from where those Gen^t. were at the time this unfortunate rencontre took place.

A petition has been presented to the Gov^r. General praying redress &^ca either thro' him or thro' the Gov^r. in Upper Canada. Something is ordered by Sir John in the premises, what it is I know not, but on the faith of it, a party of our people have lately proceeded to the falls of S^t. Marys, there to wait orders from York the capital of Upper Canada.

I have now given you a sketch of the occurrence of last Summer. It is impossible for me to guess how this serious matter will terminate. We have every reason to expect legal redress, which is all we want; had we not acted on this principle His Lordship & his foreign Robbers would have been ill off ere now.

By Angus Shaw, one of the Proprietors in N. West C^o. to James Fraser Esq^r. at Halifax.

“Mounted copies of the letters will now be presented to His Honour the Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba in Canada by the Rt. Hon. James Alexander Douglas-Hamilton, Baron Selkirk of Douglas, PC, QC, who is currently visiting Manitoba to participate in the 200^th anniversary commemorative activities.”

“Photographs of the letters are available to download from the Scottish Government's Flickr channel: http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottishgovernment/.” National Records of Scotand: http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/

G4S: a sorry security tale

So, what's with G4S?
The big international company has been publicly disgraced for it's inability to come through on a contract to provide security guards for the Olympics in London. The British government is calling out the army to make up a possible shortfall of several thousand guards.
Questioned by a parliamentary committee, G4S chief executive, Nick Buckles admitted that the Olympic security contract had turned into "a humiliating shambles" left his company's reputation in tatters.
It seems a strange turn of events for a company that bills itself as the "world's leading security solutions group." G4S has operations in 125 countries, and with more than 650,000 employees is the world's third largest private employer (after Walmart and Foxconn, a Chinese computer hardware manufacturer).
Especially considering the company had two years to prepare for the Olympics.
In a blog post describing G4S's inability to deliver as "incompetence on an astonishing scale," Dr. Matthew Ashton, politics lecturer at Nottingham Trent University, pointed to a huge oversight and management failure on the part of both the company and the government.
Asking why the army wasn't involved from the beginning, he suggests it is because the often repeated received wisdom that the private sector must be able to do anything better than the state can.
And so, he says, "I'm willing to bet that even after making a complete hash of the Olympic games job, G4S will continue to win government contracts in the future, with some spurious reason being offered up as to why this time it'll be different."
For Edmontonians, the G4S name will also come to mind in connection with the July 15 shooting of four of its employees during an armoured car delivery robbery on the University of Alberta campus. A fifth employee, 21-year-old Travis Baumgartner, was subsequently arrested and charged with the killings and the robbery.
This isn't the first time that kind of thing has happened to G4S. In December 2007, the equivalent of 20 million euros disappeared from the safe in the Prague office of its Czech subsidiary. Fortunately in this case there was no violence; no-one was killed or injured.
G4S employee Frantisek Prochazka is alleged to have taken the money, in 500, 1000 and 2000 Czech Koruna notes, from the safe and loaded it into four metal cases, which he took out to a vehicle waiting on the company's grounds. A male accomplice drove the car away and Prochazka went back in and finished his shift.
Unlike Baumgartner, stopped at the U.S. border shortly after the robbery with $330,000 in cash, Prochazka has not been located. he was one of those named in Interpol's Infra-Red 2012 campaign seeking public help in tracking down wanted fugitives.
The 37-year-old speaks English and is believed to alter his appearance by sometimes wearing a beard or mustache, shaving his head and  switching between glasses and contacts. He is considered dangerous and may be armed.
Interpol believes there is a good possibility that Prochazka is in Canada, among other possibilities including the U.K., Dominican Republic, Honduras, Mexico and the U.S. More information is available here: http://www.interpol.int/Media/Files/Crime-areas/Fugitives/Operation-Infra-Red/Wanted-persons-Infra-Red-20122/PROCHAZKA-Frantisek

Last call for Martini's Bar

Friday afternoon wanes and thoughts turn to quaffing a pint of beer at the local, Martini's Bar & Grill in Edmonton. But as the raven would croak, that will happen "Nevermore." On May 30, the staff were laid off and Martini's closed its doors for good.
The closing of a bar is perhaps not all that important in the grand scheme of things. Certainly Martini's end has produced hardly a ripple in the city's consciousness. Unlike that of El Nivel Cantina in Mexico City, forced to shut down in 2008, which prompted a large demonstration and received international news coverage.
Well, also unlike El Nivel, opened in 1855, Martini's isn't the oldest bar in the city, nor has it been the haunt of world-historical figures such as Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.
As drinking establishments go, Martini’s is neither old nor historic, having opened in the 1990s, but for those of us who were regular patrons-- and those who enjoyed working there -- its loss is a wrench.
Done up in a style somewhere between a New York bar and a London pub, with brass-railed mahogany-finish bar and elaborate mirrored back-bar displaying the bottles in their glittering array, it was a place with engaging staff and an assortment of regulars who were generally friendly and interesting, and where you could generally get into a good conversation over a drink. Lively without being overbearingly noisy, it was also a true local whose patrons attended the funerals of other regulars, took part in sports pools, regular crib tournaments and a lottery syndicate. The Big Rock Traditional Ale on draft was usually very good.
That Martini's was on the ropes had long been rumoured. But it took some time for the predictions of the local Cassandra to come to pass. "At one point there were dire predictions that the days were numbered for my current local, Martini's, but a shift in ownership seems to have warded off that danger -- and the charming and accomplished staff, including Mary, Nancy, Barb, Deb, Shyla and Heather will be keeping the customers happy there for a while yet," I wrote in a May 6, 2008 blog about the closing of some San Francisco bars. And so it was, although by that time longtime châtelaine Kara had already gone and Martini's had already seen its best days.
In recent times Martini's had been plagued with declining staffing difficulties -- which at one point resulted in an Industrial Workers of the World picket line -- and maintenance problems. The final straw is said to have been the landlord's raising the rent when the lease came up at the end of May, although that might not have been fatal if there hadn't been other ongoing issues.
Rumours are now going around among former Martini's habitués that its is now being looked over by potential saviours who may be interested in reopening the bar.
That may be so. Meanwhile the refugees from the wreck of Martini's are seeking another congenial drinking spot to take its place. As one commented plaintively on his Facebook page, "Men without locals. we wander the streets in search of inviting venues. In short, we are lost."

Day's end for “At the end of the day”?

Is it the end of the day for “At the end of the day”?

It’s seems that even advertising and marketing executives hope so.

A recent survey of 200 Canadian industry executives named “At the end of the day” as one of the most annoying of current buzzwords.

Who can argue with that?

The execs were asked, "In your opinion, what is the most annoying or overused buzzword in the creative/marketing industry today?"

Not surprisingly, “Think out of the box,” another endlessly repeated business cliché, was also among those picked.

I would have ranked then higher than the 14 and 12 spots (out of 15) they achieved.

However there are apparently other buzzwords that the marketing and advertising types (along with people in government and other business spheres) have to hear ad nauseam that rankle them more.

These include, in the number two spot, the dreaded “Synergy,” followed by “Innovative/innovation,” and “Extra value/value added.” Other concepts they no longer want to hear about are “ROI/return on investment,” “Culture Change,” “Multitasking,” and, interestingly, “Going green” and “Free.”

And the number one buzzword that made them squirm: “Social media.” That seems a bit of an odd one. It isn’t as if Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn et al aren’t a reality they’ll have to continue to deal with – I guess they’re just very tired of talking about it all the time.

The daily hubbub in which we are immersed contains all manner of annoying utterances, from racism and sexism to grammatical and usage errors.

Business-related buzzwords are often particularly irritating because they are imposed on us in situations where we have no choice but to listen, and imply that there are other things (what exactly?) we could and should be doing better.Considering that it is the marketing execs who create and popularize many of these buzzwords that afflict us, it is rather satisfying that at the end of the day they grate even on them.

The 15 Authors (Extended Version)

The Fifteen Authors was a Facebook meme that appeared in October 2010.

The invitation guidelines: “Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who've influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.”

These (in alphabetical order) were the 15 I chose, although not necessarily the first 15 and not necessarily within 15 minutes. I have included a quotation from each – these were put up daily as Facebook status posts during the last two weeks of October. Some comments follow.

Margaret Atwood (1939- )

"You fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye"

-- “You fit into me”

Comment: Atwood’s The Animals In This Country, from which this is taken, was the first collection of poems I read, and opened my eyes to contemporary poetry.

Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen (1885-1962)

“I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills. The Equator runs across these highlands, a hundred miles to the north, and the farm lay at an altitude of over six thousand feet.” – Out of Africa

Comment: Evocative and beautiful, this is the one to beat as far as memoirs go.

Walter Burkert (1931- )

"It's not so much the limits of our knowledge as the superabundance of what can be known that makes an attempt to explain man's religious behaviour an almost hopeless enterprise." -- Homo Necans

Comment: The quotation is from Homo Necans, but it was his book The Lore and Science of Ancient Pythagoreanism that gave me a sense of what good historical scholarship looks like.

Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933)

"And greater honour is due them
When they foresee (and many foresee)
That Ephialtis will show up in the end
And that the Medes at last will come crashing in."

-- “Thermopylae”

Comment: The work of this Greek poet living in Alexandria, with its sad nostalgia combined with moral courage and defiance, is lastingly resonant.

Raymond Chandler (1888-1959)

"I never saw any of them again -- except the cops. No way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them.” -- The Long Goodbye

Comment: Chandler is the master of the detective story as quest, with Philip Marlowe the knight errant.

Noam Chomsky (1928- )

“The propaganda model does not assert that the media parrot the line of the current state managers in the manner of a totalitarian regime; rather, that the media reflect the consensus of powerful elites of the state-corporate nexus generally.” – Necessary Illusions

Comment: Intellectually fearless, Chomsky provides incisive analysis of the contemporary political/ideological scene, and is scrupulous about sources. In holding up to scrutiny the version of events put forward by the political authorities and the mainstream media he performs a vital function.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)

"And indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better -- cheap happiness or exalted sufferings?" -- Notes From Underground

Comment: Notes From Underground, my introduction to Dostoyevsky, first gave me the real sense I was dealing with Great Literature – deep, difficult and riveting.

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)

"Under such circumstances I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained." – “A Study in Scarlet”

Comment: Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories left me with a feeling for the wide variety of life, in London and beyond, although in many of them Watson and Holmes don’t stray far from their lodgings at 221B Baker Street.

Norbert Elias (1897-1990)

“The concept of civilité acquired its meaning for western society at a time when knightly society and the unity of the Catholic church were disintegrating.” – The Civilizing Process

Comment: A substantial scholarly work, Elias’ Civilizing Process fascinated me with its detailed demonstration that much of the social behaviour we take as given and fixed is actually the result of a long process of development.

Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932)

"‘Heard the news?’ he said. ‘There's nothing else being talked about, all along the river bank. Toad went up to Town by an early train this morning. And he has ordered a large and very expensive motor-car.'" -- The Wind in the Willows

Comment: My favourite book for young people (although I’m also awed by Alice in Wonderland). Along with the story, I love the illustrations of E.H.Sheppard.

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

“At the lake shore there was another rowboat drawn up. The two Indians stood waiting. Nick and his father got in the stern of the boat and the Indians shoved off and one of them got in to row.” – “Indian Camp”

Comment: Hemingway was a master of narrative. This quotation is particularly striking in context, because these are the first two lines of the story, collected in The Nick Adams Stories.

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)

"We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one and noble function of the time, move. And we moved!" – On The Road

Comment: No one has better portrayed the exhilaration of heading out on the road and going just to go. I responded to Kerouac’s sympathy for the underdogs and marginalized.

Kate Millet (1934- )

"Sexual politics obtains consent through the 'socialisation' of both sexes to basic patriarchal polities with regard to temperament, role, and status. As to status, a pervasive assent to the prejudice of male superiority guarantees superior status in the male, inferior in the female." -- Sexual Politics

Comment: I was wowed by the clarity and strength of Millet’s arguments in this major work of feminism, although I had major differences with her political approach and think many of her later notions nonsensical.

Sei Shonagon (c. 966-1017)

"In the winter, when it is very cold and one lies buried under the bedcovers listening to one's lover's endearments, it is delightful to hear the booming of a temple gong, which seems to come from the bottom of a deep well." -- The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon

Comment: Sei Shonagon was a court lady in Japan of the Heian Period, distant in all respects. But although the topics are often “exotic,” her vivid pillow book, or journal, reveals a personality by no means alien – an elegant reminder of how much we all share throughout history.

Leon Trotsky (1879-1940)

“The permanent revolution, in the sense which Marx attached to this concept, means a revolution which makes no compromise with any single form of class rule, which does not stop at the democratic stage, which goes over to socialist measures and to war against reaction from without…” – Permanent Revolution

Comment: Trotsky’s thought has provided a valuable frame of reference for understanding the world.

No. 19, May 18, 2010

From the Maverick to the Yellowhead

The Yellowhead Brewery opens its doors for business in Edmonton tomorrow following a blessing by the Reverent Neil Gordon, dean of All Saints Anglican Cathedral. St. Arnold, generally considered to be the patron saint of beer, would no doubt approve.  

The new micro-brewery is located in the historic H.V. Shaw Building at 10229-105 Street, and the adjacent glass-fronted addition. Built in 1914 by Henry Shaw as the site of the Edmonton Cigar Factory, the Shaw Building most recently housed Maverick Brewing.

Maverick opened in 2005, billing itself as "the first destination craft brewery in Alberta," with a private function room that was used for promotional and fundraising events. The brewery ran into supply and marketing problems, and in the fall of 2006 its assets were seized by landlord Five Oaks Ltd., owned by architect Gene Dub (who was also a 10 per cent shareholder in Maverick) for rental arrears.

 

Maverick later went into receivership, with the firm Meyers Norris Penny Ltd. being appointed interim receiver in July 2007.  After a somewhat complex series of transactions involving Five Oaks and a numbered company, they negotiated the sale of the brewer's assets of Maverick to English Bay Enterprises for $200,000 on September 2007, followed by a distribution to the creditors.

While the brewery was in operation they made only one type of beer, Maverick Supreme Lager, a self-described pale American-style lager. The beer apparently had its fans, with enthusiasts posting to the Beer Advocate site rhapsodizing about its "aroma of multi-grain bread and light lemon tone," "biscuity snap" and "nice lace down the sides of the glass."

I wasn't one of those fans, however, and didn't find it much better than insipid U.S. mass-market products such as Budweiser or Miller. Or perhaps a less-enthusiastic Beer Advocate poster got it right in describing the beer as having a flavour of "cooked peas" and a "metallic" aftertaste.

It seems curious for a micro-brewery to produce a type of beer very similar to many other beers on the market. People interested in micro-brews are usually in search of something that differs from the norm. Although local patriotism ("This beer is produced right here in your hometown!") will result in some sales.

Yellowhead Brewing too is starting off with a lager. Many beer aficionados  are looking forward to brewmaster Scott Harris, who trained in brewing at the Doemens Technicum in Munich, having crafted a tasty one. It's planned to have the brewery space serve as an arts and live music venue, and it may also be rented out for community events and public, private, corporate and charitable functions. Good luck to this new venture.

Interestingly, this is not Edmonton's first Yellowhead brewing concern. The Yellowhead Brewing Company started producing beer in the river valley in 1894, as Lawrence Herzog notes in his column in the April 3, 2003 edition of Real Estate Weekly.  It was operated by brewer Tom Cairns, from Manitoba, with partners Kelly and Myover. The Yellowead later became Sick's, then part of Molson's.