Mayor Adriane Carr. Vancouver’s next Mayor. Count On It.

April 30, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

Green Party of Vancouver's Adriane Carr unofficially announces her candidacy for Mayor

On our continuing mission to alienate just about everyone we know, and most particularly those poor, woebegone individuals who have chosen to throw their hat into the ring in the boisterous 2018 Vancouver civic election, today on VanRamblings we take a swipe at the Mayoral candidacy of two-term Green Party of Vancouver City Councillor Adriane Carr …
… the really quite wonderful, incredibly hard-working, uncommonly and peerlessly-principled, joy-and-heart-filled, elected civic official of conscience, the top vote-getter in the 2014 Vancouver municipal election, the person who most thinking and conscious Vancouverites have either long known, or come to realize, is on their side, always and forever — a Vancouver City Councillor you know you can count on, a person who possesses that rare quality of being a good listener, someone who does not only hear what you’re saying, but processes and contexualizes your words, who values your input, who finds grace in the interactions with her constituents (which is to say, all of us who live in Vancouver), a fine, warm-hearted, incredibly bright human being who has dedicated her life to service on your behalf. No mean feat that, and a feat for which we all should be eternally grateful, and thankful of her invaluable service to us.
And yet, even given all of the above, VanRamblings harbours concerns, and a patina of misgivings about Councillor Carr’s — we think, ego-driven — mayoral ambitions, and certain 2018 candidacy for Mayor of Vancouver.

The most admirable trait any political figure can bring to public life is humility. Across Vancouver City Council, Vancouver Park Board, and Vancouver’s Board of Education, each and every one of our elected officials comes to their job absolutely and utterly devoid of ego. Heck, if each or any one of our elected civic officials had an ego, they’d never be able to put up with the continual attacks on their character, or the supposed “wrongness” of whatever decision they had made on any given day.

No, in Vancouver and much to what should be our undying gratitude, whether it be (l-r) John Coupar, Casey Crawford, Catherine Evans, Sarah Kirby-Yung, Stuart Mackinnon, Erin Shum or Mike Wiebe at Park Board, or …

(left to right, well sorta) … Melissa De Genova, Adriane Carr, Andrea Reimer, Heather Deal, Raymond Louie, with Mayor Gregor Robertson standing in the centre, Tim Stevenson, Kerry Jang, Elizabeth Ball, George Affleck, Hector Bremner — fine, upstanding, on your side Vancouver City Councillors, each and every one of them … or

And, once again left to right, the wonderful Carrie Bercic; along with multi-term trustee Fraser Ballantyne; Vision Vancouver’s Ken Clement; Vancouver’s longest-serving trustee and incredibly great person & staunch social justice warrior, Allan Wong; with brooks no nonsense Chairperson Janet Fraser in the centre, one of the finest Chairpersons of any board, anywhere, anytime, that we have ever witnessed; the appropriately-named, Joy Alexander; the Beedie School’s Dr. Judy Zaichkowski; the heart-filled and hard-working Estrellita Gonzalez; with relatively, recently-elected Lisa Dominato next to her; and, finally, last but certainly not least, principled Student Trustee, Eugene Jeoung — each of whom serve with distinction, as trustees on Vancouver’s distinguished Board of Education …
Each one of the public servants whose names appear above constitute, as elected groups, the finest, civically-minded amalgam of municipally-elected officials Vancouver has ever had the good fortune to have represent them in civic life in our city. Are they “perfect” human beings, are the decisions they take always, and without fail, the “right” ones — no, and each one of them would be the first one to say so, wrestling with and losing sleep over the decisions taken at the Council, Park Board or School Board table as part and parcel of what it means to be an elected official in our too often riven and far, far, far too cynically-minded paradise by the sea.

The Vancouver & District Labour Council Meetings are Imminent
Days from now, the august and most definitely on your side, Vancouver & District Labour Council (VDLC) will hold a “let’s broker a deal with the progressive forces in Vancouver” series of meetings — with good-hearted, honest and integrity-filled representatives from OneCity Vancouver, the Green Party of Vancouver, the Coalition of Progressive Electors, Vision Vancouver, and Team Jean in attendance — in order that the forces of regression and repression, as represented by Vancouver’s corporate-funded Vancouver Non-Partisan Association, who must be kept from taking a majority position at Vancouver City Council, upon which undesired outcome would rest the unwelcome fate not only of the people of Vancouver, but the some 3500 hard-working City of Vancouver employees, the folks who work within the Engineering Department to repair our roads, or the good people who process your development permit application when you either set about to build your new home or renovate your existing residence, or any of the other invaluable, incredibly hard-working civic staff who contribute daily to your quality of life in British Columbia’s largest metropolitan city.
Ostensibly, too, the upcoming May 6th / 7th VDLC meetings will seek to find agreement among the five progressive parties as to one, agreed-upon “unity candidate” for Mayor of Vancouver, around whom Vancouver’s progressive civic parties, the 46,000 Union employees who reside in Vancouver, and all persons of conscience might rally, so that those of us who have dedicated a good portion of our lives to the realization of a fairer, and more socially just, inclusive and equitable Vancouver might rally in support, in order that this unity candidate might emerge as a voice for us.
In other words, a voice for Vancouver’s future, and a Mayor who would work together with her fellow progressive city councillors in order that Vancouver might continue to be a city of reconciliation, a sanctuary city, a nuclear-free zone, a city welcoming of refugees and immigrants, where an unbridled and dedicated advocacy force for our gender-variant communities would remain of paramount importance on the city’s social justice agenda, and a principled civic government which represents the best that we can be — all the while, of course, laser-focused on what must become a whirlwind of affordable housing construction in our city, housing as a human right.
But, alas, Adriane Carr has chosen a “go it alone” path — last evening posting notice of her Adriane Carr for Mayor candidacy on a newly-created Facebook page, days in advance of the proposed VDLC “broker a deal” meeting, when yesterday, the civic party destined to be the most powerful political force in the coming civic election - which is to say, OneCity Vancouver - went on record to state that their party of greatness will not support Adriane Carr as a mayoralty candidate in the current civic election.

Ms. Carr has, in recent days, told anyone who will listen that if she were to seek the Mayor’s chair — as now would appear to be the case — she would do so as leader of the Green Party of Vancouver, and under no circumstance would she consider putting her name on the ballot for the Mayor’s job as a “unity candidate” for the five progressive parties seeking office in the 2018 Vancouver municipal election.
So much for playing nice with others, so much for being the much-desired-by-the-left “unity candidate”, so much for waiting to hear what has to be said at this week’s upcoming VLDC “broker a deal” meetings.
No sirree, Jill — Adriane Carr is going to go it alone, throw caution and co-operation to the wind, fight it out with the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association, and now that the estimable Ms. Carr has rejected the notion of “unity”, you’ll likely see a Mayoral bid by Vision Vancouver City Councillor Raymond Louie, who is just chomping at the bit to enter the civic race.
Unity — it was nice knowin’ ya, have a good life, maybe by moving to Saskatoon you can find what you’re looking for, because it sure ain’t happenin’ in Vancouver, not now, not anytime soon. Oh woe is all of us.
Why would Adriane Carr — person of principle and character — reject the notion of running as a “unity” Mayoral candidate, when it represents her best chance to achieve the Mayor’s chair the evening of October 20th?
One word: hubris (about which VanRamblings knows more than a little, we are sad to report).
Adriane Carr. Mayor of Vancouver. Name in lights. A ‘go it alone’ gal — who oughta have a helluva time trying to whip her City Councillors into adopting measures she places on the city agenda, whose mayoralty will only succeed in sewing the seeds of dissension and dysfunction, which we all know works just tickety-boo in civic government. And if Adriane Carr is the Mayor with a majority NPA-elected City Council, well, gosh, won’t that be just swell … nothing will ever get done, like the antipathies of the Republican Congress & Senate imported into Vancouver. Great, that’d be great, just great.
Oh, you can just see the headlines in newspapers across Canada, and on the late evening network news programmes: “Adriane Carr, Canada’s first Green Mayor of a major metropolitan city. Hallelujah, and love a duck! Good times are here again.” Or not, as the case may be …
To say that VanRamblings is unthrilled with the prospect of an Adriane Carr as Green Party of Vancouver Mayor is to understate the matter; which is not to say that we do not believe Ms. Carr will succeed Gregor Robertson, to become Vancouver’s next Mayor — that’s likely, and it’s probable that against their best possible judgement OneCity Vancouver, COPE, Team Jean, the Greens (of course), and maybe even Vision Vancouver will only just grudgingly get behind a Carr for Mayor campaign — awaiting the inevitable fireworks that will follow from her ‘far from unified and any notion of unity’ ascendancy to the Mayor’s chair.
One supposes that at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter who becomes Vancouver’s next Mayor — most of the progressive parties are focusing on, together, electing a majority (of at least six Councillors) to Vancouver City Council, who would wield the real authority at City Hall.

Now, if you don’t know who the person above is, you haven’t been paying close enough attention to VanRamblings. We’re here to let you know: in the next few months, you will become absolutely smitten with Christine Boyle, who you MUST vote for in the current Vancouver civic election.

And, let’s face it, too, whoever becomes Mayor on October 20th will only be a placeholder Mayor, pending a run by sure-to-be-elected OneCity Vancouver Council candidate Christine Boyle who, in 2022, will become Vancouver’s once-and-forever Mayor, allowing those of us who reside in Vancouver to live in peace, prosperity and goodness for the remainder of our live-long days. Hallelujah — can’t wait til those halcyon days arrive!
In 2011, upon being elected as Vancouver’s first Green Party Vancouver City Councillor, Adriane Carr tied her wagon to the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association (or vice versa, as the case may be), appearing up front with NPA Councillors on the steps or front lawn of City Hall, anytime the NPA held a press conference — which was often. For all the world to see, and most particularly for members of the NPA, appearances were that Ms. Carr was an adjunct NPA member of Council. Come 2014, NPA voters turned out en masse for Ms. Carr, as did independents and deluded left-of-centre voters who thought, “Heck, yeah — Adriane Carr is one of us!”
Upon electing three Vancouver City Councillors in the 2014 municipal election, and seeing that Adriane Carr had emerged as the top vote-getter, the NPA’s Board of Directors gave their newly-and-re-elected Councillors a metaphorical slap upside the head, intoning, “No more deals with Adriane Carr. No more your putting her up front at press conferences you hold, no more helping to make people believe that she’s one of us — she’s not. Just what the hell were you thinking, anyway?”
Will Adriane Carr secure the right-wing vote in 2018, as the Green Mayoral candidate running to oppose Hector Bremner (who we believe has the NPA Mayoral nomination sewn up … it is to weep). You think so? Heck, c’mon over for coffee; we’ve got a bridge we’d like to sell you.
And will Adriane Carr secure the “progressive vote” in the 2018 Vancouver municipal election — not if Patti Bacchus has anything to say about (and she does!). Oh sure, it’s likely and even probable that the progressive forces will end up, begrudgingly, lining up behind an Adriane Carr bid for the Mayor’s chair, when it comes down to the crunch. But they won’t do so happily, and with any degree of enthusiasm. Oh woe is all of us.

In closing today’s column — yes, yes, today’s column is coming to its merciful end — as we are wont to do, a tale involving Adriane Carr, because as regular VanRamblings’ readers know: narrative counts for everything …
Early in her second term of office, VanRamblings attended an early morning meeting of Vancouver City Council, the city not yet having firmed up legislation that would make Vancouver a City of Reconciliation — on this particular, ‘overloaded with items of import’ agenda Council day, a just after Christmas mid-January, Tuesday morning sitting of Council, the onerous activities of the day began with an indigenous invocation ceremony that in its various parts proceeded over the course of a bit more than an hour, with frequent breaks to set up, delaying the work of the day, VanRamblings thought — callously, wrong-headedly and much to our undying shame and a measure of chagrin that we will carry with us always, from that day to this, and for the rest of our days on this Earth of ours … as we said to Councillor Carr as she approached us, welcoming VanRamblings to the Council room floor, we said to Councillor Carr, “it’s too bad, when there’s such a packed agenda, and it’s been over a month since Council last met that so much of yours and Council’s time is being taken up with today’s ceremony and presentation”, Adriane turning to us, saying …

“Raymond, the ceremony that is taking place today is more important to me and to the people of Vancouver than I can find words to express to you, the acknowledgement of the contribution of our indigenous peoples to the land, the ancestral home of our Coast Salish peoples, the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations on which Vancouver sits, which we have only borrowed from our indigenous sisters and brothers remains, as has been from the outset of my political career, one of the strongest motivating factors that has lead me to where I am today, as a sitting, 2nd-term member of Vancouver City Council.

The job I have taken on at Vancouver City Council not only concerns the recognition and acknowledgement of the invaluable contribution of our First Nations peoples it is, as well, to work on behalf of those who do not have a voice in the the critical, life-changing decisions that take place at the Council table. I work for the vulnerable among us and give voice to their issues. I work for families living in poverty. I work with my colleagues on Council to achieve the realization of a truly affordable housing stock for seniors, the working poor, for our refugee and immigrant population. I work for members of our vibrant gender-variant and LGBTQ communities, who add so much to the life of our city. I fight for young people, for the children of a generation raised by their families in Vancouver, but who cannot find a home in our city, in a place they have called home all of their lives, the city of their birth or who have come to call Vancouver home, a city where they might raise their own families, as may their children and their children’s children in the future. I fight for those of us who live in Vancouver and call Vancouver home who are being denied the opportunity to succeed and find residence in what is quickly becoming a resort city, and not a city that serves the interests of the vast majority of its citizens.

Every day at the Council table, I fight for all of Vancouver’s citizens who are being denied access to opportunity, to make Vancouver — as I have seen you write many, many times — a fairer, more inclusive and more socially just city, a vibrant and environmentally sound home for all of us who live in any one of the 23 neighbourhoods that make Vancouver the welcoming and socially just city that it is, the place we call home.”

At which point, seeing that the indigenous ceremony was set to begin once again, Councillor Adriane Carr turned away, took her seat on the south side of the room at the Council table, her focus solely on the moving ceremony that was unfolding before us, which VanRamblings now saw with newly opened eyes, and a heart filled with appreciation for Adriane’s work to make our city better — one small, but very important step at a time.
Adriane Carr as a difference maker, a social justice warrior and a person of conscience and commitment to the greater good, a person possessed of the heart and the commitment to make Vancouver a great city for all of us who are currently resident in our hilly town, and for all of those who will join us in the years to come, comprised of vibrant, welcoming neighbourhoods where we would live and prosper, where we might raise our families, in this village by the sea we call home, we call Vancouver, the city we love.

Today’s VanRamblings’ post represents the sixth post in our Vancouver Votes 2018 series — where next month, we’ll introduce some of the declared Council candidates, Park Board Commissioner candidates (we’ve got to respond to our friend and UFCW stalwart Abby Leung, who’ll be placing her name forward for Park Board) and the fine, upstanding folks / defenders of public education, like the tremendous and integrity-filled community activists Erica Jaaf and Jennifer Reddy, who’ve put their names forward as candidates to be a “it’s consuming my life” (just ask Carrie Bercic, who we’ll see at tonight’s School Board meeting — everyone reading this should attend — when we’ll sign her nomination papers … and yes, Christopher Richardson, we’ll be happy to sign yours, as well, and support your candidacy for) trustee, on the Vancouver School Board.

Hey, You. Don’t Ask Me. Just Google It. C’mon Now. Really?

April 29, 2018VanRamblings, Web & TechRaymond Tomlin

VanRamblings loves our Apple iPhone 8 Plus, the prospect of acquiring the latest iPhone one of the factors that kept up alive and hopeful during our dreadful, scarifying and none-too-pleasant 2016 – 2017 battle with cancer, the terminal, inoperable hilar cholangeocarcinoma that was destined to make us a goner — but, as you can see, did not come to pass.
We’ll say why, we’ll write about the miracle, another day — but for now, we’ll just say that it was VanRamblings’ readers, those strong, clear-minded persons of conscience that have read VanRamblings (who we thought, at best, found us annoying) who pulled us through, it was your love and spiritual and tangible support that, quite literally, saved our life.
We’ll write about our cancer journey in a series of posts that will likely begin once the current Vancouver civic election has come to its glorious conclusion, electing (we imagine) once-in-a-lifetime candidate Christine Boyle, and one of her outstanding, ready-for-prime-time colleagues (either Brandon Yan — we wept openly during his address to OneCity Vancouver members, last Sunday); the energetic and very bright, Ben Bolliger; or new dad, R.J. Aquino (three kiddos now, RJ, in a house full of joy); Pete Fry, who along with Christine Boyle, represents the single most important candidate to elect to Council, come October 20th; our friend (and, boy, are we proud to write that), and a true hero in our city, in our province and for our age, Sarah Blyth; the incredibly-principled and on-your-side, Anne Roberts; generational candidate and democrat-to-her-core, Sarah Kirby-Yung; our fave guy (you’ll read why later), Rob McDowell; the very decent, bright and accomplished, Catherine Evans; and we’re not sure who else at this point, all of the candidates above it is our intention to write about, at length and often, in the days, weeks, and months to come (each of whom, and all of whom, constitute our favourites in the current election cycle, for Vancouver City Council — just in case you were wondering).
However, we’re not here today to proselytize about candidates in the coming civic election, our mission today is decidedly more prosaic.
Heck, it’s Sunday — not a day for partisanship.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. The 2018 ‘Heck, Just Use Your Cell’ Version
At least a half dozen times a day — when we run into a friend on the street or at the grocery store, while we’re out with a colleague or neighbour at our favourite local espresso house, when we find ourself near recumbent in the seating area at the Vancity Theatre waiting for the doors to open for the next film, or while we’re on the bus engaged in conversation, or in any one of another myriad of other circumstances, inevitably and much to our consternation, VanRamblings’ friend, neighbour or colleague will ask a question; not our opinion on a matter of debate, not something about which we might have information not readily available online, just a simple question that could be answered by the person VanRamblings is with simply taking their galldarn, latest model smartphone out of their pocket, and looking up the information themselves, on their state-of-the-art cellphone.
But do they? Do they take the phone they’re paying $70 and more a month for out of their pocket, check the Cineplex app if they want to know where a particular movie in town is playing or what time it starts, or fire up their smartphone’s Safari or Chrome browser, or tap on any one of the apps on their smartphone — ranging from their IMDb, CBC News, Google Maps or Weather app, to their readily available SoundHound, Shazam, TSN, Sinemia or Amazon app — hell no, they don’t. Yep, you’ve got it: they ask VanRamblings, because we’ve got a near photographic memory, an uncanny ability to recall or contextualize information, and because we’re a font of relatively useful facts — a burden we bear, but not gladly and well.

Time for a number of stories. Hang onto your hat.
The wonderful, hope of our future, Danika Skye Hammond — political activist, environmentalist, youth advocate and current BC Young New Democrats Facilitator Co-Chair (who Jeff Lee, former civic affairs reporter with the Vancouver Sun, will want to get in touch with this summer, given that both now live in or nearby the Kootenays’ beauteous Creston Valley) — was brought on last year as Volunteer Co-ordinator on current Attorney General David Eby’s winning re-election campaign, Danika — always with a genuine and heart-filled smile on her face, always with a cheery greeting at the ready, the single most humane, competent, no nonsense, and well-organized campaign co-ordinator we have ever worked with, during our 55-year history of working on federal and provincial NDP campaigns — daily wrangled some 400 eager (some new, some veteran) volunteers, each of whom needed direction, each of whom Danika kept in touch with to schedule shifts for any variety of activities in the community (Patti Bacchus & VanRamblings managing to secure a year-long case of incredibly painful plantar fasciitis, resultant from the two of us knocking on so many doors, traipsing through the neighbourhood and climbing up and down those damn stairs, while wearing ‘inappropriate for canvassing’ flat-bottomed shoes) by texting them on their smartphones. Imagine! Technology put to good use.

Every volunteer on David’s campaign, save one — a nomination candidate for office in the current Vancouver civic election campaign — who whined to Danika about his not having a cell phone, and could she please call on his home phone (which he never answers) instead, and yada, yada, yada. All his kvetching was for naught, of course. The solution? VanRamblings took this luddite (a teacher in the public school system for some 30 years!) to Virgin mobile at Oakridge, secured a new Apple iPhone for free, along with 6 gigabytes of data, unlimited calling in Canada, as well as an unlimited international text facility — all for only $45 a month, with a promise that we’d negotiate with Telus to reduce his $340 monthly Optik TV, Internet and home phone bill down to a more reasonable $140 each month!
Many years ago when travelling through Mexico, and shopping at the Libertad Market in Guadalajara, VanRamblings was surprised to discover that we love the art of the deal (no, not Donald Trump’s phony, soul-destroying ‘art of the deal’, but), the back-and-forth and human connection involved in negotiating a reasonable settlement as to the cost of goods — just about as much fun as it is possible to have with both feet planted firmly on the ground. We still, to this very day, love the art of the deal.

So, this fellow now has a brand-new, free Apple iPhone, with a great, instantaneous texting facility that the good, young folks at the Virgin kiosk give him instruction on, supplemented by further instruction from VanRamblings on the Canada Line trip to Broadway and the #9 bus ride to David’s campaign office on West Broadway, where we showed a delighted Danika Skye Hammond (future, much-beloved Premier) that a new smartphone has been acquired, passing on the new telephone number (employing a 778 exchange, the remainder of the number identical to this fellow’s home phone) — and what does this guy do? Yep, he takes the phone home, places it in a drawer, never takes it out of the drawer (even a year later), while continuing to pay the $45 a month plus tax.
Needless to say, no more work on David’s campaign. VanRamblings asks this cogent question of you: do you really want this fellow representing your economic and social justice interests on a publically-elected body?
VanRamblings would like to comment that, “Perhaps the fellow we write about above represents a not-so-out-of-the-ordinary use of new technology.” But we don’t believe that’s true. Every single one of our elected officials in Vancouver, as well as all senior staff at City Hall, Park Board and School Board, all but live on their cellphones — comfortable with and appreciative of the technology, the whole idea of having a powerful computing device at your fingertips representing the most powerful communications device each might have ever imagined.
Yes, when it comes to use of technology among our erudite, wit-filled, endlessly curious, adept and engaged political friends, who view their smartphones as an entirely necessary, revolutionary device, VanRamblings supposes we run with a pretty tony crowd, for which we are grateful.

Still, it seems that not everyone among our friends — and everyone among your friends, we’re willing to bet — sees their smartphone as the revolutionary device that it is (and just wait til 5G comes in … wow!!!).
Nevertheless, we’d appreciate it if the folks in our circle of acquaintances & friends never, ever, ever again ask us a question that they could answer for themselves simply by pulling their cellphone out of their pocket.
Concerned about your data cap?.
Migawd, there’s free WiFi everywhere across our region, on our streets (both Telus and Shaw have established WiFi on every block in Metro Vancouver), in all of our public buildings (City Hall, School Board, Park Board, our community centres and pools), in most retail businesses (high traffic retail outlets like Starbucks and McDonald’s have reliable, lightning-fast WiFi inside their stores).
Let’s face it, with your smartphone handy, you’ve got lightning in a bottle — how incredibly fortunate we are to live in an era when transparency of communication is so readily available, where we really do have access to an information highway that only a few short years ago was unimaginable.

VanRamblings will leave you with the following story …
On Friday evening, having ridden our bike to a nearby grocery store, and while we were shopping inside the store, a young girl holding a smartphone whizzed past us, crouching down a ways along the aisle, talking to beat the band on her phone, which was directed towards the shelving that held a variety of sparkling beverages, an animated conversation taking place with another girl, a friend it seemed, who appeared to be in the process of planning a party of some sort and who were, together, shopping for all of the items that would be necessary to purchase in order to make the party a success, the girl on the other end of phone just as animated and excited in her commentary as the young girl crouching a ways down the aisle.
“Slumber party,” a woman approaching with a buggy said to me — the woman, clearly the girl’s mother, who could see the look of amazement on our face at what we were seeing transpire. “A slumber party, and a birthday party for her best friend,” the mom said, nodding in the direction of her daughter. “I’m just here to place the items in the buggy, and pay for the whole thing when she’s done. Fascinating, isn’t it? Realistically, would either one of us have thought, even a few years ago, that in 2018 we’d find ourselves in an era when a young girl would have access to a technology like Facetime to do her shopping with a friend, when her friend lives miles away, across the water, in a whole other community?”
At which point the young girl in the store arose from her crouch, waved her mother over to load the 2-litre bottles of sparkling juices into the buggy, and off the two went to continue their scurry around the grocery store, in cheery and focused pursuit of the “perfect” items to make the slumber / birthday party the success that it was most definitely destined to be.
VanRamblings asks: if a 9-year-old girl is as comfortable with technology as she surely appeared to be, employing her smartphone to its maximum capability to make her life easier, to enhance the quality of her life, to take the greatest delight in ‘shopping with her friend’ who lives kilometres away, on the other side of the water, the communication just as peerless and joy-filled as one wish and hope for this young girl / woman of promise and capacity, is it not possible that we — each and every one of us — might develop the same facility with, the same ‘you don’t even have to think about it’ love for a device of utility, a device with access to wisdom and knowledge, and information that will serve only to make our lives easier and perhaps, even, more fulfilling?
And, oh yeah: Don’t Ask Me. Just Google It. C’mon Now. Really?

The Magical Device Known as the ‘Instant Pot’, an Indispensable and Must-Have Addition to Any Kitchen | Innovative Technology

April 28, 2018Food & Health, VanRamblings, Web & TechRaymond Tomlin

What Exactly Is the Instant Pot?
The Instant Pot is a 7-in-one, or 9-or-10-in-one, multi-cooker that does the job of a slow cooker, electric pressure cooker, rice cooker, steamer, yogurt maker, sauté and browning pan, and warming pot, a kitchen appliance that is designed to consolidate the cooking and preparing of food to one device.
Depending on the model you choose, you can use an app on your smartphone to programme your Instant Pot, or forego the model that makes Greek yogurt, or purchase the 10-in-1 Ultra model that steams without pressure — a godsend for al dente veggie enthusiasts — and has the ability to customize and memorize settings for each user … or not. Instant Pot beginners may simple choose a programme setting and press the “Start” button without any further tinkering, while more seasoned chefs can spin and punch their way through several additional options.
Want to know a bit more about the history of the Instant Pot? Watch this CBC News video that aired last November, just prior to Black Friday …

VanRamblings purchased the Instant Pot because we wanted to shake up our eating habits, to try new recipes, to prepare healthier meals, with more fresh veggies and more vegan items in our diet, as well as more soups — particularly in the cooler autumn and winter seasons.
VanRamblings also enjoys farm-fed, free-run, organic chicken, and thought it was well past time to come up with a few new recipes to complement our tried-and-true favourites, such as this delicious chicken stew, which we had for dinner last evening, along with fresh asparagus, and an organic carrot, apple and raisin salad, with a creamy, vegan homemade dressing.
For many — including VanRamblings — the Instant Pot is a life-changing kitchen device. We intend to prepare at least one new Instant Pot recipe each day over the course of our first year of ownership of this amazing device. Did we mention we prepared perfect poached eggs, in 2 minutes, in the Instant Pot, this morning? Really easy to prepare, no fuss and no muss.

A couple of Sundays back, a friend was over for an Instant Pot Umami pot roast dinner — he said it was the best dinner that he’d had in ages.
In the coming weeks, VanRamblings will set about to make creme brulée in our new Instant Pot, as well as potato salad for the upcoming David Eby picnic. We’ve already enjoyed incredibly delicious BBQ chicken wings prepared in our Instant Pot, as well as perfect basmati rice, garlic mashed potatoes, beets, broccoli with garlic, and apple sauce — as well as a myriad of vegetarian and vegan dishes.
We will also set about to make several different Indian recipes, with Aloo Baingan Masala set for dinner with a friend mid-week, next week.
Almost all of the recipes above may be found in Amy + Jackie’s 47 easy Instant Pot recipes for the newbie. Worth clicking on the link, we’d say.
Heard enough? We’ve only just begun (we’re only kiddin’ … sort of).

You’ll want to read these Instant Pot testimonials and reviews, like this review by Kevin Roose in the New York Times.
There are five Instant Pot Facebook groups that we’ve joined, each with tens (or, even hundreds) of thousands of members. We’ve already signed up to all of the Facebook Instant Pot groups listed below, and not a day goes by when we don’t find some new and delicious Instant Pot recipe.
As Claire Lower, with the Skillet division of Lifehacker.com writes, you should have no problem joining any one of the following popular Instant Pot Facebook groups that have taken social media by storm …

Instant Pot Beginner Recipes and Tips: This group is great for crowd-sourcing recipes, getting a grip on all those buttons and soothing your newbie jitters.
Instant Pot Vegan Recipes. Everyone should eat more vegetables, and you don’t have to be vegan to enjoy all of the creative plant-based recipes offered in this group.
Instant Pot Vietnamese Food Recipes: Quick, flavourful pho is the only reason you need to join this group, but be sure not to sleep on the Bo Kho, sticky rice, and milk tea.
“Dump and Push Start” Easy Instant Pot Recipes: This group features only the easiest “fix-and-forget” recipes for unfussy, single-appliance meal making.
Instant Pot for Indian Food: The Instant Pot makes short work of grains, legumes, and intensely-flavored sauces, lending itself extremely well to Indian cuisine. As someone who wishes to wean herself off of takeout, I find this group extremely exciting, says Ms. Lower.

Okay, okay — we know you’re busy. We’re close to wrapping this up.

Our favourite Instant Pot recipe so far? Hands down, it’s the Vegan Penne Rigate, where you pretty much just throw everything into the pot, give things a stir when it’s done (about 20 minutes, including de-pressurizing time), scoop it out of the pot and onto a plate … and mmmmm, delicious, you’ve never eaten a tastier pasta dish in your entire life.
Who’da thunk that penne, extra virgin olive oil, chopped onions, shallots, garlic, mushrooms and zucchini squash, when combined with a touch of sherry wine, a pinch of oregano and basil, a cup of vegetable broth with 2 cups of water, light soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and fish sauce (omit these two items if your preparing the vegetarian or vegan version of this dish), and a pinch of kosher salt and black pepper, topped with a 5.5 ounce can of tomato paste just plopped right on top of everything … would together constitute a little taste of heaven on Earth?
Not to mention, the best galldarn thing you’ll ever eat!

Mmmm, scrumptious and delicious cheesecake prepared entirely in the Instant Pot

Now, we could go on extolling the many virtues of the Instant Pot, how preparation and clean-up is a snap (cuz, pretty much, everything just gets thrown into the pot, you can use the sauté function to soften onions or brown meat), how the Instant Pot not only helps you to make incredibly wonderful dishes in no time at all, or that the Instant Pot is not only a runaway international success, it’s a runaway Canadian international success, how no kitchen should be without one, and more, so much more.
But as VanRamblings is going to suggest in our Sunday column, sometimes you just have to put in the work yourself. Top 5 Instant Pot Hacks and Tips, 9 Instant Pot Don’ts, or A Beginner’s Guide to Using Your New Instant Pot — videos on all of these topics may be found on YouTube, along with a video for Starbucks Sous Vide Bacon Eggs Bites, and so very much more.
Once you’ve become aware that the Instant Pot exists, and you actually set about to purchase one (we like the 6-quart, 7-in-1 version which is, by far, the most popular model), you’ll begin to see references to the Instant Pot wherever you go; it’s sort of like a cult.
But a rare instance of a good, self-motivating, healthy for your body and for your mind, norm-challenging, community-building, Canada-supporting and vegan-friendly cult — and when you start to prepare your first Instant Pot recipes, you’ll come to find in short order that your new Instant Pot, sitting there on your counter, is an insanely easy kitchen device to employ on your new culinary road to a comestible bliss you didn’t know was even possible and so easily accessible to you, requiring surprisingly little of your time, with deliciously appetizing results that are just short of out of this world!

Indie Cinema, The Summer and the Salvation of Good Movies

April 27, 2018A & E, Cinema, Jude and Megan, Pop Culture, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

VanRamblings has always loved the cinema, from the time we held our younger sister’s hand to keep her safe, while on our way to the Grandview Theatre, just south of 1st Avenue on Commercial Drive on the east side of the street, every Saturday in every month throughout 1955 until near the end of August in 1958, when our family moved to Edmonton, where our movie-going regimen was kept up — alone this time, on the bus at the age of eight heading downtown during the most unforgiving of 40-below winter nights cascading towards the Rialto Theatre to see the latest Hayley Mills film, for we were in love with Hayley Mills and never, ever missed one of her films … through to the mid-1960s when we were once again resident on Vancouver’s eastside, just north of Semlin Drive & 1st Avenue, in the neighbourhood where we were raised, and where we lived for most of our first 18 years of life, through until … now, to this day, when this year we celebrate 50 years as a published film critic, and ardent lover of film.

Not for us, the big blockbuster films that have dominated movie landscapes for most of the past three decades. No, we’re a ‘window on the world’ foreign film aficionado, as Rocky Mountaineer President and founder Peter Armstrong will tell you if you ask him, and we love small, lower-budget independent films to near distraction, and we love reading and writing about the film festivals that dot the cultural landscape throughout the year, from January’s Sundance Film Festival — founded by Robert Redford in Salt Lake City in August 1978 — to the Berlin “Berlinale” Film Festival in February, to March’s annual, Austin, Texas-based South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival, followed in April by Robert DeNiro’s Manhattan-based Tribeca Film Festival — and this next month, the grand mama of them all, the prestigious and much-anticipated Cannes Film Festival, which has taken place on the leisurely French Riviera every year since 1946.

As we write above, VanRamblings loves independent — or, indie — film. But what is indie film? Hang on to your hat, because here we go …
Indie films are movies produced with a low budget, most often by small, boutique production companies, and produced for less than $20 million.
Originally, the defining quality of indie media (film, music, publishing, etc.) was that it was produced outside of the traditional systems of production. So in film, for example, movies produced without the support of the major Hollywood studios would be independent films, or “indies” for short.
After a few decades of independent media, however, aesthetic patterns and themes have emerged that make “indie” more of a style or genre label.
Confusing matters even more, in recent years the six major Hollywood studios — Fox, Paramount, Warner, Sony, Universal, and Disney — have brought indie films in-house, with Disney acquiring Miramax, Paramount (Vantage), Sony (Classics), Fox (Searchlight), Universal (Focus, Working Title), and Warner (New Line, Castle Rock), the major studios competing each year for prestigious Oscar attention with their much-ballyhooed “independent” art house releases, most of the films acquired by the studios but not financed by them, from many of the film festivals mentioned above.

With indie films, the director’s approach is paramount, these auteur films creative, artistic and personal in tone, with subject matter that reflects the lives of everyday people, or as is sometimes the case, the marginalized persons or communities within our cities, provinces or states; indie films also often take on forbidden subject matter considered to be taboo by conventional society. Indie films will more often than not use music sourced from bands or indie music groups or artists, rather than employ original orchestral scoring to aid in the telling of the film’s story.
At the most recent Oscars ceremony, as the latest clutch of arthouse films — including Darkest Hour, The Shape of Water, Call Me by Your Name and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri — were feted throughout the awards season, indie films grappled with Hollywood’s blockbuster addiction, and the new challenges presented by Netflix and Amazon.
While the big six Hollywood studios made 113 movies last year, taking in $11 billion in domestic box office and another $14 billion internationally, a record number of smaller-budget films were released from the beginning of January to the end of December 2017, most —&#32but not all — of the indie films released onto silver screens at a multiplex near you.
Why “not all”? Where did the “other” indie films secure release?

With 80 independent films currently set for production at Netflix, none of which will be given a theatrical release, in 2018 if you want to watch what might be a few of the most provocative films of the year, films made by some of the most prominent names in filmmaking, you’re going to have to stay home, or watch the latest Netflix “indie” on your smartphone or tablet.
Over the past couple of years, Netflix’s dominance of streaming platforms has proved game-changing for Hollywood, as they work to rewrite the film and TV universe to match its model. For anyone who cares about film and its future, that may be a scary thought, or sound potentially threatening.
But is it really?
Today, most studio greenlight conversations are at their most reductive: “Can we sell this in China?” By contrast, Netflix doesn’t care what “plays” in China, given its utter lack of presence in the country, and seeming lack of desire to gain a presence in the countries that comprise east Asia.
For now, the Netflix model injects a deep-pocketed force in the indie mix, their massive, near global reach casting a wide net, placing Netflix at the forefront of the wave of alternate narrative forms —&#32allowing producers to successfully argue for niche-audience titles that might struggle within the theatrical model —&#32while challenging the conventional distribution model.
As we write above, the early year annual Sundance, SXSW (South-by-Southwest), Tribeca and Cannes film festivals remain primary sources for the discovery of new directors and the first-rate indie films they take on the festival circuit, films that tend to garner critical and awards recognition at the end of each calendar year and, increasingly, films that are produced and screened only on Netflix. But not always. Cinema is not dead, yet.
Next month, VanRamblings will write about all the indie films that you can screen within a darkened, air-conditioned movie theatre, in this sure-to-be-sweltering upcoming summer season. In the meantime, look for …

Bisbee ’17. A Canadian première at next month’s 17th annual DOXA Documentary Film Festival, screening only once (so you’ll want to get your tickets now!), on Sunday, May 13th, 6pm at SFU Goldcorp Cinema, filmmaker and writer Robert Greene will be in attendance to present his latest film, and participate in a post-screening Q&A, responding to audience questions about a film that has variously been described as the “most talked-about documentary film of the year, an audacious, arresting dream-like mosaic”, Greene’s film focused on a traumatic 1917 immigrant deportation, when an Arizona sheriff —&#32backed by union-busting thugs hired by the mining companies —&#32rounded up striking workers, exiling them to the New Mexico desert … never to be heard from again. Greene’s film, while confronting an ugly truth, discovers a measure of healing and solidarity. See Bisbee ’17 next month at DOXA, or miss out on it forever.

C’mon back next Wednesday for more DOXA Documentary Film Festival coverage, which will fit nicely into our ongoing Vancouver Votes 2018 coverage. We’ll look forward to seeing you back here next Friday for feature coverage of DOXA 2018, and an interview with the tough, the brilliant, the wonderful, our friend, Selina Crammond, who this year succeeds the near irreplaceable Dorothy Woodend, as the festival’s new Programme Director.