On the cover of the November 2010 issue is an illustration by Byron Eggenschwiler depicting a baby cradling an elderly man. Perhaps I was read Robert Munsch’s I Love You Forever too many times as a child, but this seemed to be a very fitting idea for the healthcare issue. It always made sense to me that one day the young will take care of the old. This issue of Alberta Views addresses this exact topic.

In a feature article entitled “No Place To Age”, freelance writer Hope Smith reacts to the challenges facing our long-term healthcare facilities. Bed shortages for those who need them is one of the clear driving points in her article. Having full-time care is essential to long-term care, regardless if it is from a facility or from you giving up your job to take care of an elderly parent.

The difference between homecare and long-term care all comes down to money, time and energy. Smith writes that long-term care provided by a facility is very restricted in Alberta: not enough beds for those who need them. As a result people are forced into homecare arrangements—which means relatives pay for someone to make house calls 4-6 times a day or they quit your job and do it themselves. None of these options are ideal.

The striking part of this problem is that aging is something we all face, so the fact our long-term health system is in shambles is disturbing.

From personal experience, I know how frustrating it can be. A few years ago, my grandfather sold his home of 50 years to move into an adult living building. He could no longer mow his lawn and the housework was too much for him. It seemed like the moment he moved out, his once vivid memory started to become muddled. Soon he needed assistance, which, luckily, was available in his current building. Eventually, the building staff called my mother and told her my grandfather needed more care than they could provide and that we should start looking for a new home.

The waiting lists were horrendous: most places with a year waiting list—minimum. But my grandfather needed the care now, so my mother and uncle paid the exorbitant fees to have someone look after him. As time passed my grandfather became unhappier. He was eventually moved to a short term full-care facility where someone could watch him at all times. He loved it there but he was not allowed to stay because it was only meant to be a transition-care facility. After six months in a place he loved he was forced to move. He resented having to move and even though the new and final place was closer to us (he was less than 10 minutes away), he was unhappy—until he couldn’t even remember what he was unhappy about anymore.

My concerns are about stability. When dealing with a person who needs a constant and stable atmosphere it is not in their best interest to move them around all the time. Unfortunately, this is how our system works. There is always a waiting list. Then the family is put in the position of hoping the wait is less than expected—knowing full well this means that some other family has to lose someone in order for you to get their room.

My family was also lucky that private care was an option. Without the money from my grandfather’s house, the care he needed would have been impossible to provide. So what happens to families that can’t afford the care they need? Who will take care of them? My grandfather used to joke, “Nobody gets outta this world alive!”, but the sad fact is we don’t have the amenities in place to make the inevitable manageable. People are scrambling for stability when they should be spending time with those they love.

Smith writes, “If those of us who are edging toward old age don’t get involved, we will have no control over what could be a rather bleak future.” And a bleak future it will be, if there is no roof over our heads.

Sincerely,

Nicole (The Intern)

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In the face of the digital age, book publishers are facing an identity crisis. Questions about how they should publish complicate their choices of whom they publish.

With a Blackberry poised in the hand of political blogger Dave Cournoyer on the cover, the June 2009 issue of Alberta Views focuses on all things media: from internet upstarts to the shape of book publishing in the province. Author George Melnyk’s feature report “The Tomes, They Are A-Changing” examines how some publishers are managing to adapt to the digital age while others don’t make the cut.

One of the largest draws to books, personally, has always been the physical object. As a self-proclaimed bibliophile there is something magical and awe-inspiring about a physically bound book—its smell, its texture, its inability to escape time or aging. But temporality aside the new wave of e-reading has affected more than just how people read and relate to writing. With the emergence of e-reading comes a whole new on slot of conundrums forcing publishing houses to reinvent themselves.

The fact is Alberta book publishers are trusted to provide a quality product that is culturally relevant in our province. Without taking the leap into e-publishing they risk losing readers who have “gone digital.” Add to this the pressure of our current economy and its no wonder smaller houses (and even larger ones) are starting to fold. It was just a few weeks ago when Canadian publisher McClellan & Stewart was bought out by international conglomerate Random House. Together they will face new publishers such as Amazon and Kobo, both rumoured to be starting publishing divisions.

Small publishers that manage to stick out this industry renovation will likely have the support of small independent bookstores. Local stores are more likely to stock the regional work of their writers and stay away from more mainstream titles. Independent bookstores provide a solid venue for readers to browse content from trusted sources and still know that what they will read will be significant to their regional identity.

But where e-reading is concerned, does it really matter where you buy your virtual product? When buying something online it is hard to visualize whom you are supporting, be it a small company or a behemoth. Most people have limited brand loyalty and shop only for the best deal. What worries me is that if the printed book should truly become extinct, what will happen to the independent bookstores dedicated to selling relevant cultural materials? Some may argue that if those stores cannot foster enough business they shouldn’t be in business, but the cultural importance of their merchandise should be protected from the wrath of supply and demand.

This is where government support should intervene. According to Melnyk, unlike BC and Ontario, Alberta does not offer tax credits to publishers. Alberta publishers do receive larger grant blocks from the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) but only because there are less publishers in the province. It is unfortunate that external funding for book publishers in Alberta is minimal when our cultural identity should be a priority for the government (seeing as it is continually marred by bad press from the oilsands.)

Overall, Melnyk leaves me with the impression that the publishing industry will survive this latest incarnation of the written word by adapting. If the world decides books are useless and digital media is where it’s at, then publishing houses will change. They will follow the course of evolution and maybe one day someone will think it’s interesting to actually have a hardcopy of something and books will make a comeback. I just hope it never comes to either extreme: people should be able to read the stories and histories about their cultural community and choose how they read them. Local publishers should have support from the government so that they don’t have to be bought by larger companies just to survive.

Sincerely,

Nicole (The Intern)

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The cover of the May 2008 issue of Alberta Views reads “Our Unique Culture” with a conceptual cover image representing the dichotomy between urban and rural.

In one of the May issue’s features, past president of the Alberta Legislature Press Gallery Darcy Henton writes about political apathy during our last provincial election in 2008. In “The Year Alberta Stayed Home” Henton discusses the momentum that Liberal party leader Kevin Taft felt going into the election and the disappointment that followed when only 41% of eligible voters actually voted (down from 45.12% in 2004). It was the election that saw the Progressive Conservatives gain 12 seats and the opposition shrink to 11 MLAs across 2 parties: 9 Liberals and 2 NDPs.

So what happened?

According to Henton the leadership shift from Ralph Klein to Ed Stelmach was a key factor in the renewal of enthusiasm for the PCs. People who had been fed up with the Tories under Klein were willing to give Stelmach a chance. Conservatives wanted a change in leadership, not party, and so steady-Eddy was elected. Lasting only one term, Stelmach stepped down late last year.

With new leader Alison Redford at the helm of the PCs, it is safe to say that unless more than 41% of voters turn out, the 2012 election may just be a repeat of what happened in 2008. But the PCs aren’t the only party with a new leader this time around. The Liberals have Raj Sherman, the Wildrose Alliance has Danielle Smith and the Alberta Party has Glenn Taylor. The NDP leader Brian Mason remains the only veteran of the 2008 election.

With all these new fish in the pond, this coming election should be interesting and hopefully surprising. At the same time, if you look at historical evidence, voter turnout spikes every second PC leader. Having dropped to a 30-year low in the 2008 elections (as well as a national record for lowest turnout), it feels safe to say the only way to go from here is up.

I did a little digging of my own because the question “When was the last time Alberta had a decent voter turnout?” would not leave me alone. Apparently the answer was 1993 when Ralph Klein first ran for the PCs. That year, there was a 60.21% voter turnout. Before that it was in 1982 with 66%, when Peter Lougheed was in office and running for re-election.

But even with a massive turnout, it is unlikely the seats will be distributed any differently. Henton talked with former Liberal MLA Ed Gibbons, who told him he believed voters in Edmonton had decided “it was better to sit at ‘Ed’s table’ than elect the opposition.” Edmonton had gained 10 new conservative seats, putting the Tories in 13 of the city’s 18 ridings. It seemed to Gibbons that Edmonton suffered from “winner’s mentality,” meaning it was more important to vote for the party with the most seats as opposed to the party they were the most sympathetic to.

Henton’s article ends with a question posed by Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan. “Once all the big projects are built, what will be left?” he asks. This makes me wonder about the efficiency of a political party too long in power, because at some point they will run out of ideas and have no opposition to fall back on to maintain any semblance of ingenuity. Now that is a scary thought.

Sincerely,

Nicole (The Intern)

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The September issue of Alberta Views from 2007 looks near identical to our current 2012 issue, with the exception of a few font changes. The cover photo portrays a female student at a desk with pen in hand.

Inside is an article on penmanship in elementary schools. I must confess that I have been looking forward to this article since I first started planning my blog entries. I have always been interested in the subject. Even now the irony of me writing an electronic blog doesn’t escape me.

I am perhaps one of few “young people” that still considers penmanship an essential part of education. I started learning cursive early, at the age of six, because my older sister would come home with cursive homework and I instantly wanted to learn it as well. For this reason an article like the one written by former Alberta Views staffer Amber Bowerman easily caught my attention amidst the featured articles in this issue like David King’s essay “School Principles” about the condition of our schools or Connie Howard’s report “Ill Wind Blowing” on multiple sclerosis in Alberta.

In “The Quill is Gone” Bowerman talks to students, teachers and administrators alike about the pros and cons of the digital medium and its impact on good ol’ fashioned penmanship.

Writing by hand is a stressful venture for many young people. From a very young age my classmates and I were encouraged to type up our assignments (I remember it started as early as grade 4). I remember classmates trying to write papers in text lingo. That pretty much guaranteed them a fail. In my mind I compare it to shorthand. Shorthand is useful for notes but if you are writing something to be taken seriously it is not the appropriate language to use. Even though the content of what my classmate wrote might have been acceptable, the mode in which she tried to communicate it was not correct. Her failing that assignment was a hard way to learn something so simple.

Bowerman discovers that the positives of handwriting seem to have greater influence than the positives of typing. “Handwriting remediation specialist Jeanette Farmer asserts that the act of handwriting helps develop children’s neural pathways, improves self-control and may even help combat attention deficit disorder.” I have never heard of someone developing self-control through typing.

“Handwriting is all-encompassing. It requires a visual, a physical, a cognitive. It uses the whole child.” Says occupational therapist Jan Olsen in an interview with Bowerman.

In contrast, digital media such as instant messaging, email and texting has created a generation that is more textual than verbal. I doubt I am the only one to notice that tweens and teens, when out in public, are generally quiet because their heads are down and they are texting each other instead of chatting. The transition from verbal to textual communication could be attributed to the proliferation of mainstream cellphones in the early 2000s. With the introduction of texting, abbreviated communication became the standard unless you wanted to pay an arm and a leg. Thus text lingo was born. Teachers say one clear pro technology argument is that students are writing more. However I think there is an important distinction to be made: these abbreviations, though useful, can cloud clarity and make simple concepts confusing to understand.

I have many friends in their twenties who still do not understand the difference between “to” and “too” because when they text they avoid the conundrum by typing “2” instead. This trickles back to elementary school: what were these kids being taught instead of their homonyms? Typing, computer peripherals, internet usage. Sure, those computer skills have become invaluable but ground level grammar and language skills have taken a hit. Though odd to most, I text in complete sentences—making me a radical for my generation. However I am not alone in my attitudes. I have friends who are as equally picky, believing texter abbreviations make you sound ridiculous.

Needless to say, Alberta, like the rest of the world, is migrating toward a digital world. It didn’t surprise me that a magazine like Alberta Views would publish an article on this subject. In fact, I was looking for it from the moment I started looking into Alberta View’s history. I am surprised it took me until a 2007 issue of the magazine, because it seems fitting that a print magazine should write about the impacts of the digital world. Even so there are still reasons to teach the old methods, like handwriting. Whether for personal, social or economical purposes there are many advantages to penmanship. We just can’t let ourselves forget it.

Sincerely,

Nicole (The Intern)

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