Headline News Abuse

In 1910 in Canada it was the Wheat Boom Era. And the new wheat crop in the Western Provinces was signficantly changing Canada and its relationship with the US and world

Simply put, “Wheat” is a character in Flo in the City.

The Nicholsons paid about 5.00 a barrel for wheat flour which was A LOT, all considered. They did not seem to be benefitting directly from this boom. I’m not 100 percent why, but I suspect that the wheat was being sold to Europe.

Anyway, I’ve been reading analyses of the recent 2011 election and these are all over the board…but no commentator (until now) has suggested that rising food prices in Quebec had anything to do with the NDP win.

All I know is that my food costs have taken off and I have to seriously reconsider what I eat, and that’s despite the fact I am an empty nester.

Now, yesterday, I wrote about bit about breastfeeding and the newsmedia.

I wrote how GOOGLE headlines tend to distort the news, especially the scientific studies they herald. That scientific findings are being spun out of control…or being controlled by ‘spin’ more aptly put.

Here’s another example, related to wheat. A study has come out (an American one out of Stanford (of the Stanford-Binet intelligence test saying that global warming has contributed to the fact that world grain yields are down 5 percent. This trend, scientists say, has not reached North America. This cannot be good news.

So the Canadian Press’s headline: Study Finds that Canadian Farmers could benefit from Climate Change. And it is the lead and only visible headline on the topic on Google news Canada this morning. (Earlier, you could see two other headlines with it.)

If you click on ‘other stories’ you get: Cereal Killer: Global Warmer Stunts Growth of Global Crop Yield (Scientific American);Climate Shifts hit wheat yields (BBC);Climate Change Killing Crops but not in Canada (Study) Sun News; Report: Global Warming already crimping crops, pushing prices higher (Washington Post) etc.

A dangerous headline by the Canadian Press, I’d say. Especially since that’s all some Canadians will see. Reminds me of the Monty Python skit “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.”

The world media picked up this story, but somehow failed to see ‘the upside’ to this story.

Sure, they may, in the short term, be able to sell wheat at higher prices, but rising global grain prices is BAD NEWS for everyone.

And this article does not suggest that Canadian CITIZENS will benefit from this. Although the article omits the obvious, that our food prices will go up too, regardless.

Just like the Nicholsons of Tighsolas 1911, we won’t be benefitting from this particular gloomy wheatboom.

Lessons from the Past

Stoves from the Eaton’s catalogue 1909. Ranges. An essential for the home, as important as the roof over your head.

The first thing I notice, looking at the cooking stoves above, which provided sustainance and heat, is the price. This household essential cost less than a woman’s fur jacket by a third or a half, and, in one case, just a little over double the cost of the woman’s hat Edith bought at Ogilvys.

And these suckers were made to last, as were the ranges we purchased for a huge chunk of salary, in the 60′s.

Today, ordinary ranges (like everything else) are much cheaper in relation to average middle class salary but they are made to fall apart, with obsolescence built in.

Now, I am about to copy and print out all my installments of Flo in the City, my novel in progress on this blog, based on the letters of http://www.tighsolas.ca/ and edit the first part. I have done this before, the printing part, at least, at the end of 1908, but this is a more natural place to end my chapter, I think.

As I do this, I ponder my previous blog, where I found evidence that women with poor homemaking skills were being blamed for the huge social problems of the day. Due to this, women’s suffrage became an issue for more than just an elite group of agitators. For every woman.

Is anything like this happening today? Well, yes, with global warming. This week yet another poll came out (polls, the scourge of our age) that reveals that the average Canadian feels he or she is not doing enough personally to stop climate change.

It’s very similiar to 1910, in that average Canadians are no more responsible for climate change through their day to day actions than average wives were responsible for the social problems of 1910. (If we stopped buying crap, like appliances designed to crap out in a year, and cheap throw away clothes, that might be something different)

And the actions every day people take in the home in the West will not be able to save the planet, which contains billions of people who crave the cheap crap they can’t have, anymore than a hardworking housewife in 1910 could scrub out ‘the social evil’ in the cities with abrasive powder and a scouring pad. (Old Dutch had an ad campaign in the 1910 era, “Old Dutch believes in women’s rights: the right to a clean home.)

This line of thinking (the three R’s, and that idiotic bag business in grocery stores)in my opinion is all designed to make us feel were are being useful and have some control, but we don’t, that is unless we take more tangible social action, through the avenues democracy still provides in much the same way the suffragists did. Unless we get political.

Of course, in 1908 era, some suffragists became militant, supposedly because they were being thrown in jail anyway, even for peaceful, lawful protest. (They threw rocks and such) and they were reviled by almost everyone, except the Nicholson women, who were all for militant action. Imagine, those well bred Nicholsons, throwing rocks.

The militant suffragists (or suffragettes) were thrown in jail in the UK and the US and when they went on hunger strikes, some were force-fed, through their mouths and their vaginas.

Imagine if suffragettes were around today, how they might be branded and how they might be treated.

Yes, there is a lesson to be learned here, I’m just not exactly sure what. I say this as I look out onto my suburban garden, which is virtually free of snow in mid March. Canada has had a very warm winter, and Montreal a drought. There was more snow this winter in Philadelphia than in Montreal. Fluke or pattern?

Ps. Just an aside, the other day, I decided not to ask the question when shopping “What does this cost?” but to ask “What does this cost the Earth?”

If you asked that question in the modern grocery store, you might well end up taking your reusable canvas grocery bag home empty.