Saskatchewan’s favourite daughter,Theresa Sokyrka, blew away both audience and judges on Canadian Idol – again. Initially I was a bit concerned that she wasn’t “pop idol” enough – more suited to jazz, soul – but the quality and maturity of her voice may prove my first instincts wrong.

And then, of course, there’s the Saskatchewan factor. Last week’s Idol show saw 3 million votes come in for the 6 contestants from across Canada. SaskTel processed a million. Heh.

Frost – three weeks early, with hundreds of thousands of acres covered in lush green crops that are three weeks late.
There are a million crossed fingers in this province tonight.

I swear to God… if a miracle pesticide were developed with the potential to eradicate the horsefly, some idiot would race to place it on the endangered species list and nurture it back from the brink….

In a story that has taken several unusual twists already – yesterday, the father of missing 5 year old Tamra Keepness took a baseball bat to her mother’s live in boyfriend.
What makes me think we’re finally getting closer to some real answers?

… is a herd of millions of growing spring calves with nowhere to go.
While BSE has slipped from the news cycle in urban areas, the border to the US remains closed to Canadian cattle because of a single case of BSE diagnosed a year and a half ago. A crop of new feeder calves will be heading into a winter with few buyers – there isn’t enough capacity in the Canadian meatpacking industry to process them – much less the cull cattle, which are now virtually worthless.
Nothing is going to change until after the US election cycle – in a close race, nobody is going to rock any boats unneccessarily. If Bush is defeated, don’t look for it to open after the elections either – Kerry’s a “country-of-origin labelling” (translation: clueless about the intricacy of the food industry) protectionist and proud of it.
Yet on the retail front, the prices of beef remain nearly as high as they were before the crisis. While I don’t begrudge the meatpackers and retailers the opportunity to make lemonade out of someone else’s discarded lemons, it isn’t helping to encourage consumption. Margins have always been slim in the cattle industry – and even worthless cattle have to be fed. Something’s going to give. A massive cull is being proposed.
Tomorrow another online petition to open the border comes online. I’m not very optimistic about these campaigns, but if you want to sign on, here’s the link – Opentheborder.com
Can’t hurt, anyway.
(link tip – Charles McDonald, who always has useful observations and good catches, and who should consider starting his own blog.)

During a search of the Pasqua First Nation for still missing five year old
Tamra Keepness, the police recieved a call about a burning van about 10 km from the search area.
There were human remains inside. Forensics haven’t begun, or the body identified, but they don’t believe it’s related to the case. Weird.

Woohoo!

All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go,
I’m standing here outside your door,
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye.
(Not that you could with that much narcotic in your system)
But the dawn is breakin’,
It’s early morn,
Deportation order’s waitin’
Tube’s outa my arm,
Already, I’m so lonesome I could die.
Kiss me and smile for me,
Take this little pill for me,
Pass out so you’ll never, ever know.
‘Cause I’m leaving on a jet plane,
Don’t know when I’ll be back again,
Oh, babe, I hate to go

She’s been missing for over two weeks now, and still no sign of Tamra Keepness. The official ground search has wrapped up, though volunteers continue to look.
Today, police assisted social services in removing the other 5 children from the home.

Today was a little busy for blogging. But I got out the camera on the way home from town as a thunderstorm was rolling towards Saskatoon behind me. The yellow flowers are canola, and the bloom is actually beginning to wane – the colour on the fields was a little more intense last week. Driving through the countryside, canola perfume hangs in the air – subtle and pleasant. About 40% of the farmland in this region is planted with the oilseed this year. The aerial view must be spectacular.

I had almost forgotten what it was like. Three years of dust storms, unrelenting heat, grasshoppers, high wind, barren pastures and withered crops. This region of the province had a drought that surpassed that of the 1930’s – the land saved only by modern no-till cropping methods.

(Dust storm, late May 2002. The street looking west from my house.)
But this year, the rainfall has been normal, the dust storms are gone. Summer heat was slow to arrive and crops are late, but they’re healthy and catching up fast. And the cold and wet meant trillions of grasshoppers perished, unhatched.
If anyone is considering a road trip into this province, this is the year, this is the time.

I just caught the taill end of the *beep beep beep* of a weather warning, and got to the TV in time to read “DO NOT WAIT FOR FURTHER WARNINGS. TAKE COVER IMMEDIATELY”.
Unfortunately, the station covers a warning area a few thousand square miles in area, so I don’t know who they’re talking to. Not us at the moment – the sky is clear overhead. But it sure isn’t clear to the north and east. The skies over Saskatoon, 25 miles to the northeast, are a million dollar light show at the moment.

(A photo I took a couple of years ago)
Methinks some grain bins are going to be rolling cross the prairies like bowling balls tonight.
ooops… as I finish this, another warning. Caught it this time. It’s for us as well as most of the area surrounding. Too bad it’s so dark – there are sure to be some freaky photo opportunities.

A week ago tomorrow, Tamara Jewel Keepness disappeared. According to media reports, her mother says she was put to bed at 11 pm. and gone in the morning. The police refuse to characterize the disappearance as anything more than a “missing person”, which I suppose is beaurospeak for “we have no clue where she went or how.”
Question: This little 5 year old simply got up at 3 am and walked out the door? Do you know of any 5 year old, up until 11 pm, who would not be dead to the world until well into the next morning? Things about this disappearance don’t ring true on a lot of levels, including the media’s insistance on describing the father as deeply distraught and “pleading” for the safe return of his daughter – the actual taped interviews of the parents show remarkably calm, underwhelmed individuals. It may be cultural.
I don’t have any search and rescue expertise, and I suspect that there’s information they are not releasing to the public, but it seems to me that the restricted area the police concentrated on for the first couple of days (9 block area) was a strange approach. They’ve since expanded the search and are finally including fields outside the city, but to me, this is very little – and very late, if this little girl had indeed just wandered away.
When I was under 2 years old, “Butch”, the farm collie, and I took a saucepan and walked a mile to the neighboring farm in the space of an hour or so. I suspect I was running away in rebellion over some disciplinary action by my mother – the saucepan suggests I planned to fend for myself. Turned myself in to a neighbor, instead.
But, the notion that a lost or anger motivated 5 year old would only make it a few blocks before hunkering down or getting trapped somewhere is illogical.

Regina’s Crimestoppers number is 306-545-8477 Amber Alert Website

There’s a live news conference on right now. Some twit just asked if any native elders have had “visions” that have been followed up on. *sigh*
We can onlyhope they find her with a disgruntled relative, or somewhere equally benign. Otherwise, propsects are pretty dim.

The Saskatoon Police Service has suffered a black eye or two in the past few years. But it appears the citizenry isn’t above taking advantage of it.
In the past two years, 112 complaints have been laid against members for inappropriate conduct. 7 were founded. Yesterday they announced that they’re fed up.

This week a 23-year-old man was arrested six months after he was convicted of lying about allegations of Police Abuse. He was sentenced to 45 days in jail but had failed to show up for his sentencing hearing. The Saskatoon Police Association said it would follow up any false allegations with legal action. “If you’re going to lie about something a police officer has done to you, we’re going to pursue criminal charges or we’re going to sue you,” said spokesperson Stan Geortzen.

Can’t say that I blame them.
Freezing deaths of native men over the past years have been laid at their feet, despite any hard evidence of police involvement. And this winter, two native men were found, nearly frozen, on Saskatoon streets. The metabolic effects of alcohol, insufficient dress and poor judgement can have that consequence. Those incidents did not involve police accusations – because they were found and survived to tell their tale.
Like the thousands of claims for compensation for abuse in state and church run institutions in the past, these cases tend to produce an avalanche of opportunist claims by those who want in on the compensation fund, or in the case of police-suspect interactions – leverage against the charges they’re facing.
Beaurocracies have been turning a blind eye to these abuses for too long, harming both the taxpayer who generally foots the bill for the crimes of others through the funding of compensation packages, and the deserving victims of abuse and misconduct, whose genuine suffering is overshadowed by frivilous claims over imagined or overstated slights.

From today’s Star Diamond Project news release;

A total of 3,355 commercial sized diamonds (greater than 1.18 millimetre square mesh screen), collectively weighing 338 carats, has been recovered from the treatment of 4,913 dry tonnes of kimberlite. Thirty-three diamonds greater than one carat have been recovered and the three largest stones are: 3.50, 3.31 and 3.19 carats, respectively. In addition, 352 diamonds (6 carats) were recovered down to 0.85 millimetre square mesh. The colour of over 80 percent of these diamonds has been classified as white, with a further 12 percent classified as off-white.

Like I said a couple of months ago, anticipate diamond prices to drop to $3 a bushel.

Three percent of Saskatchewan’s taxpayers pay 28% of education taxes.
They are getting tired of it.

A month ago, the NDP government in Saskatchewan announced another round of bed closures and service reductions in rural areas. In fact, this was a greatly scaled back version of what had been suggested. With the finance department still juggling budget figures as of May, the cuts proposed were dramatic. Fearing the political fallout, a smaller package of service cutbacks were decided on at, quite literally, the eleventh hour.
Rural hospitals are not well utilized – some serve as little more than expensive long term care for the elderly. Until, of course, a farm accident or heart attack occurs. My father, for example, went into the local hospital about 12 years ago for observation and suffered a heart attack while under a monitor and nursing care – and survived as a result of it. Forced to drive an hour that afternoon to seek medical advice when he wasn’t feeling well, he may not have attempted – or completed – the trip.
That hospital was one of the ones reprieved in this last run of closures.
Closing beds in an urban center (in the city of Saskatoon, pop 200,000, there are three fully equipped hospitals) results in surgical delays and lengthened waiting lists. But 24 hour emergency and critical care services are not shut down.
Closing beds in rural communities forces rural families and ambulances to make increasingly lengthy trips to get treatment for critically ill or injured people – often over substandard, poorly maintained roads. The opportunity to stabilize a patient at a local facility is lost.
With the publicly funded hospital closed and private hospitals prohibited by law, large geographical areas are created where emergency medical care is effectively forbidden by the government.
In other words, zero-tier health care.
There may be a solution where these two problems – a shortage of advanced diagnostic services, and a shortage of rural emergency care – could be blended under a privately provided system. A government with imagination and courage could re-examine these small communities, and having satisfied themselves that hospital emergency services are not affordable under the fully funded public system, designate these areas as “free enterprise” health zones. In these zones only, investors would be allowed to set up private diagnostic facilities. Existing buildings would already be available for sale or lease.
There would be one provision – private servers would be required to provide basic 24 hour emergency services in the same facility. Residents who qualified to have their services covered under SaskHealth would still be covered in the usual manner, while those who wished to could purchase diagnostic services (or any other health service offered) privately or through different insurers.
The side benefit? Increased economic activity in smaller rural communities. Instead of farm families having to find expensive accomodations in the cities while awaiting diagnosis and treatment, urban residents would be travelling out of town to seek theirs – thereby, taking pressure off the existing MRI facilities in major centers while stimulating local rural economies.
Crossposted at the Shotgun

In May, a food ingredient company in the UK, J.O.Sims joined with German supplier Dinter Trading, to begin promoting a variety of premium berry and fruit products. One of them was the saskatoon – the small berry that grows on shrubs here, for which the city of Saskatoon (25 miles down the road from here) is named.

Food Navigator- In February this year J.O. Sims launched a new Canadian produced berry – the Saskatoon – onto the market marking a fresh revenue source for the 100-year-old UK company.
With an almond-cherry taste profile, and a member of the apple family, saskatoon berries are available in the UK for the first time after 10 years on Canadian supermarket shelves.
“This is a big opportunity for the food industry, particularly those working in bakery and beverages, and those looking for novel ingredients,” Jim McKee at the fruits ingredients company said to FoodNavigator.com.
The firm claims the almond-cherry flavour of the fruit gives manufacturers the advantage of providing a nutty flavour without having nuts in the factory.

A symbol of prairie culture and history, saskatoons are truly unique in flavour – the almond-cherry description is fairly accurate. They’re canned, baked into pies and crisps, turned into preserves. They were important food source for native Indians for thousands of years, as well as early settlers and farm families. Today, domestic varieties have been developed (larger but less flavourful than the wild berry) and there are a number of commercial orchards in the province. The Saskatoon Berry Barn here is a popular local and tourist attraction, and specializes in dishes based on the berry.
Then, Prairie Lane Ltd. decided to ask for a permit to export the berries from Canada to the UK. The saskatoon berry went before the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes in May.

CBC– Following through on a threat, Britain is pulling products made with saskatoon berries off store shelves, and other European countries could follow.
Saskatoon berries Britain’s Food Standards Agency says there’s not enough evidence the wild berry is safe to eat.

And odd that the J.O. Sims use of the berry didn’t spawn an investigation. Nor have they noticed the berries are now grown in Europe and are available in plant nurseries. Apparently, in the EU hysteria about genetically modified foods in Europe, the mere fact that the saskatoon is considered a “novel” food (anything not seen in Europe prior to 1997) has triggered the ban.
Bizarre.

Breaking News
March 29, 2004, Small Dead Animals brought you this story:

Today, under pressure from the Opposition, the Saskatchewan Government admitted that the souvenir bags advertised did not contain pure lake bottom goose shit soil, but were in fact, cut with sand trucked from outside the city.

Property Management Corp. Minister Deb Higgins explained that the bags were filled with sand that was used during the lake deepening.
Dirt directly from the lake bed could not be used because there was too much decaying goose excrement and alluvium in it. It was also rather mucky and hard to put into the bags.

This reminder – the next time the government promises to give out free shit – not only is it not free, it may not be the shit you thought you were getting…
Added to the Beltway Traffic Jam.

Feds sue Sask Hiways

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) says highways workers did not take the proper steps to control erosion around Maple Creek, and disrupted a fish habitat when they dug a gravel pit in the Adaire Creek near Wolseley.

Average rainfall in the Maple Creek district is around 12″ per year.

If the matter proceeds to a hearing, the province could face fines of up to $300,000 for each charge.

Of course, federal laws protecting “fish habitat” do not require that actual fish be present – a convenient oversight. Creeks on the Saskatchewan prairies are fed only by precipitation. They generally stop flowing after spring run-off and freeze to the bottom in winter.

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp  Moose Mountain Creek

In the 1980’s, the Saskatchewan government ran headlong into federal environmental laws when they began building the Rafferty-Alameda dam project. To put it mildly, all hell broke loose. The feds demanded environmental impact studies, David Suzuki jetted out to speak on site about the Great Evils Of Dams, while critics alternated with dire warnings – “the dam will never fill!” ….. ” the dam would result in destructive flooding of fragile habitat!”

I remember Valerie Pringle interviewing then Premier Grant Devine for the CBC at the height of the contraversy;

Pringle: “But Premier Devine, don’t you understand? It sounds as though the people of Saskatchewan don’t care about the environment.”
Devine: “With all due respect, Valerie, why don’t you get off your chair in Toronto and come see Moose Mountain creek for yourself. You could stop it with your briefcase.”

Today the dam provides a much needed resort area for the water starved southeast, and helps to control the occassional, but serious flooding that can occur further downstream in years with heavy run-off.
No word from David Suzuki lately.