Wishing myself a happy birthday!

MMP or FPTP?

MMP stands for mixed member proportional. There is a referendum being held in Ontario on the provincial election day concerning whether to switch to this new system or not. 

There are 107 electoral districts in Ontario now and each one of them has a representing official. They can be affiliated with any party and are elected by the voters within that district, or riding. The candidate with the most votes takes the entire riding. That is the "first past the post" system we have now.

Proportional government would see voters casting votes for a party instead of a person. The party would generate a list of candidates with their important figures at the top. The percentage of votes for each party would directly correspond to the percentage of seats they would get in parliament. 

MMP is a mixed system that would utilise 90 fptp seats and 39 proportional, or list, seats. The voters would cast two ballots, one for their local member of provincial parliament and one for a party. The winner would take the riding and assume their assigned place in the fptp seats. The list ballots would be counted province-wide and the number of list seats for each party would be assigned. 

That is basically MMP.

The Citizen's Assembly for Electoral Reform's website.
The official information page for the referendum.

If you've been checking your comments, you probably understand that I am not dead yet. I am engrossed in other things at the moment and haven't had the motivation for anything more than commenting on others' journals. I hope to be writing again soon.

My mother died last night.

Never found a note for me in my mother's papers today:

"dear baby

i try to force myself to sleep but i'm not tired. Also i am afraid to awaken to anything else than your voice on the other end of the line. i miss your voice. Right now i wish we had no need for money or parental security and we could spend every hours deep inside each other in every way. i am scared when i cannot find you. i wish we had our own room. Today is special - a symbol of 5 months - a time we finally found each other in. But it could be any day where you are not here - i would feel the same. i am miserable, completly sad when i let myself feel the fact that you are not here. Most times i ignore it because the pain is too great. Or i think of your beautifulness. Like roses you wish you could've stolen, or words pressed deep into the scent of my neck. i love you and nothing will be felt, or seen, or experienced without a definate trace of you in my life ever again. i love you. And that is the only truth. it is permanent and it is ingrained on my soul. i will keep you forever with me, my Raven.

Love your only HAZE."

It is from Emily. Likely from one of the times in our turbulent relationship when we were broken up. I wonder if any of it is still true. I used to call her names but I think that was unfair of me. We fucked up our lives over each other and the blame lies with both of us. 

Sorry for that..

August 23, Solitude in pidgeon-flesh and the asian contingent

Ah! I slept until noon today! Well, I don't remember much about the night before so I figure that is why my head hurts. It was a beautifully rainy day today. Ma Pop and I took br0n to San Marco Piazza to chase the birds. She wore her water shoes so she could tromp through the puddles on the way. There was thunder rolling over the city and the innumerable pidgeons of the square jumped at the sound of it. br0n seemed to take flight with them, running after them, wet and bedraggled, looking very much the part of pidgeon/scarecrow. Ma Pop suggested we get some gelato and I thought that was a wonderful idea. We walked a short distance in the drizzle, finding ourselves under the eaves of the shop, I went in to talk to the girl at the counter. Gelato is not indistiguishable from iced cream, though it is very similar. The chocolate is so, so good. Ma Pop had the cherry and br0n had vanilla flavour. We finished and went to sit in the salon of our albergo, out of the rain. People watching has always been a hobby of Ma Pop's: picking out strange behaviors and interesting features, commenting and sparking thoughts and conversation. We sat at the window and watched the rain and the people below, playing restaurateur with br0n. We also spent some time in the small column of a courtyard, waiting for dinner time. We went to a pizzaria around the corner for dinner after stealing never from her personal time and noted that all the waitresses were asian girls. It is strange watching an asian approach you, knowing some of their general mannerisms and seeing some of them in the person approaching you, expecting a broken greeting or at least a light accent, and getting a perfect "buonjourno" and an easy prattling of Italiano. I was reminded that we are the foreigners, that we are the ones with broken language and seen as having generalized trappings and faults. Knowing some do not like me or my family on the basis of being tourists was unsettling. Never the less I ate a great spaghetti alla bolognese, as did Ma Pop, br0n had a margherita pizza she didn't eat, preferring a plain bun, and never a very good looking gnocchi (which, I found out just prior to coming to Europe, is pronounced nyo-kee, not no-chee.) With wine undrunk and a long, quiet conversation still to be had with never about this and that, we headed to our rooms for the night.

We awoke the next day early enough for the included continental and packed ourselves into two small tables. I took Ma Pop up to her room when she was done with the intention of coming back down to finish my breakfast. I got back after dropping her off and the waitress had cleared the table, she's quick. Ma Pop took a nap and the rest of the family went to take the laundry to be done. It was surprisingly far, the ~other,~ closer laundromat being closed for all of August. It will be a long time before I understand the workings of Italian business. It was a nice walk along the main tourist port, over four beautifully crafted bridges and up into a neighborhood we didn't know. We found the place with very little difficulty and paid twenty euros per load for separation into lights and darks, washing, drying, and folding. I figured that it wasn't bad for a tourist price. We bought some beer, wine, and pop at a corner store on the way home, I love Europe). I went alone to pick up our laundry and it was a quick trip through the winding streets. Navigation by foot and boat are the only ways to travel in Venezia and walking seems to be the faster of the two, though some of the bodies of water don't have bridges across. I enjoyed the time alone and paced quickly through the other tourists, as per mi mode.

A painting at the Albergo Firenze in Venizia. nsfw