My Own Thoughts

A faded talkshow host g(r)asps for last chance at limelight

What do you do, when your ego has depended for years on hearing your own opinions and having others hear your voice? The soon silence of oblivion or the oblivion of silence is unbearable, so you make one last g(r)asp for attention. You won’t, you CAN’T, you JUST CAN’T BE forgotten, can you?
What do you do? Hmmm…create controversy and bring your name to mind one more time. NOT, albeit, by initiating your own novel idea, but by entering an existing controversy. And not, either, by entering a controversy in your own area, and adding input however questionable there, but by insulting a community dealing with its own issues.
Yes, an insult to somebody or some community would get attention, wouldn’t it. Way to go, P. Dum-man! I’m not so dumb to give you the attention you desire for your memorial, so I’ve changed your name. Trouble is, what memorial, what legacy do you leave, on your way out? Slapping other people? Perhaps that’s what you did on your show. I don’t know, I don’t listen to talkshow hosts for the reason of them wanting to hear their own voices and opinions and the ego that involves, despite the delusion of pretending to hear other voices. Maybe you do hear other voices, I don’t know.
But again, what legacy do you leave, on your way out? Do you pretend to be leaving the world a better place, after they hear your opinion, and your slaps? The people of Digby Neck are trying to KEEP their world a better place! There are fewer and fewer “better places” on this earth, and Digby Neck is one of them. You should see and hear the comments people from other places on this globe say about Digby Neck! I will gladly share them with you. And please see one of them on the Digby Courier, hopefully this week coming. It’s only one of many.
Our place will have more and more value over the days and years to come as one of the few pristine and lovely places left on earth. Don’t you think that should be preserved? Or do you not care, since you are leaving it. ?
I’m asking the question: do you think we should preserve the diminishing green places on earth? Or is your legacy to fill every existing spot with the most detrimental objects or operations of industry? Hmmm?
When you live out in the country for a long time, perhaps all your life, and haven’t seen much of the world like the visitors of mine have, you tend to take your area for granted. “Oh, Digby Neck is just this s_ _t stick of land with nothing on it. Who cares? We might as well do “something” with it.” Ya, right. Number one, it is a beautiful stretch of land, embraced by the awesome wonder of the magnificent Bay of Fundy on one side, and the beautiful and more gentle waters of St. Mary’s Bay. Green spaces, and flora and fauna abound, not only in these surrounding waters, but on the so called s- - t stick of land itself. Deer graze in my orchard daily, the grey heron stalks the brook for trout, eagles hawks bats and owls soar and grace the unsullied skies (there is no smog here, you know).
There are no skyscrapers, no pulpmills, no tar sands, there are no dust clouds from blasting or quarries and the water is clean and clear. Do you want otherwise for us? Wish these other things on your own area, P. Dum-man.
Digby Neckers, at least some of them, are good “shoppers”. It’s not that they don’t want business on this land. Small business is up and coming now. They don’t want businesses with major detriments, that’s all. The big proposals for this area all had and have major detriments to the area and its people. There is, maybe, a downside to every major industry, but these people wish to select the ones with the fewest negative environmental and social impacts. Can you blame them? Wouldn’t you wish this for your area?
There’s no reason why the projects with the worst impacts should be placed here. We don’t have the best wind sites in the country- the turbines are best placed in the best wind areas of the country so they get more bang for the buck! Solar power projects could be placed in the sunniest areas of the country. Tidal projects and turbines should be placed in the areas in which they can provide the best results for their purchase! Isn’t that what good shopping and thinking people would do? You would think it would be good business practice as well. Digby Neck may not have the best return for these investments.
Digby Neck has inherent value, however. It’s assets are what it has, and once you remove the assets or destroy its assets, it no longer will have value. To willingly promote and accept detrimental industry is like…well…shitting in your own bed, you know? Or do you want US to do it, and not you, in YOUR county of Nova Scotia?
The Digby area in general has not refused every business, large or small, that came to be placed on the table. Therefore Digby County cannot be accused of the misnomer of Nimbyland. Walmart arrived with little either fanfare or protest. Sobey’s and Superstore arrived and were not rejected. There is a greenhouse operation on Digby Neck. And a gas station. Even the now enormous, in my view, Wharf Rat Rally has been accepted, although some people leave town during that event.
What this evidences is the good shopping practices as I’ve mentioned before. We are sane, here, and in our rationality and good senses are, even through the fights, allowing growth at a gentle (in every aspect) pace and in a gentle way. Isn’t this a good way? I think so. I just wish we didn’t have to fight so.
There’s no reason that we can’t cherry pick the industry or industries that propose to come here. “Cherry-pick” is not a bad thing. It’s picking the best of the bunch. And, I’d say, rejecting the rotten ones.
I’m talking about bigger industry, here. Small business is coming along fine, on Digby Neck, I’d say, in the way that small business, from fishing to farming to tourism always has. Digby Neck is not going to disappear from small moderate growth. And the kids always go away and always come back. Digby Neck will, however, disappear under the weight and with the destructiveness of large enterprises, unless the cherry-picking is done. The North Mountain Range would disappear with the removal of….wait for it….the North Mountain Range, just as an instance. Basalt is one of Digby Neck’s assets and its presence forms the familiarity of our landscape and protects this narrow band of land from inundation. To use this asset in a destructive way and to lose this asset that gives value to this land by its very being there, is …not rational.
On this very erudite question, I leave you: If you pee or spit into the wind, how is that rational? Mr. Dum-man, I am a female, and cannot, exactly, pee into the wind, like you can, but I sure can spit. And I’m NOT going to do that, because I love my face, such as it is, and I’m rational. It would be a “self-detriment” that I’m not going to pursue, no matter how well another might think it would look good on me. Get my drift?

Kathleen Gidney
In Lovely Digby County, Nova Scotia