From the The Rural Blog, a digest of events, trends, issues, ideas and journalism in rural America, from the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

Daylight Saving Time starts March 9. For years, most of Indiana refused to join the rest of the country in moving clocks ahead one hour, “in part because farmers resisted the prospect of having to work an extra hour in the morning dark,” writes Justin Lahart of The Wall Street Journal. In 2006, Indiana began participating in the annual switch that has long been considered an energy-saver. Now, research using data from before and after the change says “springing forward may actually waste energy.”

“Their finding: Having the entire state switch to daylight-saving time each year, rather than stay on standard time, costs Indiana households an additional $8.6 million in electricity bills”

This week the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) issued a Press Release calling for news organizations to be excluded from Canadian Human Rights legislation. The events that precipitated this were two complaints by Islamic groups against the now web only Western Standard, and against Macleans Magazine.

I have yet to be convinced that journalists, much less publications like Macleans, need to be “protected” from Human Rights Commissions. Since the Commissions in question haven’t even hinted at a decision in these cases I cannot see how the CAJ can claim that they pose a threat to journalists.

For human rights protections to be effective they must be as close to absolute as is possible, and exceptions must be rare and exceptional. Nothing in the CAJ’s complaint meets those standards.

Why shouldn’t the media be held accountable if it is felt that they are exhibiting bias against one group or another? Do publishers and broadcasters have a special privilege which allows them to present material which defames a minority community? Do they not have an obligation to explain their choices, and even to apologize if needed?

The Alberta Human Rights Commission has dealt with similar complaints (1) (2) in the past and from a cursory reading were careful to address the concerns of the media as well as the complainants.

Perhaps things are different in the rarefied atmosphere of Toronto newsrooms, but out in the real world the word “Muslim” has become near synonymous with “Terrorist” and “Evil.” Dr. Elmasry’s claim that “Muslims in both Canada and the U.S. have now replaced Blacks as the number-one minority group being demonized in the public square, in books, in the print and broadcast media, on movie screens, and increasingly in the Internet and World Wide Web...” is not far from the truth. Certainly for many in the Muslim community, or even the “looks vaguely like they could be Muslim” community, these suspicions are a part of daily life.

The CAJ feels the imperative to defend Canadian journalists against Dr. Elmasry and the Canadian Islamic Congress, and the Western Report against critics of its publication of the Jyllands-Posten cartoon. Where though were the CAJ critics when in 2002 the Western Report was being accused of defaming the Jewish community, or when in December of 2007 the Red Deer Advocate was found to contravene the code when they published a Letter to The Editor entitled “Homosexual Agenda Wicked”?

The CAJ archives are incomplete, but I can find no news release defending either of these publishers’ right to publish materials offensive to the gay and Jewish communities. It does look as if there is a double standard at play.

I fail to see any legitimate reason why publishers and broadcasters should not be held to the same standards as all other Canadians. “It costs us money” is not a reason, nor is “It’s a nuisance.”

After reading Margaret Wente’s column in the Globe and Mail this weekend and December’s Tyee column by Terry Glavin I am left to wonder why members of the media are suddenly so very interested in undermining our Human Rights commissions. If there is a significant problem why I aren’t I seeing real investigative reporting instead of veiled criticisms and anecdotal complaints?

If Canadian media are to line up and attack our system of Human Rights bodies, they need to lay out hard facts demonstrating that injustices have occurred on a recurring basis, not just vague complaints that Human Rights Tribunals are not courts of law.

Or if what media organizations seek is the complete and unfettered right to print anything that they choose, then let them stand up and say so, and accept the criticisms that will follow.

Remember last year, when I wrote about Bob Gourlay? Well, this just in.

Hello Barry – I was blown away last year when I read your Blog, and I want to warmly thank you for not forgetting those programs! I never ever dreamed that the show would have an important impact on those terrific young kids in Kelowna during the 1960′s early 70′s.

Thanks to your Blog, I am doing now the Crystal Sound Barrier on www.cronicaradio.com

Every 2 weeks or so I do a new 30 min show! THIS WEEK, FRIDAY, I will be doing a SPECIAL SHOW dedicated to YOU and the kids of Kelowna who remember those songs. I will be talking this week about SEX – something I could not do on CKOV! I will be playing a record that echoes the feeling
of those wild flower power 60′s!

Reply if you wish to roberto@mailmallorca.com

Wishing all of you only the GREATEST of SUCCESS!

- Bob Gourlay of CKOV’s The Crystal Sound Barrier.

This week’s book is not available at Amazon.com but can be had used from several sellers at Amazon.ca. I got my copy for fifty cents at the Hamilton Public Library book sale.

Roughnecks & Wildcatters by Allan Anderson is an oral history of the Canadian oil patch, especially Alberta and the prairies. Published in 1981 it collects first person accounts from hundreds of people who created the Canadian oil industry, from investors, to geologists, to the men and women who worked the rigs that brought the first oil out of those farm lands.

I’m not big fan of oral histories, but this is easily as entertaining as the best of Studs Terkel’s work, and I’d argue is an essential book if you want to understand the history and politics that surround the oil industry in this country.

It also shows how the oil boom that emerged during the first half of the last century really was what defined the character of Alberta, with wild and ambitious men and women playing by their own rules in search of the next big payoff.

Get to your local library, who may have a copy, or buy one of the remaining copies on line, or just keep it in mind every time that you’re near a used book shop, especially those big messy ones with no discernible system. This is one book worth tracking down.

Lord, you just can’t make this up. I had a call this week from the office person at a local non-profit. As is often the case in a small operation, she is one of two people with full administrative rights on the office G4 Imac.

She was trying to figure out how to change the name that appears in the “From” field in Microsoft Entourage. She had already changed the name in the Mac Address Book, which for better or worse is invariably integrated into every other Mac application.

When that didn’t work she figured that maybe what she should do is change the user name that was associated with her Mac log in. So that instead of “Administrator” the log in now read “Jane.” All in all a pretty good guess.

She went to System Preferences on the Mac, and chose Accounts. See the panel below?

That’s what you see on the Mac. Name, Short Name, and the option to Change Password.

Where you see “Chuck” she typed in “Jane”. She left the password the same and clicked the little lock icon and closed everything out. There’s no way to change the Short Name.

Everything looked just fine. She logged out and back in using her new User Name “Jane” and her usual unchanged password. Nothing changed so she figured that maybe she would change the name of here User Folder, the one with her docs and settings. So she went into Finder , found that folder and changed the name of that from “Administrator” to “Jane” too.

When she next logged in all of her desktop and all of her documents had disappeared. Gone, finished. Nowhere to be seen. All of her settings, bookmarks, everything. Gone!

She quite sensibly panicked.

I’ll skip the considerable web research, and tell you what we found.

If you change the name in your User Folder, that change doesn’t show up anywhere else. When you next log in, even though you have the same User Name and password, the Mac goes brain dead, can’t find your data, and instead creates a new User folder with the old name.

So all of your settings and data disappear. You can see the folder that used to hold them (In this case called Administrator), but now it’s empty. You can also see the User Folder with the new name (Jane), but there’s no way that you can log in to use it.

I think we fixed this by changing User Folder Administrator‘s name to OLDAdministrator, and User Folder Jane back to Administrator. Everything came back after another log in.

The secret is that the unchangeable box for Short Name, above, is really showing you the name of your User Directory.

It’s snowing in Toronto today. Really…

IT’S SNOWING IN TORONTO!!!!!!

All over the media breathless announcers are devoting most of noon time news shows to the panic and destruction sure to ensue when the expected 20 centimeters (nearly 8 inches!!!!) of snow arrives.

CBC seemed immune to the irony of the next news story they broadcast, about Prince Edward Island, where thousands of people have actually been out of power since a big storm a few days back.

While Torontonians were behaving as if Armageddon had arrived, people in PEI were making sandwiches and chili and delivering lunch to the crews fixing power lines!

Yes, while grown adults in Toronto were closing schools and cancelling plans, senior citizens in PEI were carrying on, making lunch on their Bar-B-Qs, and just plain being neighborly.

The Toronto area has been populated by non-indigenous people for about 220 years, when United Empire Loyalists negotiated the the Toronto Purchase with the Mississaugas of New Credit. I don’t have all of the historical data, but I’m sure that it has snowed during at least during 219 of those winters.

It’s not that much snow, not that windy, and not that cold. It’s a regular winter day. So I have to ask, if half of every newscast is about the weather, what news is being ignored?

And perhaps more importantly, how would the people of Toronto react to winter if the media stopped spreading panic? What if they just said “It’s winter, it’s snowing. Go for a walk in the park and clear your sidewalk.”

Oh yes, dare I forget Mel’s finest hour?