We Canadians are uncomfortable idolizing our leaders.  This is too bad as we have had some good ones.  We have had a drunk Sir John A. MacDonald who created a country, Wilfred Laurier who overcame French-Catholic prejudice to lead the country, Mackenzie-King who was a master of political tactics (and has the long-service award in office to prove it) and of course Trudeau who (for better or worse) remade Canada in someone’s image – and nearly destroyed it in the process (but that is another blog).

What about Richard Bedford Bennett (or RB)?  Do you vaguely remember him from Grade 8 social, perhaps you remember the ‘Bennett-buggy’, the horse drawn Model-T used on the prairies because no one could afford the gas anymore?  In his book, Bennett: The Rebel Who Challenged and Changed a Nation, John Boyko explores perhaps one of the most and least lucky of Canada’s Prime Ministers.

His luck started out iffy though as he was born into a home that had known wealth but the family fortunes were in decline during his childhood.  The decline was partly due to his father who worked hard but also liked a strong drink.  Nevertheless, RB was able to obtain his teaching certificate and was soon a principle in a school over-seeing children not much younger than him.  It was during this time that he met a life-long friend, Max Aitken who you may know better (at least for those living in Calgary) as Lord Beaverbrook.  Max would prove a strong ally and provided political practicality to the relationship.  Within a few years Bennett grew bored and left the teaching profession to study law at Dalhousie University.  Soon after graduation, the Maritimes were also left behind when RB took up Senator James Lougheed’s (grandfather of Peter, premier of Alberta) offer to work in his Calgary law office.

From there, RB was soon to amass a fortune through hard work, skill, honesty and shrewd business judgement.  Also during this time he was shown to have innate abilities any politician would kill for.  These included a strong work ethic, an excellent memory and the ability to speak ad lib as if he was reading the best of the prepared speeches.

RB had dreamed of being Prime Minister since his youth in Eastern Canada; in 1930 he realized it.  In retrospect – this could be described as a mixed blessing.  In 1930 Canada did not have a central bank; its economic measurements were crude and would need to wait until the Second World War before such basic measures as unemployment or gross domestic product could be measured accurately.  So while RB attempted to rectify Canada’s fortunes, he was essentially flying economically blind.  In addition, his economic fire power was limited as it would be three years until Keynesian inspired economic measures of Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ would show nations the way out of recessions and depressions.

As a result, RB was blamed for much of the country’s economic turmoil – despite the limited tools, measurement or resources he had to fight the Depression.  True, he did not help himself.  He was a workaholic-bachelor who was surprised that others did not share his enthusiasm for long hours in the office.  His brilliant mind meant that he would alienate those who could not keep up.  He was facing a formidable political adversary in Mackenzie-King who was wily and willing to capitalize on RB’s weaknesses.  Finally, he served during a time when communists and fascists were both offering and agitating for alternatives to capitalism and democracy.

Nevertheless RB was generous and gave away much of his considerable fortune during his lifetime.  He supported, often anonymously schools, libraries and university students.  For Canada he founded the Bank of Canada, inspired the St. Lawrence Seaway and commissioned the Canadian Broadcast Corporation – all icons of a modern Canada.  At a time when increasing tariffs were pulling the global economy down into an abyss, he championed free trade and economic liberalization with both the Commonwealth and the United States.  Finally he recognized the growing storm clouds in Europe.  In 1937, Mackenzie-King called Hitler a simple peasant and not a danger to anyone.  RB by contrast was publicly warning of the rise of fascism in 1935 – two years after Hitler had ceased power.

In the end, Bennett should be remembered for more than his Depression-era buggy.  He was a brilliant Canadian who despite being flawed had helped to shape and direct the country we now live in.  Boyko’s book is mostly a good and accessible read – albeit a bit long on details for the more casual historian.  A good addition to all Canadian-history buffs out there.

Have you ever heard of Nicholas Negroponte?  Perhaps you have heard the expression ‘born-digital’ meaning that information started in a digital state and remained that way throughout its life?  It was Negroponte who first popularized and promoted the idea.

Now in his 70’s, Negroponte was an early futurist for the impact of technology and the internet on our lives.  In addition to writing for Wired Magazine, he also wrote the internet-future-handbook: Being Digital.  Published in 1995, the book predicted things such as the pervasiveness of email, the death of faxes, the growth of bandwidth and indirectly the pings of Candy Crush, Facebook or LinkedIn.

Some examples include the co-mingling (e.g. mashups) of formerly distinct streams of information.  Thus television meets audio which meets magazines which meets demographic marketing.  An example: Netflix which streams television shows and collects information which may then be used to promote things like sound tracks to those who are a fan of breaking bad.

YAWWN, boring, this is old-hat and why are you telling us about a nearly twenty-year old book?  The reason is not for the specific technologies but for the principles Negroponte identified in the early 1990’s.  Some he got dead-one, some are coming and some he missed completely (e.g. he did not discuss issues such as the terrorist/activist (you pick) group Anonymous hacking government websites, the NSA snooping every email or Nigerian princes offering their fortunes to you).

The ones that are still out there are things like the role computers can play as personal agents (e.g. Refrigerator to Toaster, let the human know we are out of Milk) or the ability of information to be pushed to us rather than pulled to us (milk carton, hmmm – half empty, better let human know…).

Being Digital has been on my reading list since the late 1990’s.  Some parts are a trip down memory lane and some sections (use email, it will solve everything…. Err, until you get 300 – A DAY!) are a bit dated.  Nevertheless, worth at least a skim if not an addition to your digital library.

Full disclosure: I am not planning on disappearing and in fact I kinda like my little life just as it is.  Nevertheless, Frank M. Ahearn has written a very accessible book on how to (and not to) disappear if you want/need to.  Of course the criminal or terrorist comes to mind when you think about those needing to disappear.  Ahearn however discusses numerous other legitimate folks who have wanted to disappear for mundane to very sad reasons (mundane: avoiding greedy family members; sad: avoiding ex-spouses who want you dead).

Ahearn got into the disappearing business by finding people.  He was the guy who found you living in a trailer park outside of Vegas (or Balzac for us Canadians).  He was able to find you through a bit of subterfuge and was able to get your current address from websites, utility companies or nice companies who have sold you goods or services in the past.  Thus, while you were living under a pseudonym in Balzac, you transferred your warrant registration for your Harley Davidson motorcycle and you kept up your subscription to Pot-Pori-Monthly.

Ahearn got out of the finding people business because the tools of his trade were becoming increasingly illegal.  Thus, he got into the other side of the business – how to fall off the radar.  For us Canadians, it appears that many of the tools Ahearn mentions are specific to the United States.  However, that is probably more of a temporary state of affairs rather than a bit of permanent protection.  Some of the tools he (continues to use)/used include:

• http://www.intelius.com: Searches billions of US public records for name, phone number, email addresses, etc.
• http://google.about.com/od/googlebasics/qt/phonebook.htm: Google Phone Book, it seems this feature is now disabled… for us mortals, who knows about the techno-gods.
• http://yahoo.canada411.ca: basically the good old white pages or 411-Directory Assistance.
• http://www.addresses.com: limited to the United States
• http://www.peekyou.com: a generally scary site which mashes together a number of data sources.
• http://www.peoplesearchpro.com/journalism/people/: a how to guide for journalists to find people.

Even if you do not want to disappear, Ahearn suggests that you make yourself less visible on the web and perhaps in general.  He stresses to keep this above board (e.g. nothing illegal and keep on paying your taxes; however he does have a great speculative section on Pseudocide – how to fake your own death).  If you need no other reason, it is to avoid identity theft.

Some of his recommendations (fleshed out a bit from some web-searches) include:

• Remove your real birthdate from all social media, in particular facebook
• Do not use your full name in email addresses associated with your personal life, e.g. FPotter rather than frank.potter@….
• Only accept social media friends from people you know and who you speak with periodically.
• Use different email addresses for different sites so they cannot be mashed up together.  Don’t use a variation on an email either (e.g. Fpotter1, fpotter2, etc.).

I don’t need to disappear, but I do have enough of a spy novel fascination with it to enjoy the read.  I also value my privacy enough to want to ensure I am not dangly more than I need to on the web.  Now go and remove your real birthdate from Facebook – RIGHT NOW!

For more on Ahearn book:  How to Disappear: Erase Your Digital Footprint, Leave False Trails, and Vanish without a Trace

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/how-to-disappear-erase-your/9781599219776-item.html?ikwid=ahearn&ikwsec=Home