Rants and Ruminations

Left-Right Left-Right......

2012-02-18T11:40:00.001-08:00

Divide and conquer worked for Julius Caesar against the Celtic tribes of Gaul, and it works for the 1% today.

The increasingly shrill tone of the political discourse serves to focus people's attention on what divides them, instead of what they have in common.

I may repeat myself here but some things bear repeating. Most ordinary people want pretty much the same things from life. They want a chance to love and be loved. They want to earn a decent living in a clean environment, ideally at something they are good at. They want some basic security, a chance to raise their children and care for their elders and sick. They want some time to play, and a chance to see something of this beautiful Earth.

They may have different ideas on how to achieve this.

Most ordinary people want some form of social safety net and are willing to contribute to it. Please note I say most, not all. There will always be people abusing any system.

Most ordinary people also want the power to determine most aspects of their lives for themselves.

The size of the safety net is a topic for discussion, as is the question of which aspects of life should be regulated, and which are hands-off to government. More on both topics another time. This is where natural, healthy disagreement comes in.

As mentioned in a previous post, anything that exists wants to grow and needs a counter force to keep it in check. While I have never voted anything except NDP* or Green I do not suffer from the illusion that paradise would result if only my party won power and stayed there. The thought of a government run by social workers in the ban of the latest psychological fad is almost as terrifying as the thought of a society without compassion.

A car needs a gas pedal and a brake. Society needs doses of both hard-nosed realism and idealistic compassion. Society needs people who bring in change, and people who say Whoa, not so fast! I am by nature a dweller on the edge, but the older I get, the more I recognize that a center has to hold. Mere anarchy may sound appealing, but ask anyone in Somalia how well it works in practice.

Democracy is imperfect, but as Winston Churchill so famously said, it is the worst possible system except for all the others. There is a catch: it only works when people believe in it, AND are reasonably well informed. It can be manipulated in many ways.

Voters' intellectual laziness, combined with unrestrained corporate power, is a great danger to democracy. When people no longer believe that their vote will make a difference and stop going to the polls they leave the stage to more committed parties. Those with stronger convictions may be less inclined to compromise and work constructively with their opponents. See the Tea Party. Here in Canada Prime Minister Harper owes his majority government partly to the apathy of youthful voters. They may have heard "They're all a bunch of crooks" just once too often.

Meanwhile we see the rise of "info-tainment", with its emphasis on personality and sound bites rather than rational discussions on values and priorities. The sound bite mentality is ideal for demagogues. It encourages knee-jerk reactions to certain buzz words that bring a dialogue to a full stop. No political side has a monopoly on this.

Words like 'terrorist' and 'natural security' are hauled out on the right, but the left has its own arsenal. An accusation of 'sexist', 'racist', or these days 'Islamophobe' can also bring a frank discussion to a halt.

I wrote this over a few days, and was looking for a few good examples. Today the news provided it.

The Harper government wants to introduce a bill that allows police wide-ranging powers to monitor private communications over the internet, without such niceties as first asking for a warrant.

As anyone who has ever read a detective story knows, the justice system always has to weigh the need for the privacy of ordinary citizens with the need of crime fighters in hot pursuit. There is a reason the symbol for Justice holds a balance. In a time of rapid change this should be a topic for careful debate. What do we get instead?

Vic Toews has declared that anyone who opposes an invasive internet surveillance bill is siding with child pornographers.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/02/14/online-surveillance-bill-will-put-electronic-prisoners-bracelet-on-every-canadian/

This is an insult not only to political opponents, but also to decent, small c conservatives who treasure their civil liberties.

*For non-Canadians, NDP is the Social-Democratic party. Yes, we have one. Even though they have never been in power federally (yet) the pressure from the left has given us universal medicare.

Therefor, all men are Socrates

2012-02-09T17:10:00.000-08:00

This rant is a reaction to an item on The Current, an excellent show on CBC radio. I am dumbstruck by the strange reasoning by an MD who otherwise makes good sense.
Those so inclined can listen to the segment here. When possible, always go the source.
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2012/02/06/dr-agus-with-a-cure-to-end-illness/

Dr. Agus is an oncologist who wants to see more emphasis on preventative medicine.
All in favor. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and all that.

He wants to see people eat a decent diet, get some exercise, toss away their high heels, and keep regular hours. Consider it done, at least in intention.

He wants to see people fight inflammation in order to reduce the risk of cancer in the long run. Great idea.

He questions the safety of isolated vitamins. He rants against the laziness of people wanting to "take a pill" such as Vitamin E instead of making changes in lifestyle. He cites a bunch of studies that prove the danger of vitamins. That is a whole other topic. Studies dissing vitamins are often done with inferior synthetic vitamins.

And then he makes a leap of reasoning that has me scratching my head. It has been observed that Statins used to lower cholesterol also lower the risk of cancer, because it turns out they are anti-inflammatory.

He wants all of us geezers over 50 to ask our doctors why we are not on statin drugs and/or baby aspirins. Hello doc, I thought you didn't like pills?

If the mechanism of action of statin drugs is anti-inflammatory, should we not focus on non-drug ways to decrease the load of inflammation in the body? Let's see the reasoning.

Statins are anti-inflammatories.
Anti-inflammatories help to prevent cancer
Therefor all people should.....were you going to say "eat more anti-inflammatory foods"?
Nope. The good doctor wants to see all people ask their doctor if Statins would be good for them.

It reminds me a bit of a Woody Allen moment. I can't remember the movie.
But it goes like this:
"All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefor all men are Socrates."

Why nothing works anymore: thoughts on governments and corporations.

2012-02-05T14:35:00.000-08:00

I like to give credit to ideas I pick up. The following is partly based on memory of a book, see footnote.* It was a brilliant observation, and once you read it you can't imagine why you didn't think of it.

If memory serves the main idea was this: things are dysfunctional because we expect corporations to perform tasks that are the job of government, and we hold government enterprises up to the standards of corporations.
They have different duties. We need to be clear about the nature of each.

Let's elaborate.

Corporations exist to earn money for their shareholders. That is their job description. Individual companies may have a conscience and do good in the world. But that is a bonus. Transnational corporations are just that: not bound to a nation. The corporation is not in business to create jobs. Jobs are a byproduct of making profit. Basing national policy on the expectation that corporations will work for the good of the country they happen to have a factory in inevitably leads to disappointment and betrayal.

It is irrational to get angry at the corporation in question. It is simply aiming to maximize profit, which is its function, unless the shareholders decide otherwise. Anger should be directed at the government that failed to create a framework to force the corporation into being a good local citizen.

We can, and should! argue about the details of what the role of government should be.

Anything that exists, be it a corporation, a union, a government agency or a blade of grass
wants to grow and expand its sphere of influence. Anything that exists needs a counter force to keep it in line. I am a solidarity-forever-gal, but do not want to see a theater production come to a halt because only a unionized electrician can change a light bulb.

Most of us 99%ers can agree that governments exist to serve society as a whole. We may have different ideas about how that is best done. Some of us are glad to trade higher taxes for more public services, while others prefer to leave as much as possible up to the individual. Some of us have a greater tolerance for inequality than others. Ideally governments alternate between the two views, so we have a more or less harmonious
balance, created by relatively small correcting swings in each direction. Balance is never a steady state. But that is another blog.

Governments are NOT in the business of earning a profit. They do well when they play even. Moreover, the point at which they play even needs to take into account factors that do not come into play for a business.

Let's take as an example a government-owned railway. If the government loses some money on the operation of the railway, but that loss is smaller than the amount of money the railway saves it on road maintenance, it comes out ahead. In a sluggish economy the cost of railway workers' wages can be a bargain compared to the cost of unemployment, paid either in social payments or in social unrest. Looking at the railway simply as an operation that either makes money or doesn't misses the big picture.

Recent years have seen the rise of the neo-liberal view that governments exist to create the right climate for business. In turn, business will create jobs and prosperity for all.

And, how has that been working? This post has been brewing for a while, but it was prompted by the closure of a plant in London, Ontario.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1125718--caterpillar-closes-london-electro-motive-plant

Perhaps we have no choice when it comes to manufacturing. The Chinese can do it cheaper and that is the end of it, until the cost of transport makes re-localization profitable. But when it comes to resource extraction, guess what? Those tar (it ain't oil) sands are not going anywhere. Governments could demand greater accountability from the companies, and give generous compensation to displaced people, and get away with it.

More on this coming....

*Foot note:
Some time in the eighties I read a little book with the intriguing title: "Why nothing works anymore". It was a library book. I do not remember the name of the author, and have not been able to find it in the library catalogue, or anywhere. Perhaps the phrase I remember was a sub title, and perhaps I got it wrong. The name Richard floats up as author. Google suggests it may have been "Why nothing seems to be working anymore" by Richard Farmer, pub. 1977. In that case this topic was only a chapter.

Jobs....

2012-02-05T14:17:00.000-08:00

I am working on a longer blog on the role of government, but meanwhile some reflections on the whole notion of The Job.
Isn't it funny how we are all totally sold on the concept?

Not that long ago a job was something one did. Now it is something one has. It is also something one lands, or holds down, as if it were a feisty piece of wildlife.
And it is something governments are supposed to create.

Creating a job is considered a good in itself, regardless of the nature of the work done. The tar (it ain't oil) sands are a crime against Earth, but oh boy, do they create jobs.

I don't have answers here, but one never gets those unless one asks the right questions anyway.

When I grow up I want to be a hunter-gatherer.....Just kidding. But only just.

Open letter to Steven Harper

2012-01-27T22:11:00.000-08:00

This one repeats much of "pipeline thoughts" .

Sir,

I have spent most of my adult life in a forest-dependent area, and seen first-hand how a community suffers when the jobs disappear.

While I remain of the pinko-green persuasion I have learned to appreciate the importance of an industrial base. We might say my inner redneck has been growing in strength to the point where the inner hippie is feeling threatened.

When a friend asked me to join her letter writing campaign against the Northern Gateway project I did not immediately jump into the fray. I had to think it over. This is part of what I wrote:

"With 7 billion of us, setting aside huge tracts of land to just be pristine may well be a luxury that we can no longer afford. A proponent of the project said B.C. opponents are behaving like spoiled kids who want their cake of a pristine wilderness as well as a full slate of social services. I concede he has a point. Like it or not, and believe me, I don't! the economy of this sweet country is floating on a sea of tar sands for now.
I know too many people who work there to totally nix the project."

Mr. Harper, you might be able to talk me into supporting the exploitation of the tar sands. It's a dirty business, but this is an imperfect world. The sands might give our civilization a chance to transition to a post-oil world with a soft landing, instead of a catastrophic crash. With tight regulations and compensation for those who are at the losing end the all-over benefits might be worth the costs.

But oil tanker traffic through some of the most beautiful, productive AND dangerous waters on earth? NO WAY.

Sooner or later something will go wrong. It is not a question of If, it is a question of when. Thinking otherwise is hubris, the pride that always goes before a fall. Have we not seen enough devastated coast lines? How many more object lessons do we need?

Mr. Harper, you call yourself a Christian. Does the concept of responsible stewardship of Creation have any meaning for you?

Re-inventing the wheel

2012-01-20T17:02:00.000-08:00

I have wanted to rant about this phenomenon for a while, it comes up so often. Is it a generational thing, or a North American thing? That's the trouble with being an immigrant, you never know if something you observe that differs from your early years is due to a change in time or a change in place.

I had the advantage of growing up in a time and place where frugality was the norm.
This naturally segued into the back-to-the-land life that we ended up in. We have been less successful at homesteading than I would have wished, but that is another topic. Overall, it has been a good life in rural paradise, and my regrets are too few to mention.

Anyway, about the title of this rant.

It goes more or less like this. Well-meaning person of the green persuasion rediscovers an older way of living. Activities like riding a bike, growing turnips, canning peaches, repairing some clothes before throwing them out, you get the drift.

Great! I am all in favor. But do they have to make such a fuss about it?

When I was nineteen I figured out that I would rather be rich in time than in money, and that the way to live on less was to live simply and do as much for oneself as possible. Once we had children one of us was always home. This might have been different if we had had careers, instead of jobs, but that is once again another topic. I get exhausted just thinking about the lifestyle of the two-worker family with small children.

Now there is a whole movement, complete with magazine articles and book deal, called Radical Homemakers. http://radicalhomemakers.com/

Just now the surf tossed up yet another blog, about a family discovering that they spend less and feel better when they eat real food instead of junk. REALLY? What a concept!
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/01/16/1985166/no-junk-food-on-less-than-food.html

I sincerely wish this family and the Radical Home makers well. But the way they go on, you'd think nobody had ever cooked a meal from scratch before.

Pipeline thoughts

2012-01-10T11:22:00.000-08:00

The discussion about the pipeline from the Tar Sands across Northern B.C. is starting.

A friend has asked me to join the fray and write letters against the project. I find myself in some conflict, so here is some thinking out loud.

As a lover of earth, one's initial gut reaction is NO, DON'T! Leave Northern B.C. alone!

But for better or worse, we are living in the Anthropocene, the new epoch where people are a geological force. Scary, isn't it, but then so is Ma Nature. Volcanoes, earthquakes, ice ages.......She can dish it out with the best, or rather the worst of us.

With 7 billion of us, setting aside huge tracts of lands to just be pristine may well be a luxury we can no longer afford.
A proponent of the project said B.C. opponents are behaving like spoiled kids who want their cake of a pristine wilderness as well as a full slate of social services. He has a point. Like it or not, and believe me, I don't! the economy of this sweet country is floating on a sea of oil sands, for now.

Sooner or later, humanity will run out of fossil fuels. Let us think of the oil sands as a gift that can make the transition to an economy not dependent on fossil fuels smoother.

The powers that be are telling us how safe a pipeline can be. With the right regulations and extremely tight controls it just might be. But this government is totally in the hands of the corporations who cannot be trusted with the public good, so that is one strike against the project.

But the pipeline is only the beginning. It should be called the pipeline/oil tanker project.

Mr. Harper, you might be able to talk me into supporting a well-monitored pipeline. But oil tanker traffic through some of the most beautiful, productive AND dangerous waters on earth? I don't think so.

Sooner or later, something will go wrong. It is not a question of If, it is a question of When.

Thinking otherwise is hubris, the pride that always goes before a fall. Have we not seen enough devastation of coast lines? How many more object lessons do we need?

Mr. Harper, you call yourself a Christian. Does the concept of responsible stewardship of Creation have any meaning to you?

Connecting some dots on the autism epidemic?

2011-12-18T18:00:00.000-08:00

The CBC program The Nature of Things recently aired a documentary on The Autism Enigma. The full episode can now be viewed online. http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episode/autism-enigma.html#

There is also much of interest at the website of the film maker. This site also has blogs with a comment section. Highly recommended.
http://cogentbenger.com/autism/

Some of the documentary would be old news for people who have spent time in the world of natural wellness.
Dr. Suzuki said: "Science has only recently started to look at the power gut microbes have over the rest of the body."

How does he define recently? I am just a lay person and I learned this stuff in the nineties. The information has been around much longer than that. Promoting the right bacteria in the intestinal tract was a big part of the health model taught by the company that introduced me to the joys of AFA, Klamath Lake blue-green algae. In particular I learned that gut dysbiosis, faulty digestion, mineral imbalances and lack of the right essential fatty acids played a large role in ADHD and autism spectrum disorder. Please note the careful language. Playing a role, being a factor, is not the same as outright cause.

Much human misery can be alleviated by simple measures that build health, rather than treat disease. Healing the intestinal tract, optimizing digestion and eating good whole food that agrees with the individual can be done at home, does not require the input of a professional, and won't harm if it doesn't help.

Recommended reading on the topic of nutrition and the brain:
"The Crazy Makers, how the food industry is damaging our brains and harming our children" by Carol Simontacchi.
This book is a good easy read that I'd love to see in any household. The chapter on the copper/zinc balance and mental health is worth the price alone.
There is more but we'll have to do some more blogging on health topics another time.

Anyway, it is good to see this important issue given air time.
The most important new (to me) development in the video was the connection between certain gut bacteria, the clostridium family, and a neurotoxin that attacks the brain. Please just see the video for more on this.
http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episode/autism-enigma.html#

Now to the dot connecting. A day after watching this episode the surf tossed up an interview with a respected senior soil scientist on the long term effect on soil, crops and animals/people of glyphosate, better known as Round-up. And about 15 minutes into the first video he mentions an increase in certain less desirable life forms, like the clostridium family. Readers, I felt the hair standing up on my neck. Seriously. The conversation went on for 2 hours. Towards the end of the second video Dr. Huber himself mentions the possibility that the increase in the use of glyphosate just might have a connection to the increase in autism.
He is not jumping to any conclusions. He is just asking that the science be done before more GMO Roundup-ready crops are released.

A word on the website where this interview takes place. Viewer discretion is advised.

Sites like Dr. Mercola, Natural News, Gary Null and others are a mixed bag. You may find a commercial section. So? All this content is free. These people have to make a living too! You may find some wild way out-there conspiracy stuff. AND you will find excellent interviews with serious scientists.

In the case at hand, Professor Don Huber is no wild-eyed woolly hippie, or even an organic ideologue. He stresses the fact that he is not anti-pesticides. He is just a senior scientist with integrity. He is observing certain patterns, and wants to see the precautionary principle applied.

Sadly for all of us, Tom Vilsack is a Monsanto man and hurried to approve the release of GMO alfalfa, denying Dr. Huber's request for more studies. So now the places where Dr. Huber can get an audience are on what some people would consider the fringe. So it goes. Use your noggin and don't throw out precious babies with the bath water.

A short article by Dr. Huber is here:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21039.cfm

The 2 hour long interview with Dr. Mercola is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4swW9OFmf8

,

Strange bedfellows, or, being eclectic.

2011-12-15T17:22:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not, the Harper government actually did something I agreed with the other day. I even let my MP know I approved. It's only fair. I let them know when I disagree, which is most of the time.

We are talking here about the decision to ban face veils from the ceremony that swears in new Canadian citizens.

The reasons for doing so may well have more to do with hysteria over terrorism than with a desire to stress the equal position of women in this society. Nevertheless, I am glad it was done.

I have blogged on this topic earlier.
http://ieneke.blogspot.com/2010/03/showing-our-face.html#links

In a little exchange I had with the writer of another blog he said this:
"(snip) there have been people “standing up” for this kind of law for a long time. You probably wouldn’t like most of them."

That is quite likely, and in my opinion irrelevant. It is said that politics makes strange bed fellows. Sometimes different groups may persue a specific common goal, work together for that reason, and agree to disagree on other topics.

I am thinking of my pagan, off-grid homesteading friend who finds herself working with born-again Christians in the home schooling movement. The point is not the merit of home schooling, which I feel ambivalent about. The point is that people who are otherwise on opposite sides of various fences can work together.

Politics are too adversarial, a tendency that is reinforced by the 'winner take all' electoral system. Why can't we grant a point to an opponent, without that being taken as a sign of defeat? Why can't we say "I don't buy your whole platform, but I agree with you on some items?"

One thing is sure, I will never be able to follow a party line.

Who to believe about medical news

2011-12-14T11:41:00.000-08:00

Posted originally to Multiply May 17 2011

We briefly interrupt the garden/market frenzy to share informed comment (not by me) on an item that has been making the rounds.

The trouble when the regular media is full of BS, and people know it, is that they may start to believe just about anything from more Indie sources, in the spirit of the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

I can be guilty of intellectual laziness myself, which is why I appreciate this comment from someone whose judgment I trust.
The item, regarding yet another suppressed cancer cure, is here.
http://hubpages.com/hub/Scientists_cure_cancer__but_no_one_takes_notice

The comment, quoted with permission, is in bold italics. It comes from a remarkable woman who is both a herbalist, and osteopath, and a medical doctor. I have the privilege of knowing her through a group of herbal friends.

Ok this article made me very angry. If you are going to give people info like this at least be accurate.

The geneticist in me is screaming. Not that it didn't kill cancer cells. Not even that it may be effective in killing some forms of cancer in humans. Problem is one the whole argument of mitochondria being cells that fight cancer is ludicrous. Mitochondria are NOT cells. The are rather something else entirely.

They are a very small part of EVERY cell. They are handed down from mother to child.

They most definitely do NOT kill cancer. Nor do they need "turned on."

Finally, the idea that one substance will fight all cancers is impossible simply because of penetration.

The body is ridiculous in its ability to keep things in it separate. The brain is the best example.

VERY VERY few things are able to penetrate its barriers. And if this did...it would most assuredly cause damage.

We need to look at alternate ways. It just aggravates me when a supposed reliable news source puts out something so inaccurate.

It would have cost them one phone call to one biology teacher to find out they were telling people the wrong thing.

After I asked Kat permission to quote her she added this, also important.

What made me so angry is that I DO ride the fence so to speak on these things....I think from both sides. I am offended by anything that so obviously makes my first love, herbalism, look foolish in the scientific community. Having spent so many years in both worlds now...I know that truly brilliant people reside on both sides of my yard. Yet I also know that truly ignorant people reside on both sides as well. I so want to see the sides come together. I want to see GOOD non biased science help clarify, enforce or debunk herbal traditions, whichever is appropriate. I've wanted that since the beginning of this list when we were all trying things in mass and submitting our "findings." We weren't perfect but we were really trying to be non biased. AND we got answers! I still use Super Tonic for sinus infections! I still make my own very personal version of peoples paste. I still make my own cough syrup. Imagine the answers if we could do real double blinded studies on stuff that might not work...or might...but might not make money. Sadly, it may never happen.
That being said, I can still hope and I can try to help where I think I'm needed.

If only we had more medical doctors like Kat Arenz!

Defining Poverty

2011-12-08T18:42:00.000-08:00

The Current, a favorite CBC radio program, did a special call-in show on the topic of poverty in Canada.

It raises all kinds of questions, in particular this: how do we define poverty?

I prefer the definition to be narrow. Poverty is not having enough to eat, being cold, and living with the threat of homelessness as a real possibility. The truly poor also face endless hurdles whenever they try to better their situation.
Being poor is expensive in many unexpected ways.
I dislike the endless sexual metaphors in the article below, but it tells the story well.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-nobody-tells-you-about-being-poor/

But poverty should not be defined as feeling unworthy because other people, especially kids, have more. Being cold is poverty. Having to wear a hand-me-down winter coat is not.

Or rather, having clothes that are not quite right will indeed affect the wearer, as I know from experience. But we could keep whingeing about psychological damage at nauseam. Am I being too harsh here?

Not having enough money to buy basic nutrition is poverty. But one caller illustrated the stress of grocery shopping by complaining that he had to put a package of chips or a jar of jam back on the shelf. SO? One caller bemoaned the fact that she could not buy her daughter a digital camera. SO?

Once we move beyond the basics, much of the experience of poverty is a social construct. In the tipi /log house years we lived from tiny pay check to tiny pay check, and wore a lot of second hand clothes. As mentioned before, there was no running water etc etc. By any official standard we lived well below the official poverty line.

But we were healthy and debt-free on our own land. And we were in a rural neighborhood where other people were doing more or less the same thing. "The system" was crazy, and when it fell apart we'd all be ready, Corona grain mill and all.
The feeling I remember most, especially in the first spring, is an exhilarating sense of freedom.

It didn't last long, but that is another topic. The point here is that in a community where no one had indoor plumbing or electricity it was no stigma and no great hardship to do without.

We are facing tough times for many reasons. More of us will be officially poor. I encourage everyone to live as well as they can, be grateful if you have the basics, and be proud no matter how much better the neighbors have it.

The Attawapiskat scandal. It's not that simple......

2011-11-24T20:23:00.000-08:00

The Huffington Post carried an article about the deplorable conditions in a Northern Ontario Cree village. The article was written by the local Member of Parliament, bless his heart. Click on the link to read it.

Now in typical bleeding heart liberal fashion, my first reaction is to a) feel guilty, b) get outraged and want the government to rush up there and build some serious infrastructure already.

Then I remember 4 things.

The sad tale of Davis Inlet/ Natuashish
Books about the original economy and lifestyle of Northern hunting peoples. Anthropologist Hugh Brody describes the life of Northern hunting societies on the brink of change, mostly through the words of the people. Living through winter in tents was part of life. Being limited to a reserve was not. The wonderful novel "Kiss of the Fur Queen" by Cree writer Tomson Highway depicts the first 6 years of his protagonist's life, in a tent on the land, as quite idyllic.
The works of Tsimshian author Calvin Helin on the devastation caused by long term dependency.
Our own tipi/log cabin years.

And I wonder if how much will be solved by building houses and installing plumbing. The following remarks are more questions than comments.

I do not have the right to speak about the many-layered issues faced by dispossessed and abused people.

Daughter enjoying some non-running, outdoor water during the tipi years.

But I am qualified to speak about life without ready-made infrastructure. Been there, done it. Newsflash to city dwellers:
outside of town limits the government does not make sure of taps with clean flowing water. That's why people in the Slocan valley get so excited about logging on the slopes above their water box. But we digress. The point is that lack of indoor plumbing in itself is not the end of the world and it does not have to be unhygienic.
One can stay quite clean with buckets of water, and nobody dies from having to use an outhouse. In extreme cold slop buckets can be emptied into it.

Attawapiskat is in Northern Ontario. Surely there is lots of water around? If all else fails, is there clean snow to melt? We had to do that again just 2 years ago, when a combination of a low well and a broken pump meant no running water for a few months.

So I have questions that are not answered in the article.

Where is the community's water source? Is it clean?

Pollution of water that is a people's life blood, now that is something I get excited about. Lack of taps, not so much.

Traditionally the land that is now the reserve was used as a gathering place in spring and summer, to make use of the fishing. During winter people would disperse in smaller groups to hunt and trap.

How is the access to the larger area that was traditionally the people's land?
Where is the tree line? (for log homes and fire wood)
Is anything left of the traditional hunter economy, the seasonal round on the land?
Can parts of the traditional knowledge be salvaged before the elders die? Nobody is suggesting a return to pre-contact times, but we need the knowledge of all times.

After the original dispossession of land and the holocaust of epidemics aboriginal communities were further damaged by the decades of residential schools. The resulting mess is not going to be healed by throwing money at it.

Sadly, the case of Davis Inlet/Natuashish illustrates this. A spanking new village in a location chosen by the people did little to solve the deep-seated problems of social dysfunction.
The kids are still sniffing glue. The men are still beating up the women. I seriously doubt if paying more government-sponsored social workers would make much difference.

Of course Provincial and Federal governments have to stop passing the buck to each other, and have to sit down with First Nations to figure out ways to deal with the outdated Indian Act. Of course better housing in Attawapiskat is needed, yesterday. We are living on a stolen continent, and we owe these people. But then what?

(Aside to mr. Harper: how many homes could you have built with the money you spent on a silly military celebration yesterday? My Canada is NOT about parades.)

Unless communities start the tough process of healing from within, all the housing and plumbing in the world will be in vain.
One elephant in the room is the burden of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, often multi-generational. People with brain cells missing cannot make sound decisions. FAS is certainly not limited to First Nations, but we can't pretend it is not there either, PC be damned. Read "The broken cord" by Michael Dorris, an excellent introduction to this problem.

There are bright spots on the horizon. The following links are to indigenous voices.

http://www.4worlds.org/4w/ssr/Partiv.htm

http://wawataynews.ca

My favourite way of learning about temporary aboriginal life is this radio program. It uses humor to cut through any preconceptions, be they prejudice or romantic idealization. It bites.
http://www.cbc.ca/revisionquest/

As immigrant Canadians (meaning everyone who is not aboriginal) the best we can do is stand back in humility, and ask those who are doing the work of healing what we can do to support it.

And now, I have to go write my PM and member of Parliament...

Post scripts:
I will add to this post as more information becomes available.

I can understand the need for a third party intervention, but have this desperate group PAY for it? That is obscene!

And then there is this:
http://aptn.ca/pages/news/2011/12/13/de-beers-decision-to-dump-sewage-into-attawapiskat-played-role-in-current-housing-crisis/

More on the real financial picture:

http://creekside1.blogspot.com/2011/12/attawapiskat-vs-toronto.html

http://apihtawikosisan.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/dealing-with-comments-about-attawapiskat/

Angels and beasts, light and shadow.

2011-11-14T17:07:00.000-08:00

A dear local genius is writing a play about what in New Age circles is called The Shift. There is much todo about love, light, a New Reality, and creating heaven here on earth.

I was asked for feedback. Alas. It makes me want to break out in irreverent guffaws and make snide remarks. Not nice perhaps. Apart from the fact that I am profoundly ambivalent about group energy, I have a tendency to play Devil's Advocate no matter what the topic. In a room full of people who think exactly like I do I can be counted on to propose an alternate view.

Anyway. The concept of heaven here on earth gives me the creeps in the same way Sedona gives me the creeps, see previous post.

To begin with I am not convinced that we 'create our own reality', at least not from this level of consciousness.
But that is a different topic that we shall have fun with another time.

My concern this time is the whole love and light thing. Sure, we can stand some more of it in the world. But historically efforts to bring heaven down to earth have resulted in less than desirable outcomes.

Blaise Pascal remarked that "Qui veut faire l'ange fait la bete" Sorry, I can't find a way to make an accent circonflexe.
While he is far from my favourite philosopher, I think he nailed this one. Literally it means "who wants to be like an angel becomes a beast". When we try to become more than human, we end up less than human.

Some of the worst horrors the world has known have been inflicted by dictators who attempted to mould human society into some perceived ideal.

I don't desire heaven here on earth. Earth treated right will do me just fine. I wish you all Love, Light, and just the right amount of Shadow.

Why Sedona gives me the creeps

2011-11-13T09:37:00.000-08:00

I wrote this a few years ago, and wanted to refer to it in a blog today. To my surprise it had never made it to this platform. So here goes.

We are frequent listeners to "Coast to Coast" radio and generally enjoy exploring the unusual as well as celebrating the daily.

We were doing an RV trip to the region, and Sedona was high on the list of must-see. The town is supposed to be surrounded by energy vortexes where people have interesting psychic experiences. New Agers flock there.

The landscape with the famous red rocks and lots of leafy greenery is indeed stunning. No complaints there. The place is a tourist trap, but we were tourists so we have no right to whine about that.

We couldn't feel anything from lying around on Bell Rock, but I have to admit that my psychic channels are blocked. The fact that I cannot feel something does not mean no energy is there.

It took me a while to realize why the place made me feel uneasy.

Too much "Love and Light". Too many people like myself, your basic fuzzy healer-astrologer-herbalist-bleeding-heart-liberal. There has to be contrast. There has to be balance. The place lacks both. It is just not real.

Sedona has laws against anything ugly. Things you will not find in Sedona:

A field littered with old cars and dilapidated tractors because the parts might come in handy some day.

Guys in greasy work clothes on their way home from a day in the mill or the woods. The kind of guy who truly makes the world go around, and don't you forget it.

Pickup trucks with a load of firewood and a dead deer on top, signs of a self-sufficient life style.

In short, Sedona is in desperate need of some honest down-to-earth blue collar rednecks.

Occupy This!

2011-10-16T22:36:00.000-07:00

Let's get one thing straight: if this were not the weekend that we are picking up my sister from the airport in Calgary, I would be joining 'Occupy Nelson'. I doubt occupying Nakusp (pop 1800) would have much impact.

Nelson has the disadvantage of having a large population of a certain type of wannabe hippie that gives any movement a bad name. Stoned kids with a scruffy floaty appearance that seems designed to deter any chance of gainful employment, and a whiny attitude of entitlement. I am all in favor of sharing, but in some cases it usually means "You have, I get". I am not thinking of a particular person, more a certain type.
Demonstrating in a crowd of them would not be my first choice.

Nevertheless, this is a movement I want to be part of. Thoughts of my dear departed friend Beth have been much on my mind. She would so have loved to see this. We would have gone down together, with bells on. Though we couldn't have stayed overnight, Beth would have had to go home to feed the goats and other critters.

Anyway, family matters took care of any dilemma. We are here in Bearspaw enjoying, once again, the hospitality of our beloved young (to us) relatives, who earn their living in the corporate world. Their formative years took place in the same leftish society as ours, the Netherlands. They share our core social-democratic values, but have a different perspective on the whole "corporations are evil" meme.

In particular, it was pointed out that earning money for shareholders is simply the job description of corporations, so protesting "corporate greed" makes no sense. Pension plans are among the major shareholders. Be careful of unexpected side effects when you start to unravel the tangled web of the economic status quo. Point granted.

However, my main beef is that governments, instead of guarding the Commons and being a counter force to corporate power, have aligned themselves with the rich and left the rest of us to scramble in the dirt for the crumbs from the table.

The trouble with revolutions is that they often have unexpected and undesirable results. Think of the Terror in 1793 in France, or Iran in in 1979.

None of us has easy answers. But at least the occupations are forcing the Powers That Be to face some tough questions.

Beware the Bubble of Like Minds

2011-10-02T20:51:00.000-07:00

I gleefully shared a phot0 on Face Book of Manhattan totally covered with demonstrators.

A friend whose politics are on the other side of the spectrum pointed out that it was a photo-shopped fake, based on a take from Google maps. I posted a correction.

I tend to be honest in my dealings, and am therefor easy to fool. It rarely occurs to me that people may be lying.

This small incident reminded me how important it is to seek information from a wide spectrum of perspectives, especially when one feels the advertising-funded mainstream media is no longer a reliable guide to reality.

Yes, social media are a great addition to the mainstream diet. AND it is all too easy to make a lie go viral. Stay awake, beware, and avoid getting stuck in a bubble with no one but like-minded people.

The friend who pointed out that this photo was a fake is a fundamentalist Christian pastor, most definitely not my usual kind of connection.

Ken used to be based in Nakusp, and was an important part of my daughter's life during adolescence.

As far as I know he is sadly convinced that I am doomed to everlasting hell unless I change my mind. I shudder at the thought of his deepest convictions.

Still, there is mutual goodwill there.

Ken and his vibrant wife Cindy are good people, decent to their very bones.

They walk their talk and live their values. The world needs such people.

I believe that humanity is facing a bottleneck in evolution. In order to make it through we need the best from ALL that humanity has ever come up with.

We need the best of science, AND the best from all belief systems and traditions. It will be an interesting ride.....

Democracy, the gory nitty gritty details.

2011-05-02T23:58:00.000-07:00

I just got home from doing my small part in the great democratic process. I was a scrutineer for the NDP, being there for the actual counting of the ballots.
More on the outcome in a moment, but first let's celebrate the process. If you want fair and transparent, it honestly does not get any better.

To begin with: we use paper ballots. No machines that can be hacked into, no dimples or hanging chads. Just a carefully folded piece of paper where X in a circle next to a candidate's name marks the spot. Two poll clerks behind each table. Identify yourself, get your carefully folded ballot, go behind a screen to mark it, fold it up again, hand it to the clerk. She tears off a strip, hands it back to you, you put it into the slot in the ballot box.

At the end of the day every ballot, including the unused ones, has to be accounted for. There is an enormous amount of paper work.
At each poll station two official workers sit at one side of the table, two scrutineers (or more, if more parties are active) on the other side. The scrutineers and one of the poll clerks each have a tally sheet.

The box get upended on the table. So now we have a big pile of folded papers.
One of the poll clerks reads out each ballot, and puts it on a pile of ballots for that candidate. The scrutineers and the other poll worker, in a spirit of total co-operation, make sure the tally sheets are correct. No groans or cheers, just getting the job done.

In the microcosm of poll station 37, Nakusp, 400 ballots had to be accounted for.
Of those 400 a total of 217 actually used the vote, NOT good. Who are those 183 people who couldn't be bothered? The conservative candidate got 100, our NDP man 80, the Green 18, the Liberal 15, the Independent 4. Count the total. Yes, that's 217. Count the bundles of each candidate's actual ballots to make sure. Yes. Stuff them in an envelope.
Seal each envelope and have both clerks and both scrutineers sign the seal. There. Done. Try and corrupt that.

As for the outcome, as I had feared based on astrology, we have a conservative majority government. As could be expected from the old Moon in Taurus, the endless hammering on the theme "stability" resonated with the public. Besides, in Ontario the opposition was divided three ways.

The good news is that we now have a GREEN member of parliament. YEAH!!
Go Elizabeth go.

The other news is that, largely due to wins in Quebec, the NDP is now officially Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. Whether this is a good thing or not remains to be seen. For one thing too much came from emphasis on one charismatic leader. Much as I like Jack Layton, the cult of personality ought to be discouraged. Leader this, leader that. What about policy, vision? The other downside is that there will be pressure on Jack Layton to "reach out to the center". This would result in orphaning the left and an effective shift of the entire political spectrum to the right, which is exactly what has been happening in recent years.

Anyway.......interesting times are ahead. The corporate overlords are no doubt rejoicing. But the sheople are waking up. I hope.

Reflections on the A word

2011-03-27T17:07:00.000-07:00

The bottom line is that I am pro-choice.

And yet. Could we perhaps make room for ambivalence?
Could we talk about this matter without immediately resorting to name calling, ideological grandstanding and recounting extreme-case scenarios on both sides?

Terminating a pregnancy is not a choice I have ever had to make, for which I am grateful. I have always been lucky that way. We never got pregnant without meaning to, and conceived easily when we did.

I don't know what I would have done if it had been different.
Something twists in the gut at the thought of terminating a pregnancy. I suspect that reluctance to end a potential life is not the worst of our instincts.

I do not take the matter lightly. I believe our sexual mores in general could stand some tightening up. We have gone way beyond compensating for Victorian prudery. But that is several other blogs.

Back to the A word. As long as women have conceived without intending to they have attempted to undo their condition. Abortion will happen. Whatever traditional herbal knowledge the European culture may have had was ruthlessly suppressed in the burning times.
In the absence of clinical options desperate women will resort to unsafe back-alley places, knitting needles and poisons and get killed. Many of those women will be mothers leaving other children behind. http://www.msmagazine.com/spring2002/brandesgratz.asp

My pro-life friends (believe it or not, I have some) will say: "Just choose adoption!"
This may be an option for some, and they should be supported. But it is NOT an easy choice, for either mother
or child.

I have never been unwillingly pregnant. But I do know what it is like to go into hospital to give birth and to come out with empty arms. After a healthy pregnancy and an easy full term birth my first-born died a day later from a congenital defect. Ever since I have felt a kinship with birth mothers who had relinquished their children.

We did it over and had a healthy daughter seventeen months later, and a beautiful son five years after that. The children have given us joy for 36 years. But birth mothers have to cope with life-long doubts and questions. Bearing a child and giving it up is not an experience to inflict on anyone against her wish.

A Canadian radio play managed the impossible: tackle the thorny subject in a way that just might satisfy both sides. I heard it only once and don't remember the title, but it made such an impression that I noted the name of the author: J.J. McColl.
Recap: A fortyish career woman finds herself pregnant by her married lover. Her lover and most girlfriends assume that "of course" she will have an abortion. Her religious conservative brother assumes that "of course" she will continue the pregnancy. The only person who gives her the space to truly consult her own heart is the feminist counselor at the abortion clinic. She decides to cancel the operation and have the child. Voila, a happy ending for both pro-lifers and pro-choicers, quite an accomplishment.

Japan acknowledges the difficulty of the choice and makes room for ambiguity. There are temples devoted to the cult of Jizo, a deity who looks after the unborn on the other side. The cult reminds me a bit of the Roman Catholic church's extortions pre-Reformation: buy this candle, pay for this mass, and your dead loved ones will be better off . I certainly have no wish to see Jizo temples sprout here. But I do like the combination of legal abortion and a place where regret can be openly expressed.

In our society the of politics of abortion leave little room for ambiguity.

I have never been unwillingly pregnant. I do not know what I would have done if it had happened. But I do know this: I would want the decision to be mine.

The bottom line remains that I am pro-choice.

Fat Cows, Skinny Cows. Thoughts on economic cycles.

2011-03-27T14:44:00.000-07:00

Originally written in February 2008.

I am no economist.

But one does not need expertise in order to observe that good times and bad times have spelled each other off all through history. This is a world of contrasts and cycles. The tide can’t always be in.

When a Pharaoh dreams of fat cows and skinny cows the answer is clear.

Cycles will occur, good years will be followed by bad ones. Build a little nest egg during the good times, OK? It’s not rocket science!

The economy appears to be slowing down. So it goes. Only cancer cells grow forever, or rather till the host dies, but that is another topic.

Now here is what always gets my goat when politicians talk about the economy. It is a stupid, dishonest game and they all play it.

It goes more or less like this:

Bad Economy, party in power:
“The Economic cycle is against us right now, but that is not our fault.”

Bad Economy, party in opposition:
“The Economy is doing poorly, and it is the fault of sitting government.”

Good Economy, party in power:
“Look at how well we have managed the Economy! Vote for us again!”

Good Economy, party in opposition:
“Sure, the Economy is good right now, but they are just being lucky!”

In other words, power to manage the economy is either claimed or denied depending on where the advantage lies. Could we get some honesty please?

The reality appears to be that cycles will happen, no matter what governments do. But societies can choose ways to take the edge off.

To get back to the biblical example: Fourteen years of fat cows is not an option. But Pharaoh still has choices. He can choose to use the good years to build himself a bigger palace or he can fill the granaries so the people won’t starve during the lean years.

Oops, is that interference with the sacred cow of the free market?

No Free Lunch. Reflections on Electricity.

2011-03-21T21:31:00.000-07:00

Do we even know how spoilt we are? Each of us in the so-called developed world routinely uses the equivalent of Earth knows how much people-power to make life easy, without having to pay a single servant.

We are perhaps a bit more aware than most, since we played the pretend-pioneer game in our tipi and log cabin years. The first year we had electricity in the log house it felt like magic. I appreciated it most coming home in the dark late winter afternoon from the weekly trip to Hot Springs and Town, loaded with groceries, library books, wet swim stuff and hungry children, one of them on the verge of hypoglycemic meltdown. Pre-hydro we'd have to juggle the above while fumbling to light first one kerosene or Coleman lamp and then more, creating small pools of weak light. Now we could flick a switch by the door, and There Was Light in the entire cabin! Wonderful.

From painless dentistry to our beloved internet, I love the modern society made possible by electricity and have no desire to return to an Amish-like existence. Agriculture needs to adopt some Amish wisdom, but that is another topic.

But power is not free.

We all know that the last of the ancient sunlight AKA fossil fuel comes at a price. It appears we get to choose between a political price, see the Middle East, or an environmental one, see Tar Sands or Gulf. The cheap easy oil is mostly GONE.

Natural Gas may sound good, but Google 'fracking' and see what that does to the underground water supply. Water is the most precious resource of all. Water is the substance future wars will be fought about.

Coal. Plentiful in some parts of the world, and better methods are being found to burn it more cleanly. But the mining creates enormous havoc. Mountain Top Removal anyone?

Wind Power is clean and renewable, but we'd need enormous numbers of turbines. Turbines kill birds, alter the esthetics of the landscape, and not everyone wants to live next door to them. Youtube has some horror clips of noisy towers. It also has reassuring clips of quiet mills, so I just don't know.

Solar? Nice, but how much will it take to replace existing fossil fuel based plants?

Biomass? We need crop lands to grow food, not fuel. Hemp on marginal lands might be a contribution.

Hydro-electricty?

Nakusp is the heart of a valley that was devastated by a series of dams. If you had been living here in the fifties and heard the first rumors about the Columbia River Treaty your reaction would likely have been: "No way. They can't be serious." There were homesteads and villages all up and now the valley. British Columbia may be huge, but much of it is either too mountainous or too far North to be productive food growing land. The river bottom lands of the Arrow Valley had both good soil and a decent climate.
'They' were serious, many lives were uprooted, precious farmland was lost, and now 'they' are poised to do the same thing to a rare valley just South-West of Prince George. Somehow the notion that areable land in a suitable micro-climate is more precious than hydro-electric power has not sunk in yet. If you think peak oil is scary, wait till you look at peak Soil.

Above: mud flats on the Columbia in early spring. A reservoir is not the same as a living, flowing river.

Finally, just when you start to think that nuclear might not be such a bad idea after all, along comes Fukushima.

It reminds me a bit of Dorothy Parker's poem on suicide methods.
Razors pain you,
Rivers are damp,
Acids stain you,
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful,
Nooses give,
Gas smells awful.
You might as well live.

Actually I am not sure what the conclusion is when it comes to power. I am just making the point that every method of generating it has a price, and we need to do some serious thinking about how we are going to keep the lights on. People are nicer when the lights are on. People who spend too much time in the dark get scared, and scared people do weird things like burning witches.

Here are a few considerations:

Conservation is a no-brainer, but whatever thrifty habits we adopt will be offset by the rest of the world turning on their own lights, computers, washing machines etc.

Good design, including building methods from before the Industrial Revolution, goes hand in hand with conservation.

Removing subsidies from the old fossil fuel model would really help. Clean and renewable energies stand a better chance of competing when the environmental cost of the dirty ones are taken into account, literally.

Let's not necessarily rule out nuclear power.

http://xkcd.com/radiation/ puts some perspective into the danger of radiation.

But for goodness sakes don't build the things on earthquake spots, remove any profit motive that might induce builders to skimp on safety, and make them smaller.

That last goes for all power generation. Make plants smaller, more local, and plan for failures.

Fail-safe is NOT an option. Sh#t will happen, in ways we have not thought of yet. We can reduce the odds, but we can never be completely sure. A decentralized grid with smaller plants means smaller catastrophes if something goes wrong.

Carry on researching, and last but not least: how about utilizing the energy that is expended in gyms across the world every day? I have a friend who lives off-grid.
If her teen son wants to play a video game he has to power the generator by pedaling the bike for an hour. He knows there is no free lunch.

P.S. I just discovered this great online B.C. newspaper, with a series on energy by Andrew Nikiforuk, on the same wave length. http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/05/05/EnergySlaves/

A blog for International Women's Day

2011-03-08T09:13:00.000-08:00

There is more to say on this topic, but it will wait. This is just a small personal celebration.

The positive aspects of feminism are nicely illustrated by the lives of two strong women: my mother, born in 1916, and my daughter, born in 1974.

My mother did not fully come into her own until after the kids were mostly grown. She made up for lost time in her fifties and sixties, and enjoyed a brilliant late career. But as her oldest child (b. 1943) I was raised by a deeply frustrated and conflicted woman who did not fit the mold of the fifties.

Dad was the more laid-back of the two. The code of honour of the times demanded that he be the sole breadwinner. He went to work with pleasure, but lacked Mom's driving ambition and need for status. My parents had a good marriage. But I often wonder what our lives would have been like if the liberalization of the sixties had happened earlier.

My daughter the PhD has always known that she wanted to be a scientist. Her life partner, the father of her son, is every bit as brilliant as she is, but lacks her laser focus. No one who knows D. rules out the possibility of future career surprises. But meanwhile he has been happy to play a supportive role. In other words, N. has enjoyed the benefits of having a wife. Never underestimate the importance of that wind beneath your wings!

This is what I see when we visit: the daily work of a household getting done by whoever is there to do it, a total lack of wrangling over status and roles, a lot of shared laughter.

And I think: "Mission Accomplished. This is what feminism made possible."

In praise of the one child family (so other people can have 6)

2011-02-25T22:31:00.000-08:00

The picture was snapped by a street photographer in 1978 in Victoria, the last month that we were a one child family. I find the body language quite fascinating. Note the determined little girl in the middle looking straight ahead, almost pulling the distracted parents who are scanning the scenery. We became a two-child family soon after, with 'one of each' just like we wanted.

But this is about the reactions people get when they have just one child.

Our twelve-year old grandson is an only child. When we visit our daughter's little family I always notice how calm, peaceful and friendly it is. Being a one and only has many advantages. It is just a different kind of family, complete in its own way.

Most parents of a single child of a certain age will tell you there is social pressure to have another one. Somehow there is no taboo against saying things like "So when are you starting on the next one? Don't you worry about little Only becoming a spoilt brat?"  This wrong in so many ways.

First of all it is of just plain nobody's business.
Then the couple might love to have another child, but in spite of putting out the welcome mat no new soul is arriving. Or economic reality has interfered.  If Mom has a steady job and Dad just got laid off now is not the best time. Every time a well-intentioned relative says "So, when is little Only getting a baby brother?" it rubs salt in the wound.

I used to worry  a lot about population growth, and for that reason frowned upon anyone who had more than 2.

However, it now looks like prosperity, and above all the education and empowerment of women, takes care of the problem without coercion. Places like Europe, Japan and Singapore are looking at falling population levels. Yes! It turns out that many couples are quite happy with one child, or none. This is excellent news, or it will be once we get over the unsustainable BS that continuous growth is a necessity. That is another topic.

It means that if we just create decent conditions we can turn things loose, and won't have to resort to horrible measures like forced sterilization and abortions. Focus on schooling women and giving them some options and the population thing will fall into place.

More good news: when enough couples choose to remain childless or have a single their choice creates room for others to have a large family. Imagine a world where every family has one girl and one boy. How boring!

Some people are brilliant at raising children and choose to have lots of them, or they just happened. The world needs children from such families.

My fond fantasy is a world that is not wall-to-wall people. A world with room for wilderness and other species. It is also a world with many different kinds of families. There are singles living alone or in co-operative households. There are childless couples, small families, and large ones. It is a world where children are treasured, but not everyone feels called or pressured to have their own. It is a world that honours and respects the hard work of parenthood in all the ways that count. It is also a world that encourages a vigorous role for aunts, uncles, and grandparents, biological or chosen.

Let a thousand flowers bloom.

Valentine

2011-02-14T11:27:00.000-08:00

I am intensely grateful that Valentine's Day was NOT celebrated during my long-ago and far-away childhood.
The last thing a weird and unpopular child needs is to have its lack of status rubbed in by a lack of cards, or by pity gifts.
My sister tells me that "Hartjes Dag" is observed in the Netherlands these days. I can only assume that Hallmark and the flower-and chocolate merchants have successfully introduced it some time after 1969.
I have quoted this before but it bears repeating.

"When I was young I was always desperately trying to GET love. Now that I am older I find it so much easier to just BE love".
That quote is one of the most important ones I have ever learned. I wish I could attribute it. On the other hand, that wish is typical of my Mercury/Jupiter/Pluto conjunction in Leo, which still values being honoured for intellectual inventions. The author of the quote is most likely beyond such concerns.

My contribution to the Valentine thing is this hard-won observation:
Humor will get you through times of no romance better than romance will get you through times with someone who just doesn't get British comedy.

Sorry to spoil the mood for anyone who is doing the red roses thing right now, but I sincerely believe that romance is vastly overrated as a source of happiness. Especially for heterosexual females.

The subtle art of seduction does not come naturally to most straight men, and the ones who are good at it often enjoy practicing it, so you end up with a broken heart anyway.

Many years ago I was working in the nicest restaurant in town. I got to serve dinner to a couple of acquaintances who were celebrating their tenth anniversary. I was so envious. My husband is one of the least romantic men I know, and date-challenged to boot. Less than a year later the husband had left the wife for her best friend. After almost 50 years (yikes!) we are still here. I appreciate that immensely.

In the movie "Postcards From The Edge" Shirley MacLaine plays the outrageous mother of an actress with drug problems (Meryl Streep). She has this wonderful scene where she sings about all the catastrophes her life has known. Each verse ends with a triumphant: "But I'm still here!"

That's us. Far from perfect, but by golly, we are still here. I am grateful.

As for the red roses: Growing flowers is a more reliable route to contentment than waiting with bated breath for their delivery.

On sudden death at 60

2011-01-28T13:01:00.000-08:00

Originally posted to Multiply January 19 2010 in reaction to a death in the online community.

I missed out on knowing John Oh. I paid a posthumous visit to his penguin-studded site and hugely enjoyed it. The face that smiles In Memoriam from so many Multiply friends' sites is delightful. Full of life, love and humor. Here is someone who will be sorely missed.l

I don't know how old John was, but my guess is sixtyish. Old enough to have done a lot and grown nice and mellow, young to enough to have appetite for more. Great decade, the sixties.

It is a shock to everyone to lose someone like that, bam.

But let me tell you about Max (not his real name), and see whose fate you'd prefer.

I first met Max when we were both manoeuvring pick-up trucks around desirable heaps of horse manure. He was a passionate gardener. He lived in town, but in a secluded corner where he had several extra lots with a huge vegetable patch. He had built his own home, a substantial place.

The next time I met Max was during canvassing at Provincial election time. He was digging a hole for a foundation or something. Anyway he was bare-chested and vigorous and half underground. We had a brief conversation about politics. Max was, as they say here, French from France. As opposed to just plain French, which would be someone from Quebec. We shared our European perspective on North American politics. "Ah", declared Max, "ze Canadian workair, ils sont crazeee!" (for not voting for the social democratic NDP). This is how I always remember him. Full of vim and vigor and opinions.

We bid each other a pinko farewell and went on with the day. The next time I saw Max was as a Home Support client. At age 60 he had suffered a massive stroke. He almost died, but I believe his wife kept him on this plane by sheer will power. He was paralyzed, could barely communicate, and was both furious and deeply depressed. He wanted to be left alone to sleep and preferably die, and I cannot blame him one bit.

Max survived well into his eighties. He outlived his wife. He recovered a tiny bit of mobility, but never regained speech. This strong independent outdoors man lived for decades as an object of care, less than a shadow of his former self.

Is sudden death truly the worse fate?
Travel on in Peace, John Oh.

Three lost decades, and looking for the green shoots

2011-01-25T13:17:00.000-08:00

The last few weeks I have been compulsively reading political/economic blogs and articles that outline how bleak the immediate future is, especially in the USA. I can't seem to stop. This is not a productive use of my time, I will have to stop soon. It is not exactly news either.

We were on to much of this in the early seventies, albeit with a different twist. Less emphasis on outright evil by The Powers That Be, more just awareness that the present system was not sustainable.
The now famous report "Limits to growth" came out in 1972.

Even before that, we had come to this blessed continent from pleasant, well-run but overcrowded* Holland in 1969.
When you grow up seeing one precious green space after another disappear under desperately needed housing you don't need The Club of Rome to figure out that growth forever is not an option. At least it seemed obvious to us. I disengaged from mainstream economics and aimed for a simple country life with less stuff but more time early in life.

Some good things happened in the seventies. Many politicians 'got it'. Richard Nixon started the EPA in 1970. Yes, Richard Nixon! He would probably be considered a socialist by the present bunch of Ayn Rand worshippers. The 1973 oil crunch helped. It wasn't a perfect time but there was progress in awareness and in policy measures.

A cleanup of the book shelves yielded a forgotten little book.
"Muddling toward Frugality" by Warren Johnson.
Subtitle: "A blueprint for Survival in the 1980s".

The gist of it: "The level of consumption in industrialized
North America is not sustainable. Adjustments will have to be made sooner or later. We need a decentralized economic model that uses more labour and fewer non-renewable resources. If we start now, we can limit the worst pain of the transition and end up with a more frugal but quite pleasant society. "

A Google yielded the good news that it is still in print, and some excerpts can be found here:
http://ukiahcommunityblog.wordpress.com/contact/muddling-toward-frugality-2/

Well, we didn't start then. The eighties hit, and suddenly it was "Morning in America" with this huge greed fest. I never understood it. We kind of skipped the whole thing. We just carried on frugally raising chickens and children, working only part time and loving the country life in our little semi-hippie world.

Now here we are more than thirty years later. I am reading through some of the worse case scenarios. They are terrifyingly accurate.

Here is a thing to remember. I have posted it before, but need to remind myself every now and then. When a tree in a mature forest dies a natural death, its decomposing body forms a nursing log for new growth.

Our mainstream media is obsessed with covering the decay of the old log. When we want information on the new growth we
have to search it out. It is there.

I am going to order the rest of my seeds now.

*Foot note on population density:
Imagine approximately half the population of Canada in a space the size of Vancouver Island. Strict regulation of the commons has maintained much beauty for all to enjoy, but that is another blog.

Vancouver Island: 32,134 sq km
Canada's population 34,108,800 (July 2010 est)
Netherlands (land mass) 33,893 sq km
Netherlands population: 16,783,092 (July 2010 est.)

Testing Homeopathy

2011-01-22T12:28:00.000-08:00

I have no personal experience with homeopathy, nor do I have a financial stake in it.

But I felt challenged to at least read up on materials in its favor after watching an episode of 'Market Place' and reading the blog of one of the participants, who is a friend of my rigidly scientific son.

Let me admit that the very nature of homeopathy makes it hard to prove its efficacy by strictly scientific methods. It also makes it particularly susceptible to hucksterism. Sturgeon's Law* must be kept in mind, but that also goes for conventional medicine.

To start with, much was made of the fact that no molecular trace of the active ingredient remains in a homeopathic remedy. It cannot be measured with our existing instruments, therefor it cannot lay claim to reality.

Proponents of homeopathy will retort that it works through mysterious forces which we don't yet know how to perceive or measure. The fact that we don't quite know HOW something works should not keep us from continuing to observe, experiment, and use, if no harm is done in the process.

Draining swamps lowered the incidence of malaria, even though the cause was mistakenly attributed to "bad air" instead of to disease carrying mosquitoes. Microbes were causing disease long before humanity developed the instruments to see them. Some smart folks noticed that greater cleanliness seemed to foster a lower death rate. They were ridiculed and hounded. Ignaz Semmelweisz is the best known example. Science is always evolving. Today's woowoo may well be tomorrow's science.

Could water have memory? For the start of intriguing research visit here: http://hado.net/.
Please note the careful language here: the start of research is not the same as proof.
Someone asked: If water has memory, would it not also retain the memory of undesirable substances like animal faeces it has been exposed to? Now that is a valid question. I wonder if the intent of the process has anything to do with it. Yes, we are entering the woowoo world here.

The very nature of homeopathy makes it hard to test it scientifically. I know, this will be taken as a cop-out. But a fully trained, classical homeopath will spend hours with a patient to find the exact remedy that fits not that particular disease, but that particular patient at that particular time. The 20 minutes TV show did nothing to test this kind of care.

This is very different from picking up a bottle in a health food store, though apparently some remedies, like Arnica, will work universally. I do agree with the criticism directed at the sales people. Claims were made in the "this for that" mode that did not stress the individualized nature of homeopathy.

Opponents will argue that the attention of the practitioner, rather than the healing method, is the active ingredient in in-depth classical homeopathy. Good old Doctor Placebo at your service. We could also ask: if the Placebo effect, which clearly suggests a connection between body and mind/emotion, is an accepted fact, why the resistance to medical models that actively use those connections?

If the Market Place experiment proved anything by having a bunch of volunteers down entire bottles of remedy, it is the basic harmlessness of over the counter homeopathic remedies, if taken by people who do not need them. Hippocrates "First do no harm" would be pleased.

Opponents also blame homeopathy for harm done to people who choose that modality when another method would be a better choice. As the song goes, "you gotta know when to hold em, know when to fold'em". If you have raging pneumonia it is time for antibiotics, NOW.

Health choices, especially when they are made by parents on behalf of children, can be agonizingly difficult. Both the conventional allopathic model and the slower-acting natural methods have their time and place. Both sides can drag out individual cases to bolster their stance. Unfortunately there is no foolproof way to make the right choice, all the time.
More thoughts on this topic here:
http://ieneke.blogspot.com/2010/01/amaria-and-teamsteria-fantasy-about.html
The vaccine issue deserves a blog on its own.

I once had the privilege of listening in on a dinner conversation between two MDs** who were also trained as homeopaths and naturopaths. We need more such people. These doctors had at their disposal the full arsenal of drugs and herbs both modern and ancient, local and exotic. They were not ideologues and would for instance not shy away from antibiotics if quick action were needed.

Their favorite healing modality: homeopathy. The way they talked about it, it might take a while to pinpoint the exact remedy for a person. It wasn't always possible. It was certainly not the only tool they used. But when it did work it provided the deepest and most lasting healing of all. I remember these words: "Like turning a key in a lock".

I am well aware that the personal experience of two physicians does not constitute scientific
proof. But it should at least give pause for thought.

Finally, I will let the homeopathic pros speak for themselves.
http://homeopathy-canada.blogspot.com/2011/01/cbc-marketplace-cons-public.html
______________________________________________________________________
Foot Notes:
*Sturgeon's law: Theodore Sturgeon was a Science Fiction writer, best known for his classic "Slan" about an emerging mutation of telepathic humans. When someone told him that "Ninety percent of SF is Cr#p", Sturgeon replied: "Sir, Ninety percent of ANYTHING is cr#p."

**In case people are wondering: this conversation between Dr Mitch Fleischer and Dr. Linda Hegstrand took place during a dinner break at an Amazon Herb Company conference some years ago. I loved being part of that company and would still be there if they had not terminated all Canadian distributors, because the government was making things too hard.

Crazy explanations that make sense. And why it shouldn't matter.

2011-01-10T09:59:00.000-08:00

My best friend is into deep weirdness, like David Icke on steroids. Never mind all the details. Let's just say that I take what emerges from that corner with buckets of salt, but do keep it in the back of my mind, from where it will occasionally whisper "I told you so".

The latest proposition was: Obama may have been killed and cloned. The establishment puppet we see in Washington these days is not the same entitiy that inspired millions to hope that real change was possible through democratic means.

I know, it is crazy. We flashed on Woody Allen's 1973 scifi comedy "Sleeper", where a dictator's nose has been preserved so the evil creep can be cloned from it. But the reality of the Obama collapse has been so devastating that this explanation makes as much sense as anything rational.

Now why it shouldn't matter: The real reason for hope was never Obama himself. One man can be assissinated or otherwise neutralized. The real reason for hope was the many people who got galvanized by the promise of a more just society. The movement, not the man. Those people are still there. The need for activism is greater than ever. The real change may have to come in spite of political leadership rather than because of it.

To quote good old Ghandi: We have to be the change we wish to see in the world.

Once more into the breach...

2011-01-09T22:24:00.000-08:00

For whatever it is worth, I am a member of a political party again. I just rejoined the NDP, Canada's social democratic party.

On Facebook I described my politics as "Apple. Red, Green and Crunchy".
For the last twenty years or so I have been sitting on the fence between being Green or NDP. I wish I could be both at once, but it doesn't work that way. The NDP has a decent environmental record and there is a provincial leadership race coming up. Bad timing, but these things happen. Becoming a member allows one to vote directly for the leadership of the party.

Several factors nudged me back in this direction.

*Spending time with progressive friends South of the border makes me deeply grateful for Canada's social safety net. It is not perfect, but it sure beats what we see in the USA.
The difference is largely due to the influence, even out of office, of the NDP.
*The increasing gap between haves and have-nots. Not quite as bad here but growing, especially in B.C.
*With the latest developments in give-aways to the rich, a bit of class awareness might not be such a bad idea. There was Bernie Sanders speech, and the article below on Union bashing. Sure, some unions can become hide-bound bastions of self interest. But the ability to form and maintain labour unions remains one of the most important indications of a truly free democracy. Dictators always target Union organizers for intimidation or outright assassination.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/05/andrew-cuomo-labor-unions?INTCMP=SRCH
*Meeting the local MLA at a home potluck gathering and hearing about the chance for renewal through a leadership convention. Having the chance to participate directly through voting for a new leader.

I do not expect any government to deliver perfect solutions on a platter. Anyone coming into power now will have one hell of a mess on their hands. I do expect more honesty and less give-away of the common resources. Gordon Campbell won't be happy till he has privatized the air.

Anyway, it will be interesting.

Spy vs Spy: fun (not) with conflicting conspiracy theories

2010-12-27T17:29:00.000-08:00

Ever since a good friend shoved David Icke into my hands, some of his way-out-there ideas have taken up residence in the back of my mind.

Please note the careful language: I would much prefer to dismiss his and similar notions with howls of disdainful laughter. While I am utterly indifferent to royalty, I prefer to think of the Queen as portrayed by Helen Mirren rather than as an evil shape-shifting reptilian. (I warned you this stuff is way-out-there)

However, given the absurdity of human history the idea of a secret not-quite-human hierarchy calling the shots, with the ultimate intention of creating as much misery as possible, makes as much sense as anything else.
It is said that "Against stupidity, the gods themselves battle in vain." What if 'the gods' are more interested in encouraging it than in fighting it?

In this model of reality, humanity's real power is its ability to raise vibrations. We have more chances of getting out of the trap of common misery by opening our hearts and focusing our minds on a desired outcome than by any direct battle. The Powers That Be (TPTB) ridicule the realm of the esoteric, while using its power themselves. Humanity is encouraged to waste its energy on ineffective ways, like politics, to better its lot.

That, in a nut shell, is one conspiracy view of the world.
Now the flip side.

How about some quotes by Frederick Douglass for a start.

"I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs."
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.""Without a struggle, there can be no progress."

We, meaning the citizens of the post-WWII North Atlantic civilization, have come of age in a world where many rights were taken for granted.

It is easy to forget that such basics as the right to form labour unions, truly universal suffrage, access to contraceptives, to name just a few, had to be fought for.
The gains that were made always involved the dreary, painstaking work of political organizing. They took time, effort, and people literally taking to the streets in great numbers. Lives were put in the balance. Lives were lost.

So here is an opposite conspiracy theory: TPTB encourage fuzzy New Age thinking in the population in order to better control them. The psychological-industrial complex has been thriving on a climate of mass narcissicm. Are you happy
enough yet? No? Come for therapy!

A more in-depth blog is brewing on the concept that "you create your own reality." For now let's just observe this: people who feel 100% responsible for everything that happens to them may be less inclined to connect the dots to the big economic/political picture. Did you just lose your job because the plant moved to China? Never mind getting together with other displaced workers to see what can be done politically. You must not have been 'manifesting' right!

Are we having fun yet?

On traditions, art and egos. A Messiah review.

2010-12-25T15:03:00.000-08:00

It is Christmas Morning. We had our visit with the offspring a few weeks earlier and will join a number of friends at someone's home later. The pies for that gathering are made. We have unburdened ourselves of the whole gift-giving. We are just not doing it anymore and that is that. What a relief!

But one nice, stress-free Christmas tradition we enjoy is listening to Messiah on CBC. I have not been a Christian since age 15, but love this music. We even remembered to turn it on at the beginning instead of stumbling on it halfway.

Alas, I am disappointed. The performance is off in some way. Something is missing.

Now I will be the first to admit that I am not a good judge of music. My dear father bequeathed me both his love of singing and his tin ear. This is more a gut feeling that something is not quite right. My husband, who is more musically literate, agrees. So we continue to listen, and we are trying to put our joint fingers, or rather ears, on WHY
we don't like this version.

To start with, the choirs are just too skimpy. We need more voices here! The solo voices are beautiful, no complaints there. But the orchestra is playing with a precise see-sawing quality that one associates with Bach, rather than the more swingy way of Handel.
There may be correct terms for what I am trying to say, but I don't know them.

My main complaint is this: the whole performance has an understated, cerebral feel to it.
Chris used the term mechanical. Yes. Controlled is another word that comes to mind.
We wondered if the conductor was trying too hard to put his own stamp on the production. A performing artist doing a classic may want to tweak the work in order to be original. Was the conductor imposing his own ego on the music instead of allowing it to flow freely through him?

We looked up the conductor. Kent Nagano, an American of Japanese origin, in charge of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Now that was interesting. It made us wonder if there was an influence of the Japanese minimalistic esthetic? You know, three pebbles and a piece of driftwood carefully placed on a stretch of sand raked just so? It has never appealed to me. Give me an English cottage garden, a riot of colour almost going wild.
The metaphors are getting mixed here, and anyway, this is a personal preference, not a value judgment.

The bottomline is that I felt as if the interpretation was coming between me and a favorite piece of music.

Next year I hope the Messiah will less subtle and more exuberant.

Living on the sideline with borrowed wisdom

2010-12-13T22:40:00.000-08:00

The human condition has tragedy built in. Comedy as well, but that is not the topic this time.

No matter how smoothly a life goes, no matter how much love, health, and joy a person has received, sooner or later the sheer passage of time brings sadness. Time, that thief, rips the babies from our arms as cruelly as the most evil kidnapper.

Not that we'd want to change nappies all our life. It would just be nice to magically turn the clock back once in a while and snuggle with a child on each side to read bed time stories.

Both my living offspring are thriving as good, interesting adults who we enjoy spending time with. We have no quarrels. It is as good as it gets.
But most parents of grownup kids have to deal with this fact: where we were once central to our children's lives, we are now on the outer edge.

This is as it should be. We did the same to our parents. I had good parents, who I loved. But still. We said goodbye at airports, impatient to get away from the last hugs, relieved to turn our back on the tears.
Now it is our turn to be the old parent, who would always like a tiny bit more than the grown child has time or energy to give. We would not wish it to be different. Yet there are moments when it makes us sad.

I find great solace in a Korean proverb, shared by Dr. Ben Kim, one of my favourite health writers. "Love flows downstream". A beautiful image that recognizes that parents will always love their grown children a bit more than they are loved back, and that is O.K. Just accept it. Know that it does not mean anything is wrong with you or the relationship with your children. It is the human condition. It is as it is.

Western psychology can get all tangled up in the economy of love, the giving and receiving, the 'you deserve it!' looking after me-me-me. Somewhere I came across this gem from an old woman. I am sorry I cannot credit it.

"When I was young I was always desperately trying to GET love. Now I find it easier to just BE love."
I find this a wonderfully freeing concept.

The many forms of Greed

2010-11-18T09:06:00.000-08:00

Greed takes many forms.

According to government standards we are officially poor.
Except when I have to visit a dentist or need new glasses I do not feel poor. We have never lacked food, clothing, shelter or transportation and live in a decent society surrounded by natural beauty. Who needs more? The words I wrote about my friend Beth apply to myself as well.

"According to Western standards Beth may have been poor, but those were not the standards she set for herself. She did not compare herself to people with big houses and shiny cars, but to the wretched of the earth. So she lived mainly in gratitude, knowing that anyone living in Southern B.C. on her own piece of land is fortunate indeed."

Amen. Me too.

But I am greedy in other ways.

I am greedy for PHYSICAL COMFORT.
I hate being cold, hungry, tired or in pain. People who live in pain and keep going with a smile on their face deserve much admiration. When I feel miserable I am not a nice person. Just let me crawl into a corner like an animal and leave me alone so I can lick myself better. I feel just fine 90% of the time, for which I give thanks frequently and fervently.

I am greedy for SPACE.
We have 2 five acre lots and a privacy barrier of trees all around the 10 acres. If circumstances ever forced us to sell the half we don't live on we'd actually see neighbors. The thought creeps me out! We are spoiled rotten in that respect and know it.

I am greedy for TIME.
I have always needed lots of unstructured time. How people do 9-5 for years on end is beyond me. I can do it in spurts, but not for long. I am not lazy but prefer to do more in what Ivan Illich calls "the direct use economy". I have the temperament of an artist without the creative urge to go with it.

I am greedy for STUFF to READ.
Call me Queen of the Over-dues. You should see the piles I drag home from the blessed Nakusp Public Library. It is always more than I can actually read. The explanation: Reading Hunger as a child. Our small public library only allowed us to check out one book of fiction and one of non-fiction a week, on Saturday morning. I don't remember an opportunity to come back for seconds. The shelves were divided into age groups. 6-8, 8-10, 10-12. I was often book-less by Thursday and had always worked my way through the section a good year before it was time to move to the next one. The thought of being out of reading material is utterly abhorrent.

Apart from books there are magazines, newspapers and online newsletters. I have learned lots from the excellent newsletters published by doctors in the Natural Health movement. Last but not least: Other people's blogs.

And now there is YouTube......Where do I stop? I want to read it ALL!

See, greed takes many forms.

Schmolistics and Druthers.

2010-11-02T03:26:00.000-07:00

Politics, schmolitics.
It is pundit day in the USA and therefore on the local media. The longer I observe the scene, the more inclined I am to pay attention to weird theories that I would prefer to dismiss with howls of laughter.
Let's just say that certain far-out notions have taken up residence in the back of my mind, and are whispering comments from between the curtains.

I did not expect Obama to wave a magic wand and make everything alright. But I did expect more resistance from his government to the corporate and military-industrial agenda.
The revolving doors between government office and corporate headquarters keep turning around, regardless of who is supposedly in power. The rich keep getting richer, the middle is being hollowed out, the commons is disappearing (privatize everything!), personal freedoms regarding health are threatened. And by the way, we have an ailing planet on our hands. The whispers are wondering if it could be true that the whole democracy game is a distraction from what is really going on behind the scenes......

Honesty is lacking everywhere.
Back in early 2008 I did a blog on the way that partisan politics distort rational discourse on the economy. In short, power to manage the economy is either claimed or denied depending on where the advantage lies.
Who dares to admit that the USA's time at the top of the heap may be coming to an end? Power is shifting to Asia and the South. It is their turn. Demographics plays a huge role.

Anyway.......if I had my druthers, if I could change one thing not only in political discourse but in the way society as a whole functions, it would be this:
Encourage people to think And/And, instead of Either/Or.
Encourage people to focus on what unites them, rather than what divides. Most regular folks want pretty much the same things from life. They just have different ideas on how to achieve them.
Encourage a discourse in which we could say to our opponent: "I don't buy your entire position, but you have some valid points."

Is it a North American thing, or a twenty-first century thing, or a bit of both, that we see such extreme pendulum swings, and so much what I call "block thinking"?
By block thinking I mean the belief that granting an opponent a point is impossible, because it immediately implies that one buys the whole enchilada. I'll elaborate another time.

Meanwhile, the good news is that the Republicans can no longer just play opposition. Yes, the system is broken. They once again will have to own up to owing part of it.

The Internet Paradox

2010-09-16T06:02:00.000-07:00

The Internet Paradox is this:
There is a plethora of fascinating things to learn. And the very abundance makes it less likely that one will focus long enough to actually take any of it in.
We will now attempt "Dangerous Knowledge" by way of youtube. This is a BBC series on mathematicians. It came to my attention through the thoughtful comic site Abstruse Goose,which in turn was on my son's Facebook page. So it goes!
It should work as radio. Take laptop into kitchen, clean windows and start bread while listening.

A Rumination on Selves

2010-08-06T17:28:00.000-07:00

I can't get myself going today. It is one thing to take time off, like yesterday. I lounged in the zero-gravity recliner on the shady lawn, enjoying the warm breeze, reading and napping. It was well-deserved and much enjoyed.

It is quite something else to have an unscheduled day, tons of things to do, and fritter the time away by flitting restlessly from one unfinished task to another. Not much is getting accomplished but I am not enjoying it either. I can't stand myself when I do that.

Excuses range from the weather (sultry with frustrated thunderstorms and smoky from forest fires) and the stars (Moon in late Gemini square transiting Venus and my natal Neptune) to plugged-up swimmers' ears that make me feel as if I am underwater. But really, one has choices. I feel energetic enough, I just can't seem to settle down. The computer is on the outside table. The Multiply inbox and Facebook are exerting a magnetic pull.

The question arises: When one says "I can't get myself going", who is the real self? The taskmaster or the rebel?

In the world of psychology much has been made of the virtues of being in touch with one's Inner Child. Quite frankly, my inner child has more or less run the show ever since I left home at age 18. What I need is a better relationship with the Inner Accountant.

Thank goodness it is Market Day tomorrow so I have to get going, in the mood or not. Some of us just function better with a small amount of outside pressure.

Some more language ruminations

2010-07-10T18:11:00.000-07:00

Can we please stop calling the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico an oil SPILL?
This is an industry-caused ERUPTION.

The word spill implies more or less business as usual. A spill is finite. Sure, they are ugly and a bummer for the people who live nearby, but no skin off your nose if you don't. What is happening in the Gulf of Mexico is a lot scarier than that.

The world's waters are ONE. The atmosphere is ONE. We are ONE.
We either get this through our fat collective heads or we are doomed.
I have believed this for a long time: humanity faces a bottleneck in its development, and in order to make it through we will need the best from all cultures and all traditions from all times.
We desperately need to cultivate thinking in terms of and/and, not either/or.

Back to the topic of language use.
Another word that really bugs me is Settlement to describe certain building projects in Israel.
To the average non-indigenous North American, the word 'settlement' calls up images of log cabins on the frontier and brave pioneers in covered wagons. It is a positive term.
How would we react to the term 'encroachments', which is more accurate?

Language is important. Re-read 1984.
Pay attention. Be aware.
End of sermon.

Four Boys and One War

2010-05-05T21:52:00.000-07:00

It is May 5th today, 65 years after the official liberation day in the Netherlands in 1945. The date is burnt into my DNA, like the birthdays of siblings. I am always aware of it.
Any time I meet a Canadian veteran, I make it a point to thank him personally for the liberation.

Even so, I dare to propose that after 65 years it may be time for this celebration to be retired in its present flag-waving form.

When I was there a year ago I was struck by how much the Dutch remain obsessed with WWII. Isn't it time to let it go?

In the years after WWII the German nation has been a model global citizen. Isn't it time to let present generations off the hook of inherited guilt?

Instead, the days in spring that marked both beginning and ending of WWII could be used to reflect on the horrors of war in general.

In my rural neighborhood, within a square kilometer, lived 4 men whose lives had been blighted by WWII. Two of them have recently moved away but this was the case for years.

My own husband was born in 1936 in Indonesia and spent 3 years in a Japanese prison camp. Someone (who?) wrote that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who know what it is like to be hungry, and those who don't. Chris knows.

The family of our neighbor Toru suffered the many injustices meted out to Canadians of Japanese origin.

Then there was John, originally from London, England, who was evacuated from the city during the Blitz. His first memory was being all alone and utterly bewildered. No mother, no sisters, just a dingy hall with many other children.
The family never quite recovered.

And finally there was Ferdi, born in Germany. He saw his share of bombings and lost his father.

Four sides of a worldwide conflict, four childhoods blighted.

Enough already.

A rant against weather reporting

2010-04-05T10:41:00.000-07:00

Weather reporting, what's not to like?

It affects us all, some more than others. It give strangers a neutral topic to chat about. It unites people in a place.

But I have become increasingly frustrated with the way weather is reported on radio and TV. This may seem a trivial matter, but think about it.

As a mainly urban society we are increasingly alienated from Nature. We take sufficient food and access to clean water for granted.
We no longer connect the dots from weather to harvest to our own ability to feed our family through the coming year. That may well change soon, but that is another topic.

Precisely because daily weather affects even the most alienated city dweller, public weather reports offer a golden opportunity to remind people of their basic connection to Nature. We don't have to be heavy-handed and didactical about it.

As a rule the daily weather is reported from a tourist point of view. Sunshine Good, Rain Bad. Rain is described as "threatening" even when it is badly needed. There are exceptions, for instance when the whole province is engulfed in forest fires, but I am talking of the daily trend here.

What I am asking for is a basic shift: could weather be reported from the point of view of a farmer or forester, rather than a tourist?

The growing number of urban food gardeners might even welcome it.

Credo

2010-03-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

This was posted to Multiply a while ago. It really belongs here.

Can one person laugh her head off with Mr. Deity, and also be deeply moved by Kathleen Norris' "The Cloister Walk"?

Can one person nod in agreement when reading Richard Dawkins, and also demand that her local radio station play more traditional Christmas Carols? See earlier blog on that topic. http://ienvan.multiply.com/journal/item/67

Can one person be in stitches visiting The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, yet also sincerely respect the faith of the believers in her life?

The answer is yes. I lay claim to all of the above.

I tend to adjust my vocabulary to some degree depending on who I talk to and whether I like them or on my mood. I may tell the JWs that I am a pagan, now please go away, or that I am a believer in my own way. (and now please go away, but nicer.)

I got a pedicure in trade for a Reflexology/Reiki treatment. We both had a great time. My trade partner does a beautiful job, is a sweetheart with a nice sense of humor, and is a Jehova's Witness.

That is not my cup of tea to put it mildly, but the local group is a good bunch of people. Her church is her community and her strength. Who am I to go against that? Live and let live eh.

Does that make me a hypocrite or a diplomat? When do I rant against organized religion, and when do I respect it?

Belief in a personalized deity has inspired both the best and the worst in people.

It is really quite simple. The criterion that determines my loathing or respect is this: does the believer in question come from a space of Love or from narrow-minded fear and loathing?

Someone (who?) said that monks of all religions get along just fine, it is only the priests that fight. Monks focus on the mystic heart of faith, where all is One. Priests are in charge of the ritual, the specifics of worship.

Dutch mystic Gerben Hellinga compared all religions to the spokes on a bicycle wheel. They all go the same Centre. Great image. In this metaphor the monks relate straight to the centre, while the priests are worried about maintaining their particular spoke.

My own metaphor was this. Picture a mountain with different paths going to the same summit. From some sunny open paths the traveler can wave to other pilgrims, on their way to the same peak by another trail. Other travelers follow a path whose view is barred by high walls.

What are my true opinions anyway?

Ah, those juicy big questions....Why? Wherefore? Inasmuch as which?

What a waste of precious human life to wrestle with them! We will find out the answers all too soon, or be blissfully unaware of their lack.

I call myself a Taoist Pagan.

Pagan, because Earth is my connection to All That Is, whatever It may be. Taoist, because I don't have the slightest desire to create or recreate any pantheons. I know myself to be a part of the Great Mystery, and am happy to let it go at that.

Pagan also because whatever other realities there may be, we are HERE, NOW, to DO EARTH.

A certain type of New Ager or Buddhist can't wait to get out of here into the next dimension. I call it "Why bother in the first place?" forms of spirituality.

This planet is a pretty awesome place. Shouldn't we appreciate it?

So here is my Credo, with thanks to Zen, Voltaire, and the Dalai Lama..

Be Here Now.
Cultivate the Garden (literally and metaphorically)
Just be Kind.

Any deity for whom that isn't good enough I don't want much to do with.

Showing our face.

2010-03-25T16:05:00.000-07:00

Quebec just tabled a law that asks a small concession of some people of a certain religious persuasion.
We are not talking about stringent measures like those taken in France, where the state is pugnaciously secular and girls are banned from wearing head scarves to school.

In Quebec women remain free to wrap themselves in layers of black fabric without a stray hair or a glimpse of ankle showing if that makes them happy. But a line is being drawn at the niqab, the face veil.

Quote from the National Post (not my newspaper, but that's what Google yielded):
Jean Charest, the Liberal Premier, said the bill establishing guidelines for the accommodation of religious minorities is aimed at "drawing a line" to demonstrate that gender equality is a paramount Quebec value.

"If you are someone employed by the state and you deliver a service, you will deliver it with your face uncovered," he told reporters in Quebec City. "If you are a citizen who receives services, you will receive them with your face uncovered."

Apparently the law is aimed at a tiny minority of women, at least so far. CBC's "As It Happens" managed to find one. She duly whined about why she feels hard done by and how her human rights are being violated. By the state mind you, not by the belief system that is interfering with her vitamin D intake. She even said she might feel she has no choice but to leave Canada. Really! Is that a threat or a promise?

Sorry lady. In this wonderful country you are free to worship as you please. I for one will support you if you are being denied access to accommodation, employment, or transportation based on your religion or ethnicity, even if I am personally repulsed by headscarves and veils.
But in this culture, we show our face. Live with it or go.

Beards on the News

2010-03-25T13:36:00.000-07:00

Do you ever wonder who gets to decide what becomes The News?

In the last few days the local news on CBC has been agonizing over the accidental trimming of an old man's beard. The man was a Sikh, and they are not supposed to cut body hair, ever.
This was an honest mistake by a nurse who had only been in the jurisdiction for 6 months and somehow missed the relevant multi-culti training moment. Apologies were duly extended by the nurse in question and the Fraser Health Authority.

I can see how mentioning this incident on B.C. news can be appropriate. But it went on and on. The handwringing! The breast beating! The agonizing over how to take measures so that "this will never happen again..."! You'd think the man had been murdered by someone with a prejudice against turbans.

People, can we get a grip here? We have an ailing planet on our hands and an economic system in crisis. We're all on this boat together. Could we focus on what's important please?

Why I won't buy Girl Guide Cookies

2010-02-10T20:02:00.000-08:00

I love the Girl Guides, I even used to be one. And cookies, oh yes, count me in! But I won't buy Girl Guide Cookies.

First of all they are exactly the kind of additive-loaded artificially flavoured garbage that I avoid like the plague. Now I will cheerfully chomp down on something not entirely wholesome if it tastes fantastic and/or makes me feel really good for a brief time. The cookies don't do that. They provide an instant sweet-and-yuck hangover.

I used to buy them anyway because I felt guilty any time someone drove all the way up to my rural abode. Likewise with the well-meaning folk who go around canvassing "For Cancer". Should that not be Against Cancer? These days they get sent away empty-handed, with a polite brief explanation. I refuse to spend another dime on the established big disease charities. We digress.

If the little darlings showed up with home-made chocolate chip cookies or held a bake sale I would be glad to partake. But I guess that is too risky. And heaven forbid they might have to do something themselves. No, they get driven around by parents and sell a factory-made product. May I ask in what way this is character building?

Would you believe what we used to do in my long-ago far-away girl guide days? Oh my Goddess, I sound like a curmudgeonly old timer going on about the Depression. But seriously.

We had an action called "heitje voor een karweitje", roughly translated as "two bits for a chore". During an assigned week in early spring, probably the Easter Vacation, Scouts and Guides all over the country would knock on doors in the neighborhood and offer their services in return for a small donation, typically $0,25.

I was a shy socially awkward child and hated it with a passion at the time. Usually some of my mothers girlfriends would allow me to do their dishes, just so I could meet the minimum face-saving requirement. It would have been easier to come up with things to do in the country.

If any local Girl Guides want to come around in spring and give me a hand on the land, I will be glad to donate.

P.S. I don't remember any warnings about child molesters lurking behind every door.

2010-01-16T21:16:00.000-08:00

I don't know why this story makes me smile so much.

I can't remember where I read it.

Once upon a time, in a village in China, lived a wise man who had only one son and one horse.

One day the man's mare ran away.

All the neighbors commiserated. "Oh, how terrible!"

"We shall see", said the wise old man.

A few weeks later the mare returned, in company of a few wild horses, including a stallion in love.

"What a stroke of luck!" exclaimed all the neighbors.

"We shall see", said the wise old man.

Of course the man's son had to try riding the stallion. The wild horse threw him off and he broke a leg.

All the neighbors commiserated."Oh, how terrible!"

"We shall see", said the wise old man.

A few weeks later the soldiers of the emperor came to the village and rounded up all the able-bodied young men to serve in the army. The wise man's son was spared because of his broken leg.

"What a stroke of luck!" exclaimed all the neighbors.

"We shall see", said the wise old man.

And so on, and so on. Make up your own sequel!

Amaria and Teamsteria, a fantasy about health freedom

2010-01-15T22:45:00.000-08:00

An archived newsletter at http://jonbarron.org (June 21-2004) explains how the AMA originated: as a trade union, to support allopathic doctors in their fight against homeopaths and other natural healers.

That got my imagination going...

Imagine a country where the Union of Professional Chauffeurs is so powerful that the use of private cars is outlawed and bicycles are severely restricted.

We'll call the place Teamsteria.

Most Teamsterians see nothing wrong with their society.
They agree with their government that driving is a serious, potentially dangerous business. Of course nobody should be allowed to do it without extensive training. Imagine the chaos if every Tom, Dick and Mary could get a license. People might get hurt or even killed by insufficiently skilled drivers!

Some Teamsterians hate waiting for buses or cabs and prefer getting around as they please on bicycles. They make the point that bicycles are healthier and better for the Earth.

The authorities complain that bicycles interfere with the proper functioning of car traffic. Every accident between a bike and a car is automatically blamed on the bicycle and widely publicized to boot. Life is made harder for bicycle users all the time. The chauffeurs' lobby would like them to be totally outlawed.

Some Teamsterian radicals propose that everyone should be allowed to get a drivers' license. They are considered a dangerous lunatic fringe.

To bolster its arguments the Teamsterian government points to the chaos and carnage in the neighbouring country, Amaria.

In Amaria every private citizen over 16 is allowed to drive. Every year large numbers of Amarians get killed or maimed in traffic accidents.

Amarians love being able to travel as they please, and consider the daily death toll a price worth paying for the sake of freedom. Amarians look upon their cab-bound neighbours with a mixture of pity and contempt. They wonder why Teamsterians don't rise up and demand the freedom to move around as they please!

However, in Amaria the government is in thrall to another professional union. The Amarian Medical Association has convinced the public that care of the human body is best left to a certain kind of professional. The kind that requires an expensive industry. We are all familiar with it.

Amarians are free to kill themselves on the road, but the government decides what they can put into their bodies.

Teamsterians are utterly appalled at the thought that control over their own bodies could be any less than 100%.

Do some Teamsterians make wrong health decisions? Of course! Teamsterians consider it a price worth paying for the sake of freedom...

Which society is crazier? We are like the Amarians. Why do we all put up with it? How come health freedom has never been an election issue yet?

P.S.: This essay is NOT meant to diss trade unions in general.

Let men be men!

2009-12-03T10:02:00.000-08:00

Let's go for a drink!

Next to the beer glass the words: "thank God you're man!"
Sent to me by son Alex, origins unknown.

I will admit it: when I first saw "Beware of the Doghouse" I laughed. But the more I saw it and its sequel the more the laughter included some cringing.

For those who missed it, the popular video is a ploy by JC Penney to sell jewelry. It shows the proverbial 'doghouse' as an actual place where men who have displeased their wives or girlfriends are sentenced to a life of folding laundry and eating quiche. The only way out is to convince the women of the review board that the lesson has been learnt. The way to do that is to show them that your next gift is some jewelry.

It is brilliant advertising. Never mind buying ad space, make it so funny that people send it to each other! Whoever designed this campaign really understands the new media landscape.

But I have a hard time with some aspects of the message.The video uses the dumbest stereotypes.
I'd much rather get a gift certificate for Amazon or a garden center than a piece of bling. But apart from that, Ladies, let's get real.

How many otherwise decent men do we know who do not hand out appropriate thoughtful gifts at the right Hallmark occasions? The only guy I know who is bursting with positive manly qualities AND remembers anniversaries with thoughtful gestures AND is still madly in love with his wife after 20 some years is Jamie Fraser. Alas, he is a fictional character, invented by Diana Gabaldon.

Let's turn our collective backs on advertising. We have men dissatisfied with their women because they don't look like airbrushed models, we have women unhappy with their men because they don't behave like fictional characters.
Most of us are doing the best we can with what we've got.
Ladies, let go of romantic expectations and let men be men.
Men, this is NOT meant to excuse you from doing your fair share of whatever needs to be done around the house!

Death on the mountain, the blame game

2009-02-27T15:29:00.000-08:00

The photo was taken from the Greyhound bus on the Trans Canada highway close to Rogers pass.

We live surrounded by wilderness.
It is magnificent but untamed and potentially dangerous. The pioneers knew that. They had to work hard to wrest a few modcons from the land around them. If they went into the mountains they did so with the full understanding that the place might bite back.

But these days wilderness is seen as a place to refresh the spirit by city dwellers. Wilderness attracts people with a yen for adventure. Sometimes they actually get it. Surprise!

Every time something goes wrong there is a lot of handwringing and blame seeking, and whinging about more safety measures "so that this won't ever happen again".

It has been a bad season this year. Tragedy struck a small town when 8 local snowmobilers died in an avalanche. It was all over the news for days. This week we had another tragedy: a couple from Quebec on a winter vacation in B.C. skied out of bounds, got lost, and the wife died of exposure before the husband was finally rescued after 9 grueling days.

Of course it is a tragic event and one does feel for the family.
BUT!! The media has been beating the blame drums endlessly. The RCMP should have gone out right away, the search and rescue people didn't do enough, and so on.
What they don't stress enough is that this couple made their own misfortune.

Rule 1 if you want to play in the great outdoors: Let someone know where you are going!
This hapless couple did not. No one went looking for them, because no one was missing them.
They were not staying at the resort where they went skiing. They had checked out of their independent hotel. They may have strayed out of bounds accidentally. Every resort warns skiers about the dangers of going out of bounds. Yet every winter some folks figure the rules don't apply to them, and duck under the rope.

HALLO! Earth to thrill seekers! Be careful what you go looking for, you might find it!
I am really tired of the way the media is playing the blame game.

We need to place a big part of the responsibility where it belongs: with people who flirt with danger, and then expect a flawless rescue system if they actually get it.
It is time to get some sort of insurance scheme to cover these rescues.

An Arab word to learn

2009-01-22T18:47:00.000-08:00

ijtihad.
Ever heard of it? Neither had I.
The word means discussion, dissent, independent thought, and refers to a proud tradition inside Islam.
The world will be a better place when more people from both inside and outside Islam know about it.

The smart lady in the picture is Irshad Manji, Canadian feminist author, open Lesbian, and devout Muslim.
Find out more about ijtihad and Irshad's writing at her website http://irshadmanji.com/

I am proud to say that I knew of her when she was a beginning writer in her twenties. She used to do a column in Herizons, a feminist magazine. She was always a breath of fresh air, and she still is.

I stopped subscribing to Herizons when it started to suffer from 'Old Warrior Syndrome', and the white woman were beating themselves up for being racist, which they were not. But that is another topic.

Discovering Dalrymple

2009-01-19T21:55:00.000-08:00

"When we avoid the mistakes our parents used to make, we end up making the mistakes our parents avoided." (anon)

I have become increasingly worried about certain trends in society.

Most of these trends were originally a reaction to something worth reacting against. But in throwing out the stinking bathwater of outdated attitudes we have thrown out some precious babies worth keeping.

More blogs on various aspects of this topic in the future. Many of these points may become moot anyway as the economic meltdown steamrollers over the welfare state.

I am reading "Life at the Bottom", a collection of essays by a British psychiatrist who has devoted his working life to the so-called underclass.
The life patterns of his clients are sharply observed as they are, not as well-meaning dogooders think they ought to be. The writing is clear, precise, and bitingly witty. I can't put it down. I find myself nodding with approval and cheering loudly at his comments.

The good doctor is exasperated with the excesses of the welfare state and of the mentality of political correctness. He describes horrid lives devoid of meaning, hope, and any sense of personal responsibility.

I have harboured deep suspicions about the psychology industry and the social worker establishment for a while, and find myself applauding.

The doctor considers himself a conservative. I agree with a lot of his thought. Question: am I still a liberal? Labels, schmabels. As Michel de Montaigne said, "Je prend mon bien où je le trouve." I take my good where I find it.

I am all in favor of both the welfare state and PC when it means Plain Civility, but anything can be overdone.
Achieving a more or less harmonious society is a dynamic process, not a steady state to be achieved once and for all. We zig and we zag.

No, I do not want to go back to the fifties when women were relegated to the home whether they liked it or not.

But is it so bad to give some priority to the raising of kids?

I do not want to go back to a time when divorce was a horrible stigma. But is romance really a sufficient basis for a social order?

I do not want to return to the days when a pregnancy out of wedlock would ruin a life and bring unbearable shame on a family.

But have we not gone too far in the other direction? The case of the teenage pregnancy pact in Gloucester http://tinyurl.com/4nknoe is an illustration of how crazy it can get.

Would it really be so bad to return some stigma or pity to both divorce and fatherless families? I say SOME. I don't say teach kids abstinence till they're married, and force women to stay in abusive marriages. That would be the pendulum swinging like crazy in the opposite direction.

Excessive pendulum swings are one of my beefs. But we'll make it the topic another time.

Touched by His noodly appendage

2008-02-15T16:50:00.000-08:00

Warning: some people may not share this sense of humor.
It is not my intention to offend anyone with a deeply felt connection to All that Is, by whatever name they worship.
However, I do have a bone to pick with those who try to subvert secular institutions.
My son alerted me to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I went to the website and emerged limp from laughter. I must have been touched by His Noodly Appendage.

From now on, when asked to fill out religion, I just might proudly call myself a Pastafarian.

Proposal for a Naming system

2008-02-01T18:06:00.000-08:00

This has been brewing in my head for ages, but I never got around to doing anything about it. Well, a week ago Sunday Morning on CBC radio had a whole discussion about the way women do or do not keep their names after marriage.
So I finally got around to writing it out, and then of course promptly forgot to send it in to the radio.
Can you spell ADD? I am not sure it exists, but if it does I have it. see http://theaddledpages.blogspot.com/

Anyway, here goes.

Dear Sunday Morning,
Thanks for bringing up the topic of name changes.

May I propose an elegant and egalitarian solution to the problem?
It has the added advantage of showing relationships in today's blended families.

The Kootenays region in B.C. has been a hotbed of egalitarian good intentions. Children with double names are legion. They are now young adults, and it is time to start wondering how to blend the blended. We cannot saddle children with 4 names for the sake of equality!

So here is an idea that honors both the mother line and the father line, while still remaining doable.

Double names become the norm, as follows.
At marriage both partners take each other's names. But there is a twist:

In the man's double name his family's name comes last, in the wife's name it is hers.
We cannot carry all our ancestors' names on our shoulders, something has to give.

In the next generation the girls drop Dad's name but keep Mom's.
They replace Dad's name with the husband's father's name.
The boys drop Mom's name and replace it with the wife's mother's name.
We end up with a clear female line and a clear male line.

Last names for the examples are plucked from the local phone book.
When Janet Popoff marries Harold Smith, he becomes Harold Popoff-Smith while she becomes Janet Smith-Popoff. So far so good. We already have people doing exactly that. Their sons are Popoff-Smith like Dad, their daughters Smith-Popoff like Mom.

There. That wasn't so hard was it?

In the next generation we get to deal with people who are already doubled.

When the sons marry they keep the father line. So they drop Popoff and keep Smith.
When the daughters marry they keep the mother line. So they drop Smith and keep Popoff.

John Popoff-Smith marries Celine Tremblay-Anderson.
John and sons will be known as Anderson-Smith.
Celine and daughters will be Smith-Anderson.

The Popoff and Tremblay heritage lives on in their siblings of the opposite sex if there are any.

John's sister Heather dropped Smith but kept Popoff.
When she married Justin Taylor-Wong she and her daughters became Wong-Popoff.
If Celine has brothers they keep Tremblay going. And so on.

In the case of divorce couples trade middle names with the new partner, the kids stay as they were.

Heather Wong-Popoff ends up ditching Justin, and re-marrying Alex McClean-Johnson. She now goes through life as Heather Johnson-Popoff.

When Alex talks to a teacher about his stepson Nic, the relationship is clear in the names.
Alex Popoff-Johnson and Nic Popoff-Wong obviously share the woman in their lives, but are not father and son.

It takes a bit of getting used to, but people should be smart enought to figure it out.
Though I am glad it has not started yet, since my offspring would have been van Houten-van der Hout.

Thoughts on hell fire

2007-11-05T15:07:00.000-08:00

Though I never watch horror movies (they would haunt me for weeks) we have been glued to the coverage of the California fires.

This scenario is too close to home. We have had fires in the area. It got pretty scary last summer, especially when we got some hot winds (see blog post 'region without power') Fire terrifies me.

Since I have a philosophical turn of mind it got me to musing about the notion of hellfire. I respect all religions, but have a hard time extending the respect to this idea.
I believe there is a kernel of truth in all religions, and as long as we stick to the mystic heart of any of them we do fine. Mystics generally get along fine with mystics of other religions.

Labels schmabels, but if you insist on one, call me a Pagan Taoist. Nature is my personal connection to the Great Mystery, the Tao.
I will gladly honor the different connections others use. There is power and comfort in ritual, community and tradition.

HOWEVER.

Where in the name of all that is truly holy did this hell nonsense creep in?
The great Creative Force of the Universe gives these poor mortal creatures one lousy shot at life, and if they don't measure up they get to burn alive for ever and ever and ever?

Should the punishment not at least have some kind of end ? Say, a year of torment for each year of badly lived life? Still kind of harsh, but we're trying to make a point here.
This concept- eternal reward or punishment after a finite life- is presented as the law of a supposedly loving and merciful divine being.

I find the notion of never-ending hell a truly silly and blasphemous concept. Silly, because it represents eternity as an endless supply of time, instead of its absence.
Blasphemous, because it is an offence to the Creative Life Force.

And finally: if it were real and a Being existed who would inflict it, I'd join Its opposition.

Why I Do Not Support the Terry Fox Run

2007-10-29T23:08:00.001-07:00

I have wanted to do this rant for years, but am too cowardly, or call it diplomatic, to do a Letter to the Editor. Why alienate good people in a tiny town? I have to live here. It was originally written in September 2007 during the forced layover in Dease Lake.

It is that time of year again: The annual Terry Fox run.

Saying anything against the Terry Fox phenomemon is a bit like speaking out against Santa Claus or Mother Theresa. I shall proceed anyhow.

Some background for non-Canadians:
Every September thousands of well-meaning Canadians run in order to raise money for cancer research. Those who are not running are donating and cheering. Pictures of Terry Fox, hopping across Eastern Canada on one leg, are everywhere.

Terry Fox was a young amputee who had lost a leg to cancer. He decided to run a marathon a day and make his way across Canada to raise money for more research.

Fox began by dipping his leg in the Atlantic Ocean at St. John's, Newfoundland on April 12, 1980. He was forced to stop the run on September 1, 1980 just north-east of Thunder Bay, Ontario, after 143 days. (thanks, Wikipedia) He died of cancer June 28 1981.

Terry Fox has become a Canadian icon, a secular saint.

A mountain in the most impressive part of the Rockies has been named after him. A loonie was minted with his image. Even a casual Google yields several statues. The annual run is held in his memory and raises funds for cancer research.

Now don't get me wrong: Terry Fox was an admirable young man with a tremendous spirit. What sticks in my craw is the whole "Run for the Cure" thing done in his name.

My umpty reasons for not participating in any form in this enterprise:

1) I have never been able to make the connection between me donating to a good cause and someone else running, swimming, crawling or otherwise moving a certain distance. I don't get it. If I want to donate to a charity I just DO it.

2) The run should really be called the Fox/Fonyo run.

After Terry failed in his attempt to run across Canada another young cancer amputee succeeded. Steve Fonyo was his name. Steve Fonyo made one mistake: he LIVED.

After you run across Canada and make it from sea to shining sea cheered on by a mass audience, what do you do for an encore? Steve got a bit lost afterwards and made some mistakes. But he lived. It appears we like our heroes nicely canned in the perfection of early death, not alive to muddle through like the rest of us.

Steve is hardly ever mentioned. That really ticks me off. I dug up this article about Steve. Truly, what did we do before Google?

Google only yielded it once, which is why there is no credit.

Quote: March 31 1984 Steve Fonyo, inspired by Terry Fox, began to run across Canada. Fonyo was a 19-year-old Vernon kid who’d lost his leg to cancer at age 12. He dipped his artificial leg into the Atlantic Ocean at St. John’s, Newfoundland, then faced west. The journey would take him 14 months. It would end May 31, 1985 at the Pacific Ocean in Victoria.

He completed 7,924 kilometres, crossed ten provinces and raised almost $9 million for cancer research, education and patient services, including $1 million pledged by the federal government. (More millions were to follow.) On the way he wore out six artificial legs and 17 pairs of running shoes.

Fonyo wasn’t as photogenic as Terry Fox, his personality wasn’t as attractive, his run wasn’t as well organized, and his post-run life was marked with trouble with the law. But he did two extraordinary things: disabled, he ran across the entire country, and he raised those pledges in the fight against cancer to more than $13 million.
Today, Fonyo lives at Cultus Lake and works as the head mechanic for a limousine company. End quote

Steve, we salute you.
3) The money raised by the Terry Fox foundation is supposed to help find a cure for Cancer. They are indeed funding some good innovative research.
But I do not believe any of it is going into scientific research into the many natural-based protocols that have all helped some people but that are relatively cheap and not sanctioned by the official industry.

It would be nice to see solid, unbiased research into the miracle of Graviola, an Amazon herb, the real value of vitamin B17 AKA Leatrile, and the works of Gaston Naessens, Renee Caisse, Royal Rife, Edward Koch, Harry Hoxsey and Max Gerson to name just a few. There are probably others.

Recommended reading on this topic: "Politics in Healing" by Dan Healy. http://politicsinhealing.com/

If I got cancer tomorrow I would invest in a Ralph Moss report, to shorten the learning curve about my particular form of cancer.

Ralph just looks at what works, be it allopathic or natural or a combination. We need more of his kind of And/And thinking.

http://ralphmoss.com/

I used to feel obliged to give something to the kind people who came up to the house to canvass "for cancer" (should that not be against cancer?). These days they are sent away with a short lecture instead of money.