Co-operate

Co-operate. The spelling is symbolic. The hyphen draws together the actors and the action. The co-operation of the entirety of a single human being is a lofty achievement. ~ DLH

I am pro-life...

I am pro-life. I support the rights of the already born. I support sex education at early stages of life because an educated child makes more responsible decisions about engaging in sex and having relationships. I support free birth control methods. It is a responsible decision for men and women to use it when engaging in sex. I support a woman's right to control her own body. She will decide when it is appropriate to engage in sex. Men already do this. What all this does is substantially reduce the number of women who need to seek abortions which is well on the way to achieving the goal of the pro-life movement, that is to eliminate abortion.

I am pro-life so I am against the death penalty. It serves no useful purpose except empty revenge for the bereaved.

I am pro-life so I am for universal health care and the social safety nets we extend to the people of our country in need through the tool of our government.

I am pro-life so I stand against sending our country's sons and daughters into expensive and pointless wars that exert control over freedoms in other countries.

In tents evening at Occupy Toronto

The tension was palpable. Helicopters over the village of tents outside St. James Cathedral, media trucks parked along the street, cameras and microphones at the ready.  I stepped into the library tent at the Occupy Toronto site. Some children were listening to a story read by a woman and others gathered around. I introduced myself to four of the folk and asked them directions to the information tent.  We talked about the anticipated eviction and was invited to the general assembly meeting starting in 15 minutes.  I made a brief foray to the information tent and dropped off a couple of flyers for a conflict transformation workshop facilitated by Lee McKenna. I found out that song writer Gordon Lightfoot had been there earlier to check on his daughter who was occupying. I spoke to an older couple with greying hair who were on their way to the general assembly.

The assembly was a circle of about 300 or so and the meeting began with a mic check, the human microphone where one person's speech was repeated by many others so the entire group could hear. Rules of order, a few announcements including one about a workshop on knowing your rights and then some information about what the legal team was doing in court at that very moment.  An announcement was expected at any moment about whether the city would proceed with the eviction.  Since I had to be at work later in the evening, I peeled away from the meeting. On the way out of the village, I went by the medical tent and saw some of the artwork in production laid out on the bank.

It was clear that the occupiers are a mix of people of all ages and socio-economic backgrounds. A few were homeless folk who would have been sleeping in the park with or without the Occupy crowd, so it was good they had a group of supportive people around them.

On the way home I heard on the radio the eviction would not proceed.  There were fourteen (and counting) of the 44 city councillors who had signed a letter asking the city to hold off. St. James Anglican Church officials have asked the city to continue allow the occupiers to stay. The church is half owner of the park. Occupy has a court date Friday with a final decision expected on Saturday.

What these folk are doing is worthwhile. We have only begun to see the fruits of their labour and I am grateful.

Leaderless, homeless, perhaps? Hopeful? Surely.

The list is long, but what Occupy wants is very clear.  The "demands"  all stem from how the economic system that once had some measure of stability and gave most people an opportunity to achieve the basic foundation of what some call the "American dream".  The financial system has been hijacked, people defrauded of their homes, livelihoods and pensions and control now rests with a very small number of people. This is antithetical to the American ideal of freedom.  Occupy wants to restore freedom to the people who no longer serve their country but are enslaved in it.  What Occupy is doing is quite libertarian socialist in certain aspects.  Government cannot be trusted since it is in the pockets of corporations.  So, it works outside of government and corporate structures and connects people with one another as well as taking care of one another.  In that it has been spectacularly successful.

If you find it is like trying to nail jelly to a wall and grasp at straws trying to find  spokesperson(s), perhaps it is like that.  Life is messy and resists being packaged and marketed.  People need to know they do not need to operate alone in struggle with the system that demands more work, offers diminishing rewards and charges increasing prices for goods and services and hangs people in hopeless debt.

People are tired of worshipping the "golden calf" of Wall Street, Bay Street and all the other financial streets around the world and getting nothing in return.  When Occupy offers intangibles of soul restoration, sustenance and hope, it is easy to see why it has taken hold.  People will turn to one another as neighbours and society can be rebuilt.

Rob "effing" Ford

The mayor who flipped a bird to a mother and her child after they pointed out he was using a cellphone while driving his vehicle is now national news. Rob Ford, as many federal and provincial politicos have enjoyed, had the privilege of getting the ambush from 22Minutes' "Marg Princess Warrior" (Mary Walsh) one morning and refused to play along.  He called 911 TWICE to have the comedienne and her crew removed from his driveway and hurled obscenities at the dispatchers because they weren't moving fast enough to his liking. Dear Mayor Ford, don't you remember your vow to cut the gravy at Toronto City Hall? This is what happens when you cut into bone. And, that's not funny at all.

http://www.cbc.ca/22minutes/

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/10/27/rob-ford-911-call-cbc-attack-dispatchers_n_1034470.html

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/10/27/rob-ford-makes-a-bad-situation-worse/#Comments

Of Anthony, family troubles, unemployment and homelessness

I find it rather disingenuous that the Toronto Star put the story about Madonna's brother Anthony who is broke and homeless in its entertainment section AND puts Madonna's picture instead of his beside the story. Aside from anything to do with family squabbles that may have brought him there, the problem of homelessness and the circumstances that take someone from a good job to living under a bridge is a serious one. Presenting it in this fashion in entertainment sections of news media diminishes the urgency of the problem.

Occupation, boats and turning tides.

I get a little testy when I hear the often used saying "a rising tide lifts all boats." This assumes everyone has a "boat" and every "boat" is in good repair. Unfortunately, economic storms have tossed so many of these "boats" around that some are leaking badly or have been smashed beyond repair. Meanwhile there are very big "boats" that ply the waters picking off life preservers from the smaller boats leaving human beings to drown in the wake. It is for this that the Occupy movement lives.

Missing personal certificates on a pocket pc and my solution

I do find a fascination with old technology and the many ways one can use old PDAs and cell phones.  Recently I acquired an Audiovox PPC 6600 with Windows Mobile 2003. It came with a wifi SD card, Belkin wireless keyboard and the charging cradle can charge a second battery.

Loaded it up with Opera Mini and soon I was surfing the web at home using a Bell router.   The connection speed was good, though, as yet I have issues with the size of the storage and memory.  I can't play audio or video yet.  I might find a way.

So, in going back and forth between the wifi and another SD storage card and switching the batteries, I somehow lost the settings and it began demanding a personal certificate before connecting.  I searched the web for solutions and none seemed easy or fit the same circumstances as my problem.  Downloading this program or that so I could modify the registry was just too complicated.  Then, I decided to delete the settings for the connection and start over.  Presto! I am now reconnected.

Now, back to fun with Bluetooth.

Another "shocking" email arrives

Every once in a while I get an email from someone well-meaning who passes on some shocking thing about government taking religion or not taking religion out of society. I used to get a lot of them, but now they only come once in a while. This morning was one of those times.

The email said “Shock on CBC yesterday morning.” and made reference to a CBC poll on the question whether to keep the word God in Canadian culture. Apparently 86 percent of responses were in favour of keeping the words “God keep our land” in the national anthem.

First and foremost, I tried to source the CBC poll and could find nothing. So, whoever was upset can rest easy. The most I could find was an article about people's beliefs that said 23 percent of Canadians do not believe in God and some items on the uproar over gender non-neutrality in the phrase “all thy sons command” in O Canada in early 2010. I did find someone else who wrote on the topic and referenced a Snopes item where the text of an American chain email was lifted out and Canadianised.

The original lyrics penned by Sir Adolphe Basile Routhier in 1880 to O Canada are in French. Christianity gets its due from “Car ton bras sait porter l'épée, Il sait porter la croix.” (For your arm knows how to carry the sword and it knows how to carry the cross.) The English lyrics penned by Robert Stanley Weir in 1908 bear little resemblance to the French lyrics and no mention is made of God. “God keep our land” replaced one of the repetitive lines “stand on guard for thee” in 1968.

In early 2010 there was an uproar over gender neutrality in a nationwide discussion on the phrase “In all thy sons command.” It was an edit from the original by Weir himself “Thou dost in us command,” was a hint at getting support for the war effort in 1914 since women who fought in the war were not on the front battle lines and they wanted strong, young men.

Canada did not have an official national anthem until an act of Parliament in 1980. So, there is no shock, it is not on CBC and it s not about taking the word "God" out of Canadian culture.

---

Sources:

http://www.suite101.com/blog/graywriter/shock-to-cbc--most-canadians-believe-in-god

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/godpoll.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Canada

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/story/2010/03/03/o-canada-anthem.html

http://www.sen.parl.gc.ca/vpoy/english/Special_Interests/speeches/Speech_National_Anthem_Act_2nd_Reading.htm

The easiest way to reduce your taxes

1. Reduce your income.  With a lower income you will have a reduced tax bill.
2. Reduce or eliminate your purchases of gasoline.  There are excise taxes built into the price you pay at the pump.
3. Stop purchasing tobacco and alcohol products.  In some provinces and states the excise taxes can be as much as 50 percent of what you pay at the cash register.
4. Stop buying provincial/state lottery tickets.  This is a tax masquerading as fun for which most buyers get a colourful piece of cardboard with some numbers on it.
5. Reduce what you purchase to essentials only.  In most regions, there is a sales tax on anything that is purchased.
6. Grow your own food.  Eliminating the purchase of foods will reduce any taxes you pay that are levied on food.
7. Start a barter system.  Where no money is exchanged for a good or service, there is no tax to pay. 
8. Own your home instead of renting.  Property taxes are considerably higher for renters.
9. Start a tool lending library.  You don't need that ladder, lawn mower or chain saw every day.  Buy one of each tool for several households and you will save sales tax by not duplicating items.
10. Stop complaining when there are potholes in the road, streetlights burned out, not enough staff for libraries, community centres, policing, fire fighting equipment, garbage collection, snow removal and hospitals.  These are where your tax dollars are spent, but you have wisely reduced the amount of tax you pay, so there's not as much money for them and you don't really need them anyway.

"Nuff said

 

Civic Improvements as a result of the G8 and G20

Thoughts on Richard Dawkins and fundamentalist atheists

Rory Fitzgerald writes of Richard Dawkins in the Huffington Post: 

"Most atheists I know are great people, sticking to the truth as they see it. Most also remain open to new possibilities and acknowledge that they are not entirely omniscient, and are respectful to those who think differently to themselves."

"Dawkins, however, often seems to have only contempt for the majority of human kind who, unlike him, do believe in the spiritual. His selective  campaigning about political issues makes me wonder: is he really an objective seeker of truth, or is he someone who just hates and wants to undermine Judaeo-Christian principles?"

Providing a few examples including the Cambodian genocide, Fitzgerald says that Dawkins is right to be angry about abuses occuring in the churches, but needs to acknowledge crimes and abuses carried out by atheists.  Fitzgerald cites a fragment of a quotation "opium of the masses" as a critical finger pointed at any religion.

"[T]he opium of the masses" comes from a quotation of Karl Marx in his "Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right."  The full quotation is revealing: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people." It lightly echos Proverbs 29:18a "Where there is no vision, the people perish..."  Marx understood that people who have absolutely nothing of earthly value find something of hope in religious belief.  Opium was at one time a drug of soothing, of healing. 

Richard Dawkins would deny people with absolutely nothing, the soothing balm of simply having their thoughts and feelings affirmed about themselves and hope that the world around them can become a better place.  For some this is all they have. 

Dawkins is unquestionably a rabid fundamentalist atheist.  I have no truck with his ilk in the same way I have none with the bombast of the likes of Jerry Falwells and Jim Hagees of the world.

If internet browsers were men

Circulating around the web is a picture of what looks like part of an article comparing internet browsers to women. I wondered if there was anything similar comparing browsers to men. I found something on a blog by Miriam Verburg, but it didn't have the same tone as the other.

As a bit of a social experiment, I lifted the text from the If browsers were women picture, changed the gender and added a new set of pictures from stock. (Note: I could not find the original post of this and if anyone has this information, I would be glad to add it here.)

Click the picture, take a look and let me know how you feel when you view it.

Just add glasses?

As I was reading blogs and commentary on reform of the US healthcare system, it struck me that there are Americans who are looking for a Tommy Douglas-like person to champion the cause of universal health care. It doesn't have to be Keifer Sutherland, Douglas' grandson. His daughter Shirley Douglas has been a strong advocate of universal health care and speaks with her father's fire.

Dennis Kucinich is one possibility. Douglas was not prime minister when the implementation of his universal health care policies in Canada became reality. Dennis Kucinich need not become president to bring about health care reform in the US. Both men are/were shorter in stature than average and have similar vocal pitch. Both have/had careers in junior level politics. Both have had lengthy records of progressive policies in many other areas.

After viewing some photos of both men, I couldn't resist the urge to put glasses on Kucinich, just to see. Not an uncanny resemblance, but maybe just enough?

We must wait so long for beauty

What does your condo look like before they build it? Private roof decks garages and more!

It has been -- or feels like -- three years of looking at this lot with its unruly weeds, garbage and stagnant development. We were told by the sign that a beautiful place to live would be built on this land. Why must we wait so long and view this unkempt property on a daily basis? Why can't the developer at least clean up the lot and make it a parkette or something before the shovels hit the ground so that people would be attracted to the property? Makes marketing sense to me.

Freeway blogging - by car

Get more fuel economy by posting your message on/in your car. Buy bristol board and markers!

Time out from Christmas crap

They call it a "Time to Mourn at Christmas" and it's pretty blue if you ask me. But blue is what some of us need just to get through this season which is supposed to be homey, lovely, giving, caring and cheerful if you want to reduce the possibility of purple prose escaping from your mouth at the wrong time. Not everyone likes to be that way. It's tough when you have lost something and can't get it back. But if you still want to mark the season with something, what do you do?
Do you lower your expectations of what the season holds for you? Can you find ways to lower the expectation that others have of you?

Sometimes it is simply a lack of funds to buy any of the stuff advertised in the many flyers that arrive at your door that causes embarrassment. Maybe you remember a lost loved one, lost employment, marriage or something very important to you.

A couple of hours may be helpful in pulling back from the noise of the season long enough to gain a sense of healing and affirmation that your hopes and dreams for your future are important and worthwhile. Take a break here.

____________________

On the longest night of the year, Friday, December 21st, at 7:00 pm, gather in the sanctuary for a time of quiet reflection and holy embrace. In contrast to the pace of the sights and sounds of the frenetic rush toward Christmas, this gathering is an opportunity to get out of the way of the madness, for a time. For some of us, it is important to have the chance to take a deep breath, to acknowledge that this season is difficult at times. Losses in our lives make the societal demands feel like an obscenity in the face of our grief, our poverty, our relational strains or brokenness, our emotional or mental struggles. It is important to be able to be honest about the challenges we face when the rest of the world is celebrating. This is the time and space to do that. God knows we need it. Following the gathering in the sanctuary, all are invited to stay to share in a time of refreshment and conversation.

http://www.baptist.toronto.on.ca/whbc/

Woodbine Heights Baptist Church
1171 Woodbine Avenue (at Sammon)
Toronto ON M4C 4E1
416-467-1462
10 minute walk north of
Woodbine Subway Station
Limited street parking available
416-467-1462

Dial-up internet redux

My high speed internet is not working. After many years of speedy access to my email, myriad websites and video, life is slower now on dial-up. I await the results of numerous telephone calls for restoration of my service so I will experience the internet as I have before high speed. I have disabled image loading in my web browser. This increases the speed at which I can access text, but video is excruciatingly slow. My world is different, and this is how life is for dial-up users.

For uploading material to one of my websites, I have taken special care to ensure the file sizes of the material are small enough so my patience is not tested waiting for the material to appear in my FTP client window. It is crucial that this project be completed properly, so no shortcuts are acceptable.

My “alt” text on the images presents the content exactly as written on the pages and I take comfort that the material is fully accessible by anyone who has crippled the functionality of their browser or uses accessibility software. Yet, the few functions that make the site interesting are still in place for those with high speed.

I have rediscovered television and actually watched two movies from start to finish in as many days and discovered something new in plots about which I thought knew everything. Visiting the home of a new acquaintance, I stayed long past the time I decided would be right to leave. Having no agenda, my host gladly continued the conversation without worry about time.

And, now I have some time to add this experience to my blog, to observe the number of stars visible in the city's night sky, to enjoy the cool night air and to hope for a saner world in which to awake tomorrow morning.

When a branch falls in the city ...

A tree beside my building has provided shelter for my west-facing apartment from the summer sun in the late afternoon. The knothole in the centre gave space for a mother racoon to birth her kits. The smaller one on another branch is a squirrel condo. I heard tell of baby squirrels, but I saw none.

Suddenly at 10:45 a.m., the morning of 16 May, I heard cracking, popping sounds outside my apartment. Racing to the balcony to investigate and about three seconds after I looked over the rail, the two foot thick branch split with a loud cracking sound, fell on the ground bending the fence. Fortunately no human was in its path. There was no sign of anyone except for some of the tree’s dwellers.

I watched as one squirrel scampered up the tree and the other crashed to the ground with the branch. I saw it a few minutes later, scampering up the tree with the other so I guess it did not suffer injury. The raccoons were apparently out for the day.

After it was clear this mini disaster movie was finished, I went down to have a closer look.

I discovered that there were several other tree dwellers there who took the idea of home made meals very literally -- apparently, some sort of beetle grub gnawed away at the tree's insides weakening the branch. An ominous sign. I fear the city may need to take down both trees before the summer is over. I will lose my summer shade. Raccoons will lose a heritage site. Squirrels will go nuts finding a new neighbourhood. Blue jays, cardinals, robins and redwing blackbirds will land elsewhere.

Since then, another branch fell late one evening and the stark reality of the tree's demise was brought closer to home when I stepped onto the balcony. My view of the valley below had changed substantially. I had a clear view of the southbound lanes of the highway and could see the river, even at night.

A recent storm took down a third branch opening up the view to the ground below.

The increased sunlight will add to the summer heat experience, but I hope to use the extra solar input to experiment with solar cooking. My solar battery recharger should work more quickly.

I doubt this will make much difference in the winter. However, I will still get plenty of sunshine when I need it most.

#$@%! The strange things people say

Trees swayed in an ominous breeze that was building strength one hot, humid afternoon on a quiet neighbourhood street. I was delivering flyers announcing welcome to stand on our church's lawn to watch the East York Canada Day Parade.

At one house, a woman standing outside gladly took the flyer and we began a conversation about how people are so different than a generation ago. She bemoaned people's bad manners, violent outbursts and reckless driving. Later, as I prepared to get into my car to go home, I saw the woman talking to her neighbours across the street. A pizza delivery car sped past and the woman called out to me to be careful. The pizza car stopped at the bottom of the street and proceeded to make a right turn. Suddenly a large black van rounded the corner in a left turn the opposite way. His turn was too tight, but he managed to avoid collision with the pizza car. The van driver leaned out and let off a string of obscenities including calling the pizza car driver a "terrorist" who should go back to his own country.

I exchanged astonished glances with the woman and hers confirmed the content of our conversation.

The expected stormy weather never materialised, but the brief storm of violent speech I witnessed still lingers. It is somehow more memorable than any weather disturbance. On the drive home I pondered what brought me to that place. Less than half a block away from this verbal act of terrorism is the church who invites people to stand on its lawn for a parade and advertises itself as "A Safe Place."