Any food, any time of year.

One of the issues surrounding climate change is the consumer belief that we can have any food item any time of the year.

This struck me on a snowy day in Vancouver as I was walking by a produce store.  There was an individual asking one of the workers if they had any grapes.

I think, "It is snowing, why would you expect grapes."

The only grapes would be coming from a much warmer part of the world, quite literally thousands of kilometers away.  Can we really expect to make any progress towards sustainability if we are constantly shipping foods thousands of kilometers to satisfy the culinary desires of everybody.

That's why this winter I avoided the consumption of mandarin oranges.  It is silly that this 'tradition' of eating oranges at Christmas time has become part of the way things are done in Vancouver.

Just a thought.  If we want things to get better, we all need to think a lot harder and act a lot smarter.

Mix tapes rule

Earlier in the year our trusty Toyota Echo was unfortunately in a motor vehicle accident and needed to go to rust bucket in the sky.

Fortunately, our friend was selling his old Honda Accord in order to contribute towards a mini-van for his growing family.

However, the vehicle was of a vintage when cassette tapes were still standard equipment for car stereos.  This was bad timing as when I was packing up to move, I decided that I no longer needed my cassette deck and various tapes and had sold all of this.

We got one of those cassette adapters but it has an annoying his and bit awkward to use with the funny cord hanging out.  I spread the word that I was in need of cassettes and several friends forwarded what they had which was cool.

However, it was only yesterday that re-aquired a cassette deck, just $20 on craigslist.

So, this morning I connected it up in "mission control" and got everything working.  My son and I then sat down to record some music.  It is very easy now with youtube as compared to 15 years ago with a stack of CDs.  We just think of a song, go to youtube and find it.

It was a good teaching moment too as I had to show my son how to use a pencil to wind the leader up to the start of the tape and then blanking the first part of the tape.  Then showed him how to set the level on the cassette deck so that all the songs would be roughly the same loudness, saving one from jumping to the volume control if a sound was too loud or soft.

There are some benefits to old technology and to be able to spend an hour quietly with my son was great because he's approaching his teens and by then hanging out with dad might not be on the top of his priorities.

If you're going to make your own, I like this set of rules.

Homeschooling, a brief word

I came across an article by Penelope Trunk who writes on many things, but what caught my interest was one of her entries on homeschooling in that is a how-to-live decision not a how-to-learn decision.

People ask me why I homeschool my son and it comes down to allowing my son to learn at his pace and not have his enthusiasm and energy restricted by a teacher that is struggling to keep control of over twenty kids at a time.

I also feel that you maybe have ten to twelve good years to be with your child, from the age of around two to their early teens before they go out into the world more on their own.  I figured that taking some time out of my life to build a strong relationship with my child isn't such a burden.  Really, if you're going to have kids you should be prepared to deal with the responsibility of kids.

Not everyone is in the position to homeschool but many who think they aren't really could do it if they committed themselves to the idea of being more involved with his/her child's education.  Our family has learned to live with less, and really we have a lot, in order to homeschool.

And to those who think homeschooled kids don't get enough social interaction, you're wrong.  Homeschool kids have sufficient opportunities for social interactions: sports teams, field trips, homeschool groups (we have a math group), classes for homeschoolers, and more are out there.  The cool thing is that it provides these children opportunities for interacting with not only children of their own age but children of all ages, instructors, teachers, other parents, grand parents, store owners, field trip guides and more.  Homeschool children aren't restricted to the four walls of a school and one teacher for the year.

I overheard a conversation between a regular school kid and a homeschooler.  "So when do you go to school?" the answer, "All the time."

Cool, Wade Davis joins UBC

Anthropologist and language preserver crusader Wade Davis has joined UBC and will be teaching undergraduate classes.

http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Canada/BC/ID/2425189164/

I put up there with David Suzuki in drawing my awareness to the challenges we face to ensure that humankind will continue into the future.

Is it so wrong to be average?

I recall a story of a U.S Senator stating that half the doctors in the United States were below average and that action needed to be taken.  Not sure if this was urban legend but it represents a poor understanding of math.

However, what's wrong with not being average?  It has to be put into perspective.  A fourth line hockey player is below average for a professional hockey player but he could still outplay everyone on the ice in my Sunday night hockey group.

This comes up because I am reading The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Anchor.  He teaches at Harvard where the students come in with high expectations because they have been groomed their entire lives to attend such a prestigious school.  However, once again after their first exam, many are shocked to be considered below average.

He also dismays his students by reminding them that 99% of them will not graduate at the top 1% of their class.  The students fail to recognize where they are relative to the rest of the world where the majority of people their age will never attend a university.

So, don't let being less than average stop you from doing something you love or make you feel less than adequate.  Never stopped me from playing goalie in ice hockey.

Metro Vancouver, Future of the Region (November 28, 2013)

Attended another Metro Vancouver event on Thursday, part of their Future of the Region dialogues.  The talk discussed the planning necessary for the Metro Vancouver region in order to make it an economically robust, culturally rich and socially equitable place to live, work and play.

The panel members included former Vancouver city councilor Gordon Price, Bev Grieve (Director of Development Services, New Westminster), Tim Savoie (General Manager, Development Services, Port Moody), and Gary Pooni (President, Brook Pooni Associates).  I’ve attached a scan of the bios that was provided at the dialogue.

The bottom line message, repeatedly emphasized by Gordon Price, was that the future of the region is going to be decided by the Translink referendum.  If the people do not vote to support Translink, then more roads will be built to support a car oriented society.  Over a million more people will be coming to the region over the next 25 years and developments will have to increase density but without proper public transportation, it will be very difficult to move the people as needed.  Price also emphasized that the transit system is at its limits already, with the 99 B-Line unable to meet demand.  The Marine Gateway project and the proposed Oakridge redevelopment will also place increased pressure on the Canada Line.  However, without increased funding to meet the transit needs of the increasing population, things will only get worse and push people into cars.  This is the wrong direction for the region to take and hopefully people will recognize this and vote appropriately when the referendum does come around.

Metro Vancouver Sustainability Breakfast - Food Waste

Attended the Metro Vancouver Sustainability Breakfast today.

Today’s topic was the challenges and opportunities presented by the upcoming ban of organics in the waste stream in 2015.

Todd Jeanotte of the Four Seasons hotel presented how the hotel works to minimize food waste in their different restaurants and catering business.  This involves staff engagement, menu engineering, preference reports, collaboration with suppliers, forecast management, and accurate measurement of input and output.

Erin Nichols represented the Vancouver Food Bank and spoke of how the organizations Food Runners program helps divert food that is near the expiration date from over 200 donors to those that can make best use of the food.  The interesting point made was that there is no liability for businesses that donate food which was a concern in the past.

Stuary Lilley of Enterra Feed described the process of how they take food waste and convert it into feedstock for chickens/farmed fished, oil and fertilizer.  Their process is described as a bioconversion process which uses the food waste to feed black soldier fly larvae which are then processed to make animal feed and fertilizer.  It helps close the loop in terms of minimizing waste and putting back the nutrients used to grow food into the agricultural process.

Steve Harpur, founder of Earth Renu, described how his company takes food waste and processes it into natural gas or biodiesel.  His main message is that there should be no food waste (packaged or unpackaged) going to landfill.  There are sufficient technologies capable of dealing with the waste and by locating his facility on Annacis Island, he reduces the distance that waste needs to travel – rather than the 700 km round trip to Cache Creek.

There was also a representative from Recycle Smart, a company that connect sustainability and business.  Many businesses do not know where to start, especially in dealing with the upcoming organics ban.  They also demonstrate that working towards meeting these requirements is not that costly and may actually save a business money by reducing waste collection fees.  Your waste may actually be a resource for another company.

The main message is that food waste represents nearly a third of the food produced in the world and that being organize material there exists the means and technologies to make use of this material rather than sending it to landfill.

Credentialism runs its course

Has the value of the college/university education diminished in the last twenty years?


I began reading College (Un)Bound by Jefffrey J. Selingo which looks at the future of higher education and how it has changed in the last twenty years with those born in the 1980s and 1990s attending post-secondary institutions.  In one part of the book, he looks at whether students are benefiting from college in a meaningful manner and refers to the book Academically Adrift by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa in which the authors looked at Collegiate Learning Assessment scores for recent graduates.  In their analysis, 45% of students after two years of study made no gains in writing, reasoning and critical thinking skills.  While after four years, a disappointing 36% made no progress.  Sadly, many students and parents blame the institutions for their failings.

I graduated with my undergraduate degree almost twenty years ago and my masters degree almost fifteen years ago.  Was it worth the time and cost?  If that is judged based on me working in the fields I studied, then no but if it is judged on me making use of the skills I learned then yes.  I started off with an undergraduate in biology and a my masters was in pharmaceutical sciences.  I am now a researcher and project manager for a shared value/sustainability consulting group.  How I got from there to here is a convoluted trip taking me from working as a lab technician, to a shipper/receiver, to managing a pharmacy teaching lab.  I never truly focused on grades, as the knowledge and skills I learned were much more interesting.  And I would rather have a good night's sleep rather than trying to squeeze out those extra few percentage points.  Not that I didn't take pride in doing well, but it really wasn't about the marks.

But I guess I'm also a little different from most people as I've taken some sort of academic or continuing education course every year since I graduated from high school except for 2002.  That's twenty years of additional formal learning that many people wouldn't even consider.

What am I getting at?  That school isn't about the grades.  It has been demonstrated that educators from grade school, high school and beyond participate in grade inflation such that the value of an "A" is diminished.  If everyone does well in school, how come so many graduates seem to know nothing when they enter the working world.  I've had to deal with PhD's trying to get packages from Vancouver to Belgium in less than twenty four hours - it was brought to me at 4:00 PM (PST) and had to get to Belgium for the next morning.  It stunned me the incapacity to realize that Belgium is 9 hours ahead of Vancouver which meant it was already 1:00 in the morning there when I received the package.  Flights to Brussels direct from Vancouver take at least 13 hours - thus, if you eliminate all processing and ground transport times, the package would at earliest be there at 2:00 in the afternoon in Brussels.  Alas, all FedEx packages go to Memphis first for sorting and then to Europe.  There was no way this was getting there the next day unless this researcher bought a ticket and got on the plane themselves.  This to me was a clear case of a lack of critical thinking or analysis skills and brought to mind me expression that incompetency on another individual's part does not constitute an emergency on my part.

So, yes, I believe that schools are failing our children and I struggle on a daily basis to help bring understanding to the world, one college graduate at a time.

Dear. Mr. Watterson

Interesting to see that there is a documentary out about the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.

Googling it, one finds there are several reviews, but the one that caught my eye was the one in Christianity Today.  Now, I never knew about this website before today but it fascinates me that they do movie reviews.

I named my son after the little boy who has adventures with his tiger.  He even reads the comic strip himself now - hopefully he doesn't try to imitate the toboggan adventures.

Remembering Veterans

It would seem that once again, some retailers like Costco and Target take objection to those that wish to sell poppies during the period before Remembrance Day.

My mother-in-law's husband, a World War II veteran, passed away last week at the age of 94.  He volunteered to serve his country in a war against the Germans.

My son has a fairly good understanding of the sacrifices that soldiers make and the story of the big box retailers diminishes these acts.  The representatives and public relation talking heads will undoubtedly put a spin on the whole issue but it will not mean much to me.

I personally object to the reasons some wars are fought but support those that are willing to put their lives on the line in service of their country.  I can't convince you to avoid shopping at Costco but is that big box of socks really what people have died for?

The Battle for Sustainable Cities – Blog | SustainAbility

 The Battle for Sustainable Cities – Blog | SustainAbility

Over 50% of the world's population lives in cities.  Establishing a sustainable urban culture is important in ensuring that cities will continue to be able to serve as a place for people to live.

Huge elephant in the room

I typically disagree with the Margaret Wente's opinions in the Globe and Mail but her piece on Toronto mayor Rob Ford is bang on.

He won't quit and there is no mechanism to remove him.  He lacks the ability to run the city with all the controversy surrounding him but as long as he stays in office he can command the resources of his position to defend himself.  How does that serve the people of Toronto?

He's mocked on every late night show and is an embarrassment for Canada.

I hope he comes to his senses either resigns or steps back to get some help.  Only time will tell.

What will it take?

Shooting the s**t after hockey on Sunday with tales of working in cold climates such as -30 C in Edmonton or one guy saying it was near -70 C up in the Yukon once.  And then someone pipes up that with places being that cold this whole global warming thing is bunk.

In past I would have tried to reason with him but the fact is that people will believe what they want to believe.  Stating facts and evidence from the latest scientific reports won't do a thing because in general, people know so little about science that they go to the extremes of not trusting it.

State sized chunks of ice falling off Antarctica and longer ice free periods in the Arctic are enough for me to believe.  But for me, it is common sense.  If we burn thousands of gallons of fuel a day, that exhaust has to go somewhere.

Some of it is natural but humans play a role in climate change.  If you don't want to accept that then get out of my way because I'm here to do something about it.

 

Math Problems

In our homeschool math group we work through different math exercises to help better the math intelligence of those involved.  It is an interesting group consisting of an older group of two teenagers, a middle group of five ten year old boys and four younger children.

We present the same problems to each group and it is wonderful to see the different thought processes used to attack the problem.

This past week we were working on river crossing problems, beginning with the basic wolf, chicken and grain.

The young ones initial solution was to take the chicken across.  Then they came back for the grain and stated that the wolf would swim along side the boat thus getting everything across the river.  It was interesting this "out of the boat" thinking and a lesson for the parent leaders to clearly define the parameters of a question.

This week we move on to magic boxes, similar to sudoku but involving sums.

The Flying Troutmans

Finished reading the Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews

An interesting road trip story about Hattie Troutman who takes her niece and nephew on a trip through the United States to find their father.  Min Troutman, the mother, suffers from mental illness and was placed for treatment at the beginning of the story.

It is a story about family and discovery of one's place in the world when things are seemingly bleak.  I found it interesting because I have become more aware of that part of the world which is often hidden away.

My sister in-law's brother in-law suffers from manic depression and every so often he wanders off the medications.  My brother has never been diagnosed but is probably on the spectrum with a touch of Asperger's.  This became a bit more evident upon reading Raising Cubby by John Elder Robinson.  This is a father's tale of raising a son that has Asperger's while Robinson himself has Asperger's.

And I am coming around to understanding that we can't keep people in the shadows and hope the problem will go away on its own or that someone else will deal with it.  This is an issue that is coming to the forefront in Vancouver with Mayor Gregor Robertson focusing on housing the mentally ill.  There was also a study indicating that it does not cost much more to house the mentally ill as compared to burden placed on the police, medical and social services community.  The closing of Riverview put a lot of people at risk and in my opinion some people need to be institutionalized for their own wellbeing.

The world is getting smaller and more people are living in cities now so we all need to figure out how to get along.

Gabor Mate's letter to the health minister

One of my issues with the current government of Canada led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper is its lacklustre attitude towards science.  Scientists have to go through a strange process to release their data and speak with reporters.  That has gotten to the point that even the media outside Canada has commented on this 'muzzling' of science.

However, today I wanted to make note of Gabor Mate's letter to the Federal Health Minister on the federal government's stance on prescription heroin in helping heroin addicts recover from their addiction/illness.

In this letter, Mate challenges the minister on her decision to block this treatment and questions the basis of this decision.  It is obviously one of emotion not logic as it goes against the scientific evidence.

Addiction is a horrible thing and the war on drugs has not succeeded.  Other methods to help those addicted to drugs, whatever drug, need to be tried.

Just remember this next time we go to the polls.  We are all on this planet together and if we are unwilling to help those around us then this planet will work harder to reject us.

Michael Bloomberg, the soon not to be Mayor of New York

When Michael Bloomberg became mayor of New York City in 2001, he was worth about $4 billion and as he leaves office at the end of the year he will be worth about $31 billion.

For the year of 2013, he will have spent about $400 million on pet causes, which is only 1.3% of his net worth.

It is commendable that he is willing to spend his money on education, smoking bans, and other health initiatives.  It is also a little scary to think that at the age of 71, that even if he gave away a billion a year, he would probably die before he ran out of money.

Nike, Walmart and Unilever

Once upon a time I was one of the naysayers and critics of Walmart.  But the C-suite of Walmart is working on changing the way they do things.  It is partly a wait and see but it is nice to see that such a massive cog in the world economy is making the effort.

I came across a blog entry on the Guardian that discusses how Walmart, along with Nike and Unilever are looking into changing the shipping industry.  Shipping of products makes up 17.5% of U.S. transportation carbon dioxide emissions and this number is expected to increase.  So it is nice to see that businesses are taking an interest in reducing these emissions.

Every little bit helps.

Workplace Wellness

In researching workplace wellness and the benefits to the bottom line, I cam across a blog on Health Work and Wellness which may have been of use to me a few months ago.

Hopefully the advice will be of use to others.

----------


By Amy Jen Su, Managing Partner & Co-Founder of Isis Associates, Executive Coach, Author and BWC 2013 Final Keynote Speaker and Workshop Facilitator

In a world filled with endless choice, opportunity, and instant communication, we manage plates too full, run on auto-pilot, and multi-task to keep our heads above water. In our effort to “get it done”, we have lost the joy of the process leaving many things, ironically, incomplete. Yet, research has shown that focus is an essential ingredient to leading a successful and fulfilled life. How then do we build and cultivate the quality of focus?

Make Decisions and Stick to Them
Breakdowns in focus often occur before we begin. We skip the very foundation necessary for true focus to exist – making a conscious decision and then sticking to it. This includes everything – from choosing our life’s work, determining the priorities for our teams, down to what we will accomplish in a given day. Focus begins with setting intentions, declaring our commitments, and then acting directly from these. While decisions are not locked in stone, there is value to making them, sticking to them, and then consciously adjusting them when need be. Conscious adjustment is different than consistent indecision and worry.  A client, Susan, struggled for many years with focus before settling into her current role as a principal in a marketing-services firm. “I’ve always been interested in many things that it has been hard to choose a career path – even now, I find myself distracted wondering if I should be following my life’s passion of working in non-profit.”

Eliminate/Manage Distractions

Maintaining focus is not only hard on the big decisions in life but also difficult in our daily lives as well. After two weeks of self-observation, Susan uncovered two key sources of “focus saboteurs”. First, unexpected requests from other people, which she usually responded to immediately, interrupted her flow of work. Second, she became conscious of how frequently she responded to email to procrastinate on high priority work that she either did not enjoy or required a significant chunk of “thinking time” to complete.

Cultivate the Quality of Focus
Short-term, structures and systems can support our focus but ultimately, we must cultivate the quality of our focus for highest impact. This involves shifting the hard-wiring in our bodies filled with anxiety, tension, and “pushing” to flow, attentiveness, and presence when engaged in an activity. Quality of focus ensures that when we are working on a document, we’re fully engaged in the process. When we’re with our families, then we are fully present with them versus thinking about work deliverables.

Cultivating this quality of focus requires slowing down, engaging in meditative practices designed to build awareness and attention, and quieting ourselves enough to really “hear” what we want. Susan learned that the big paradox in all of this was that by actually slowing herself down, she became more efficient – now eliminating many things on her list that were there because she lacked focus in the first place.

Reflection Questions:
1. In what area of your life would having greater focus benefit you?
2. Throughout your day, what distracts you from your highest priorities or intentions?
3. Throughout your day, what conditions were in place when you experienced great focus or flow?
4. What new systems, structures, or practices could further support your ability to focus?

A small calculation

So, a while back I was ranting about Magic the Gathering and how people are just making weenie decks because it is all about winning.

I did a rough calculation based on the fact that there are over 10,000 unique magic the gathering cards.

If you chose 36 cards with no land and no two cards alike, that would result in more combinations than there are atoms in the observable universe.

This simply adds to my frustration about the lack of creativity amongst some magic players.

Aluminum Can Recycling

According to the Container Recycling Institute, a trillion aluminum cans were thrown away from 1972 to 2003.  This is more than enough to easily go to mars and back if stacked one on top of another.  That's a lot of cans.

What is surprising is that the recycling rate for cans in the United States was only 57% in 2010, despite the fact that it takes much less energy to recycle cans than to make new ones, saving 9.5 tons in greenhouse gases per ton of cans.

One company, Alcoa, is working on increasing that rate to 75% by 2015.  Hopefully their initiatives will help reach this moderate goal.

Even achieving this rate of recycling will leave the Americans behind Europe, where recycling rates are as high as 96% - see this graph from the CRI.

So, please recycle and do your small part.

Valerie Bockstette

In researching shared value, I came across a How to Guide for Creating Shared Value.

One of the authors was Valerie Bockstette.  I googled the name and came across her Harvard MBA portrait project, which i guess is one's statement about what they want to do when they graduate and it went like this:

I plan to build trampolines. Remember jumping on one as a kid - the more you jumped, the more support you got - and like magic - you rose higher and higher, as though you could bounce forever? I grew up on such a trampoline. No, my family wasn't in the circus. I had teachers pushing me, parents supporting my endeavors, and friends encouraging me to follow my dreams. It was this network of expectations that acted as my trampoline, constantly demanding greater heights. Most children aren't so lucky. They grow up in a world devoid of high expectations, or any expectations at all. Those around them are too busy keeping order in the classroom, making rent, or joining gangs to notice them. To ask: "Do you want to go to college?" - "Have you read a good book lately?" - "Can you even read?" How do we prevent these kids from falling through the cracks? The traditional answer is to build safety nets, but I think that isn't enough. I will spend my life building trampolines for children who grow up without a network of high expectations. I want them to experience the magnetic thrill of being pushed, supported, and encouraged. The beauty of a trampoline is that it doesn't have to be big. And it only takes one bounce to get going.

Reminds me to give my child high expectations, or at least expose him to possibilities.  Fortunately he isn't in a situation where joining a gang is the only option.

Can we change our cities?

Came across a book by the architect Moshe Safdie and became aware that cities are changing once again.  The book was titled The City After the Automobile and presents an idea of his for a massive car share program that would help maximize the use cars while minimizing the amount of infrastructure needed to support cars, mainly in reducing parking lot size.

It is an intriguing idea but one that may evolve into something real.  But for now, promoting car sharing ventures will have to do.  Vancouver provides a relatively good model of this with three options available to consumer - Car2Go, Modo and Zip Cars.  However, Modo is the only one that provides cars outside of the City of Vancouver, with cars conveniently placed along the different skytrain routes.  I personally have a Modo membership and fully appreciate this placement of vehicles as I live close to a skytrain station and can access the type of vehicle I need - passesnger car, van, minivan, sports car or hybrid.

Zip and Car2Go are limited by being only found within the city proper and even at that, not throughout the city.  Hopefully it will expand to other municipalities within Metro Vancouver, especially Surrey, as it is the fastest growing city in the region and will eventually become more populous than Vancouver.  It however faces the challenge of probably being the least transit friendly city as there is a vast agricultural strip that makes designing routes around the city difficult.

But that's a story for another day.

Ann Finlayson

Another 100 Words, by Ann Finlayson

My vision? That we will be able to understand how to live within environmental limits and then have the confidence and abilities to do just that.

Fundamentally, then, it is about two things - learning and change.

We don't yet know how to live within environmental limits. We will have to learn, reflect, and test new ideas. There is no single solution or best practice yet. This means changing the way we think about education and learning. Then, because doing this often feels impossible, we need to find strength and support from each other to take this difficult task on. I know we can do it.

----------

Ann Finlayson worked for the Sustainable Development Commission and it looks like she is with the Sustainability and Environmental Education website now.

Off to the library again

This week's haul included:

Quinn Cummings.  The Year of Learning Dangerously.  This is not so much a manual on how to homeschool but a collected set of observations on Cummings' homeschool experiences.  It is more like adventures in homeschooling with a bit of historical information sandwiched between her hilarious stories.

Joseph Stiglitz was to come to Vancouver for a talk but it has been cancelled.  So, I found one of his books, The Price of Inequality to try to better understand the significance of his work.

Fantasy Football

In 2007 I was asked by the organizer of one of the hockey groups I play with to join his fantasy football league.  Now, I've watched the NFL and was a loose follower of the sport so figured what the heck, I'll give it a try.  Tonight we had the draft for the seventh season of that fantasy football league which is quite long for any activity of what is a fluctuating group of individuals.

I've done okay in general, and actually made (but lost) the championship game last season which was an accomplishment for me as I definitely don't follow things as closely as some of the other participants.  The other interesting thing is I still have two players from my original team, Tom Brady and Calvin Johnson who are both amazing players.  Other league participants are continually trying to trade for Johnson, but I continually decline because I can't part with a player who's nickname is Megatron.

So for the record, my starting lineup in a QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, TE, FLEX PPR league is:

QB Tom Brady
RB Trent Richardson
RB Frank Gore
WR Calvin Johnson
WR Anquan Boldin
TE Kyle Rudlph
FLEX Shane Vereen

I think I have a roster that will put me in the top half of the league on the year but as in any sport, it is the playoffs that count and I just to make it into the playoffs.

Strange Connections

So, I mentioned I was reading Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which was referenced in another book I'm working through, The Ingenuity Gap by Thomas Homer Dixon.

In the chapter titled Complexities, Dixon describes how as a youth he was able to deal with the basic maintenance of a vehicle and understand the workings of all the components, but as time marched forward, cars became more complex, to the point that:

...even most professional mechanics are little more than diagnosticians now.  The modern car is trundled into the shop and hooked to computerized diagnostic systems, and faulty engine modules are replaced in their entirety.  If the faulty modules are repaired at all- rather than simply junked - they are rarely fixed in shop but instead shipped to specialized facilities with the specific expertise needed.  As the complexity and sophistication of our cards have increased, we can no longer repair them in our backyard or in our garage grease pits.  Instead, we increasingly rely on distance expertise and knowledge.  In short, the rising complexity of our machines has reduced our independence and self-sufficiency.  It's ironic that as technology does its job better and empowers us in various ways, it leaves us with less control, power, and freedom in other ways.

This seems to me to relate to the idea of unintended consequences and something we should be careful of because the less we know, the more vulnerable we are to being deceived by the so called experts.  The proportional amount of knowledge that a person needs to know to be functional in an urbanized and technologically advanced society is growing much faster than most individuals are able of assimilating. Without the motivation and resources to keep up with the most basic understanding of the world around us, most of us will become even more dependent on the things we don't understand.

Zen and the Motorcycle

So, I started reading Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance today.

It is an interesting so far and of impact to me because of the whole father-son relationship.  I have been spending a lot of time in the last few weeks being the primary caregiver to my son and we are certainly developing a certain rhythm to our days.

Anyhow, want I found interesting was Pirsig's use of the term Chautauqua, which looking on the interwebs was an adult education movement founded in the United States and popular during the turn of the century (the previous one).  The ones Pirsig refers to seem to be of a travelling variety, going from town to town, dispensing their knowledge.  And this is the sort that Pirsig emulates with his attempts to reconstruct his old personality of Phaedrus and in his teachings on different subjects.

I will continue to work through the book and see where it takes me but this Chautauqua idea is interesting and can be put down as the new thing I learned today.

World Cafe

In a couple programs I've participated a World Cafe style discussion was implemented.  The Cafe is described on Wikipedia as "a structured conversational process in which groups of people discuss a topic at several tables, with individuals switching tables periodically."

The general principle is to be able to discuss a variety of topics without having all involved talking about one topic at a time which can be cumbersome as not everyone in a very large group would be able to fully participate.  By breaking down into smaller groups and breaking down the main topic into smaller portions, everyone gets an opportunity to have a voice all the topics and gain a cross sectional view of the topics being discussed.

The World Cafe was originated by Juanita Brown and David Isaacs, a practitioner's manual exists to help explain the process further.

In the cafe's I've participated, the process was a bit rushed as time was a factor but I can see the value of being able to work in small groups but also being able to move from topic to topic.  But these were just demonstrations on how to apply the cafe concept rather than full implementation of the cafe to generate dialogue on a larger issue.

I'd be interested in hearing from anyone that has had more experience with this form of discussion in order to understand its full capability.

The Great Disruption

So, was flipping through The Great Disruption by Francis Fukuyama and came across a passage that implicates in some ways explains that horrors such as the Holocaust are not so difficult to dissect:

Ordinary morality is compatible with - indeed, is the precondition for - shocking immorality at higher levels of social organization.  A disorganized, individualistic rabble cannot pull off a systematic genocide like the Soviet killing of the kulaks during collectivization in the 1930s.  The Southern soldiers of the Confederacy who died to preserve slavery, or the Germans who carried out the Holocaust, often displayed virtues of integrity, courage and loyalty toward their own communities.  The Germans, in particular, are known as sticklers for order, unwilling to cross the street against a red light even as they marched prisoners off to concentration camps.  But the kind of ordinary morality that makes an individual not want to disobey a traffic law contributes, at a higher level of community, to the most monstrous crimes.  Our desire to be liked and esteemed and to conform leads individuals to carry out the most brutal orders when caught in an evil political system.  Morality at the level of humanity as a whole dictates that we violate deeply felt norms of loyalty and reciprocity to our particular group.  The great moral conflicts of our time have arisen not over the absence of ordinary morality, but rather over the tendency of human communities to define themselves narrowly on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, or some other arbitrary characteristic, and to fight it out with other, differently defined communities.

I'm no expert on morality but it was interesting that there are different levels of it depending on the scale one is considering.

More from the Ingenuity Gap

In commenting on the haze that is experienced all over the world, Thomas Homer Dixon observes:

Why am I so concerned about haze?  To me, it signifies something more general than just pollution or atmospheric processes.  As haze cuts us off from vivid skies and landscapes, it attenuates our ties to the wider, external reality in which we are embedded.  It is just one of the many ways we are constructing - inside that wider reality - an artificial and self referential world.

Increasingly, only the collective human ego - what I call "the Big I" - bounds and defines this constructed world.  We subordinate, alter and reinvent almost everything around us according to our own interests, from the mounts of Vancouver Island to the Isle of Dogs and the very sky overhead.  Seduced by our extraordinary technological prowess, many of us come to believe that external reality - the reality outside our constructed world - is unimportant and needs little attention because, if we ever have to, we can manage any problem that might arise there.  And, in any case, as the pace of our lives accelerates, we have less time to reflect on these broader circumstances.  All these trends can push us into narcissism, as they weaken our sense of awe at the universe beyond our human ego; and what is perhaps more important, they also weaken our receptivity to critical signals from the external reality that might awaken us to our deep ignorance of the potential consequences of our actions, and warn us against hubris.  Without this awareness we have a less accurate understanding of how much and what types of ingenuity we will need to meet the future's challenges.

I think part of why this is important to me revolves around a point of contention I have with someone in know about community gardens.  He is perturbed at the fact that developers that lease land to community gardens do not have to pay property taxes for that land.  He argues that community gardens won't feed the city anyways and the property taxes would buy more food.  From my perspective, he fails to see that eating the food is often a side benefit of a community garden.  Community gardens allow individuals to connect with what Dixon terms the external reality.  The benefits of community gardens are well documented and it goes beyond the food.  But I'll leave it at that because food issues are dealt quite well by others.

What the library had to offer this week.

Never seem to be able to leave the library without a book, so this week's selection includes:

Salman Khan - The One World School House, Education Reimagined

Founder of the Khan Academy that features online learning in order to allow anyone to access educational material and to free teachers from their traditional roles as lecturers.
----------

Mark Dery - I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts

This is a collection of what the author calls drive-by essays.  It caught my eye because the foreword was written by Bruce Sterling.
----------

David Wann - Simple Prosperity, Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle

Always looking out for books on sustainability just to get a feel for where the field is going.  Wann is also the author of The New Normal: An Agenda for Responsible Living, which is a book I'll have to check for.



That's it for this week.

Wal Mart Reinvigorated

Wal Mart is undergoing a transformation to being more green, but can a tiger change its spots?  Well, if it doesn't want to suffer the fate of the tiger, Wal Mart will need to change.

Edward Humes covers some of this transformation in his book Force of Nature, The Unlikely Story of Wal Mart's Green Revolution.

From the introduction:

Wal Mart is proposing to go public with product information that has always been kept secret or that hasn't existed at all.  Few really know where the stuff inside their toothpaste tubes or frying pans or hard drives comes from or how they are made - at least until some sort of contamination or sweatshop scandal erupts, long after the harm to the public and the bottom line is done.  So many things on the shelf and in the home are black holes, from what happens to the plastic tops on your shampoo bottles (nothing - most are nonrecyclable) to the key ingredients in leading brands of perfume, mentioned only as trade-secret "fragrance" on labels (but containing hormone disrupters, allergens, asthma triggers, and chemicals linked to headaches, infertility and cancer.) Because finding this out requires extensive investigation, few people notice the lack of truly useful information about products filling their homes.  And this blindness is not just on the consumer end of the business. Not even the companies that make these things like to trace the origins of the parts and chemicals and raw materials they use - they fear the information and just how bad it would reveal so many products and companies to be. And when they do have it, they hide it.

Not this isn't for some benevolent purpose - Wal Mart understands that to stay competitive and relevant, an evolution of business practice must occur and that by embracing sustainability, Wal Mart can be at the front of the pack.

And if you don't like Wal Mart, don't shop there.

Another 100 words, Julian Agyeman

Flipping through the 100 Words book, the blurb by Julian Agyeman caught my attention:

Sustainable development means using our unlimited mental resources, not our limited natural resources. If this is true, as I believe it to be, then we need to develop constructive ways to unleash these phenomenal mental resources, and quickly. Currently, we waste human potential as wantonly and comprehensively as we lay waste to our environmental potential, and this is no surprise, as both actions are directly related.  We need to mobilize our efforts toward developing the potential of all humans in order to live productively in a convivial manner within environmental limits. Failure to do so will end our ability to approach anything near the just and sustainable futures we are capable of.

 This caught my eye as I'm still working my way through the Ingenuity Gap and this notion of unleashing mental resources for me links to the idea of being able to harness humanity's ingenuity to meet the tremendous environmental and social challenges we face.

Julian Agyeman seems to be a fascinating individual and this will probably send me off on another tangent some day - his blog can be found here.

Write something, anything

So, in the 100 Words book, the first snippet is by Kathleen Adams - the founder of the Center for Journal Therapy.

I have kept a journal, on and off for nearly twenty years now.  Actually sitting down and writing down my thoughts and observations can be therapeutic and it is interesting to see that someone has made a living of it.  Now, keeping a journal isn't for everyone but I would recommend it as it only takes five to ten minutes for an entry.  Even if you don't think you don't have anything write, there are tricks to unblock the mind that I have found that work for me.  Interestingly, these are part of the list of things that Adams suggests on her website:

She has a list of fourteen writing techniques which, if you decide to start, make things definitely easier:

1. Sentence Stem. A sentence-completion process. Fill in the blank with a word or phrase. May be very universal (Right now I feel———-) or highly customized to an individual’s immediate question, problem or interest.

2. Five-Minute Sprint. A timed writing process designed to bring focus and intensity in short bursts. Excellent for those who are resistant or aversive to journal writing, or who are uncertain about how to start, or who state they do not have time to write journals.

3. Inventory. An assessment of life balance in major areas of living (health, family, home, work, spiritual/religious, emotional well-being, etc.) Gives a quick picture of which life areas might need attention.

4. Structured Write. A series of Sentence Stems grouped and sequenced to reveal consistently deepening layers of information and awareness.

5. Clustering. Visual free-association from a central word or phrase. Lines and circles connect key thoughts and associations to the central core. Work quickly to maximize results. A brief writing to synthesize findings may follow.

6. Lists of 100. A list of 100 items, many of which will probably be repetitions, on a predetermined theme or topic. Repetition is an important part of the process. Topics can be about any current issue (for example: 100 Things I’m Sad About; 100 Things I Need or Want to Do; 100 Places I Would Like to See). At the end of the list, group the responses into themes and synthesize the information.

7. Alphapoem. Write the alphabet, A-Z, or any collection of letters, vertically down the side of a page. Then write a poem in which each successive line begins with the next letter. Excellent for groups as it promotes a high level of participation and sharing. Adolescents and reluctant writers respond well.

8. Captured Moments. Vignettes capturing the sensations of a particularly meaningful or emotional experience. Written from the senses with strong descriptors. Captured Moments of beauty, joy, blessing, calm can add balance, hope and perspective to a challenging time.

9. Unsent Letters. A metaphoric communication to another that is written with the specific intention that it will not be shared.

10. Character Sketch. A written portrait of another person or of an aspect of the self. Can also be written about emotions by personifying an emotion and giving it a characterization – an appearance, a style of dress, a personality and temperament.

11. Dialogue. A metaphoric conversation written in two voices. Anyone or anything is an appropriate dialogue partner. There is no constriction by time, space, physical reality or literal voice.

12. Perspectives. An alteration in point of view that provides a different perspective on an event or situation.

13. Springboard. A free-write with a prompt. Starting a free-write with the smallest structure of a question, thought or topic can focus and frame the writing session.

14. Free Writing. Unboundaried, unstructured, unpaced narrative writing. Useful for creative flow or spontaneous writing sessions. Can be structured by adding a time limit or page limit.

I know in a world where we feel that we don't have time to deal with Facebook, Twitter, Blogging and other online activities it seems that keeping a journal is superfluous.  However, I have a belief in the physical, the personal, and the privacy of a journal.  In my history courses, there is constant reference to reading the private papers of Presidents and journals of other historical figures that fascinates me.  I wonder if people don't continue to keep journals or personal records if historians of the future will find it more difficult to unravel the happenings of the past.  Social media is useful but often not candid and cannot contain national secrets.

So, grab a book and start writing.  You'll find that you might actually like it.

What the world needs now isn't another iThing

It seems that every time that I go the library to return some books, I end up leaving with more than I came.

Anyhow, picked up a few, including a compilation of short essays called 100 Words, edited by William Murtha, founder of the Global Visionaries Project.

The book had a short quote on "What the World Needs Now" by Elizabeth Watson:

ONE THING the world needs now is people who can tolerate ambiguity, people who are challenged, not threatened by the state of the world. I want to suggest a few things such maturity might require.

First, do not seek security in things, nor yet in status. The care of possessions, and position, is time- consuming and energy-consuming, and they can be taken from you by a thief in the night, by a fire in the night, by a change in political fortunes, by any numbers of disasters. Whatever security you have lies in yourself.

Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.

If you understand yourself, both your strengths and limitations, If you like the person you are, if you acquire coping skills through experience, if you are not too encumbered, and if you know- inwardly- that disaster cannot ultimately overcome you, then you have gone a long way to maturity. You will be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Second, don't rest In intellectual security, for your philosophy and the knowledge on which it rests are likely to become obsolete. Wisdom is not amassing facts....

Third, the only real security in the end is the love we have given and the love we have received. All else can be taken from us. So pour out your love and friendship and do not hoard it ... And don't delay or hesitate In standing up to be counted with the oppressed.

Finally, cultivate the light touch. Develop a sense of humor. Learn to light up a room with joy when you enter. Accept the challenge of our chaotic and dangerous word with a sense of adventure, of gratitude that our time is now.

Hopefully the book has further spots of inspiration that can push me closer to taking real action.  I'm trying and always have it in the back of mind but need pushes every so often to get it to the front of my mind.

Decluttering my space and my head

Well, I wrote the final exam for my history course on international relations in the twentieth century last night.  It feels good to get that over with as it was a online correspondence course that had started in January.  But now I have more credits in the bank on my longish term goal of acquiring my arts degree.  Some of the facts will fade but many will stick in my head.  It allowed me to keep my writing skills honed with a couple essays notched on my belt.

However, the tidying up of the papers read and materials used begins today.  Need to return some library books and recycle some of the articles that I printed.

But this brings me to how I am working on decluttering my home.  It is a slow process and sometimes daunting when you walk into a room and wonder where to start.  For me, I just start and work on what I have termed the principle of five.  Get rid of five things or work for five minutes.  By compartmentalizing the job into fives, I find that one makes progress without feeling overwhelmed.  And it works, boxes are being unpacked and things are looking better.

TTFN

Ryding A Wave

Was listening to the radio while driving to Playland this afternoon and What I Wouldn't Do by Serena Ryder came on.  Had a debate with my son as to who who the performer was, he said it was Selena Gomez but I found the voice too deep for Gomez and figured she doesn't sing as well as Ryder.

Anyhow, have been watching/listening to some youtube content of Ryder and like what I hear, especially the one with her performing at the Luminato Festival in Toronto.

 Back to studying now...

Buccaneer Scholar

My wife had borrowed a book called Secrets of a Buccaneer Scholar by James Marcus Bach so I started flipping through it and was intrigued by his statement that:

School is temporary.  Education is not.  If you want to prosper in life: find something that fascinates you and jump all over it.  Don't wait for someone to teach you; your enthusiasm will attract teachers to you.  Don't worry about diplomas or degrees; just get so good that no one can ignore you.

I have some hesitation to fully accept this but in general I agree that everyone should work on learning through their whole life and that if you don't know something then find the resources necessary to learn about it.


As a homeschooler I was more interested in his later statement:

I don't seek the destruction of schools.  I am out to dismantle something else: the popular belief that school is the only route to a great education, and that the best students are those who passively accept the education their schools offer.

There are so many different learning styles and teaching styles that it is crazy to think that a single approach that is used by so many schools is going to work.  Hammering away at multiplication tables and rote memorization might help you memorize something but is it learning?  I think Bach's approach has value but I think he falls into the same trap that he criticizes in that just because it worked for him doesn't mean it will work for everyone.  He does admit this but he comes across as beating his chest a little to strongly for my liking.

Down by the river

Took a walk with my son along the Brunette river this afternoon on my way to mom's.  It was interesting to hear the flow of the water as it rained earlier in the morning and the storm drains were active.  This was special because it has not really rained much in Vancouver in the last six weeks.

We then crossed the road to get to the Caribou dam at the east end of Burnaby lake. It is one those hidden and little known spots in the city that controls the level of water in the lake. Always neat to see the difference in the water levels on the two aides of the dam - probably approaching two meters. 

Just pass the dam we saw a heron that was just enjoying the sun along with mallard and her four ducklings. 

It was a nice walk and calming to watch the animals in their natural setting. I feel quite fortunate to live in a part of the world where one can witness a variety of animals within the city including eagles and coyotes. And on some days we even have deer and bears wandering the streets. 

And the great thing is my son enjoys these excursions and is always willing to head out for a walk. 

Your plans for the future?

I once took a continuing studies course on existentialism in which one of the instructor's objectives was for each student to write down their five year plan.  He had a whole scheme of things - career, family, education - that were to be covered.

I constructed one at the time but it has long past expired and am in the process of starting anew which works well with the recent changes in my life including resigning what was a secure but unrewarding position.  I am also working on decluttering our house as we are slowly unpacking things after our extended renovations and multiple moves over the last year.

Anyhow, I will work on my short term and long term life plan in order to give some sense of order to my life.  This might not be for everyone but I believe that it would work for most and would encourage you to write one.

A quick search brought up this template by Joanna Optimax

What I am reading today (August 5, 2013)

Just finished reading The Beauty of Humanity Movement by Camilla Gibb, a book based in Vietnam.  The jacket indicated it was a story of lost love but that took a while to unravel itself.  I picked up by chance as I was working on my history essay on the Vietnam war so some of the people and places mentioned actually made sense to me which is not the usual thing.

Of the things I've picked up at the library recently are:

Thomas Homer-Dixon, The Ingenuity Gap
Peter Walsh, Lighten Up
Edward Humes, Force of Nature, The Unlikely Story of Wal Mart's Green Revolution

Comments to come as I work through these books.

Building momentum just takes a tiny push

Began studying for my history course on international relations in the twentieth century and have discovered the power of collaboration.  The instructor has provided a long list of over two hundred terms that will be referred to in the exam and it seemed rather daunting to attack that all by myself.  So, I threw out an email to the rest of the class to see if anyone was willing to break down the list and we just do a small portion each.  Figured it was worth a shot, even if I just one or two responses.  Well it worked out and we have seven of us tackling the list.  I'm beginning to learn that with a little push, people are willing to help.  I wouldn't call myself a leader, I just like to get things done and if I can make the task easier for everyone that's great.

Change will happen, those best prepared for change will prosper.

Why I stopped playing Magic and how I learned to love the bomb.

My son has recently taken up playing magic the gathering because some of his friends go to a "card club" on the weekend.

So, I dug out my twenty year old cards which apparently most are out of print or banned from regular play and tried to construct a deck for him but realized that it wouldn't work.  The game has devolved into a mini-max style of game where decks are loaded up with the lowest cost, highest power cards.  There is no imagination in deck creation because it is all about the win and not actually gathering together to have a good time.

This is why I got out many moons ago because I couldn't convince others to just put together a loosely organized multi-color deck with some rare cards in it and play multi-player games to see how things develop.  Alas, I was ahead of my time with the creation of the Commander rules around the turn of the century.  I guess my only hope is to just stay out of things or convince my son's friends to build commander decks and have multi-player games.

But back to the whole not having fun thing, I am not surprised about the recent Hockey Canada report indicating many children are not participating in hockey at the grassroots because kids aren't having fun.  The sport has morphed into a hyperexpensive machine designed to milk parents of their hard earned money on the narrow chance that their kid will make it big, or at least get a college scholarship.  Fun isn't really part of the equation, or enough of the equation for kids under ten.

I would recommend a book by Ken Campbell, Selling the Dream as it does a much better job reviewing the minor hockey machine than I can here.

My son now plays lacrosse and certainly enjoys it.  I like it because the children are tiered quite clearly and play at a level commensurate with their experience.  As they develop, they can move up and often are called up to play with the next level team for a game or two.  The game is still competitive with respect to playing game against other teams but a much better sense of equality within the team itself.  And even if your child plays hockey, I think lacrosse as an off season sport provides valuable hand-eye coordination and fitness training but without the monotony of playing hockey twelve months a year.

----------

See this article from the Globe and Mail for more on the hockey issue

What's the Buzz?

I subscribe to the David Suzuki Foundation's "science matters" newsletter and here is an excerpt from today's article on bees. Found it noteworthy as we often forget that much of what we eat needs these important insects but that they have been slowly disappearing and it threatens food production at a time when we need to be finding better ways to ensure we can meet this basic need.


Bees are endlessly intriguing, and incredibly useful to us — and not just for honey and wax. If bees disappeared, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to grow much of what we eat. Bees pollinate crops ranging from apples to zucchini. Blueberries and almonds are almost entirely dependent on them. Some experts say they're responsible for one of every three bites of food we eat. The economic value of pollination services from honeybees alone is estimated at $14 billion in the U.S. and hundreds of millions in Canada.

For the full article, go to the Blogs section of the Foundation's website.

Knowledge for All - Open Course Ware

Was brought up in discussion recently that UBC has begun to offer free courseware to the public, representing materials that are being taught in an institution of higher learning.  I remember a few years back looking at the MIT OpenCourseWare project which I toured again today.  It has definitely expanded and increased available subjects.

So, like usual, I went to see what my local library systems have on the topic and came a cross a book by Taylor Walsh. Unlocking the Gates: How and Why Leading Universities Are Opening Up Access to Their Courses (Princeton University Press, 2011).

I brought to my attention earlier attempts at sharing courseware that failed, primarily due to being a fee service for materials that did not offer university credit.  It also mentioned other successful efforts including Carnegie Mellon's Open Learning Initiative, Open Yale Courses, webcast.berkley and India's National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning.

Why would a university give away their course material for free?  Why wouldn't it I would respond.  I say so because students already share information with each other overtly and covertly in the form of exam questions.  And undoubtedly some student is making public the lecture notes from courses.  Also, in the opinion of Charles Vest, the president of MIT when OpenCourseWare was released, he deemed that it was a direct extension of MIT's basic educational mission.

So, go check out one of these offerings and learn something new.

Creating Shared Value

Have been delving into the concept of Creating Shared Value, first by reading an article by the originators Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer (Harvard Business Review January-February 2011).  The authors present an alternate business model that moves away from the traditional for profit system to one that works with society in order to benefit both the company and society.  By establishing societal needs into the company's core, a company can not only improve its profits overall but it can employees, consumers and society overall.

I've attached a video featuring Michael Porter which will explain things much better than I have.