Benjamin Kapanay: My heart always told me that people are inherently good. My experience suggests otherwise. But what about you, Mr. Archer? In your long career as a journalist, would you say that people are mostly good?
Danny Archer: No. I'd say they're just people.
Benjamin Kapanay: Exactly. It is what they do that makes them good or bad.
Wednesday 29 December 2010
Tuesday 21 December 2010
bricks
Winter is here. With the change in weather, I have also experienced a change in the way my neurons fire. The ease with which electrical impulses flowed to excite my left hemisphere, the ability for acetylcholine to be released at my neuromuscular junction, for signal tranduction to become mechanic production to become artistic induction is nullified; the Hebbian synapse learns to unlearn. I lamented this to M. the other day in that when I am faced with a blank slate in front of me, I cannot articulate what I mean to say
To put it in layman’s, I have writer’s block.
It’s not that I don’t feel creative, rather I am bursting at the seams with things I want to write about. I just watched Amélie and Scott Pilgrim and The Pianist and all I can think of is art and expression. I attempt to watch movies to veg out but instead these moving pictures grow like lush vegetation in my mind. I visit a friend who has a new painting and I am filled with emerald jealousy. Clips on YouTube taunt me with their musical paeans. I am driven mad by these civilians excreting their passions into the world as I stand helplessly by, disabled and silent.
Until I am able to create, this incessant, infernal racket in my head will continue to annoy me so. It simmers and swirls - verbal ascites, artistic neuralgia. Be gone, so that I may relax.
Please.
***
Aujourd’hui,
Je pense.
Un jour, á la Canal Saint-Marin,
Tu et moi vais jeter des pierres,
Commes les enfants que nous sommes.
Un jour...
Sunday 21 November 2010
charity
Peter Singer, a world-renowned philosopher, tells a story: You are walking by a river in your nice new brown shoes on your way to work when you see a small child floundering in the water, in fear of drowning. Do you jump into the river to save the child, knowing it will ruin your shoes, or do you walk on by and let the child drown? I think it would be safe to say that almost everyone would indeed make an effort to save the child, even if it did mean ruining those nice shoes you just bought.
Now, let's extrapolate this example a little bit. There is a child in a faraway African country who is starving for want of food and won't survive past this Christmas season if nothing is done. You've been saving up for your Christmas shopping, and have some money that if properly spent, will tide the child over until the next harvest. What do you do? In this scenario, I imagine a most people would choose to spend the money on gifts rather than on saving this child.
I imagine there are a few big reasons for this:
1. Distance: in the first scenario, the child is in front of you - you can see him thrashing about, perhaps hear his cries for help, whereas there is no such direct connection with the African child. But should that really make a difference? Is the child in front of you more morally valuable than the child faraway? Is the notion that all men are created equal not impressed from us from the earliest moral teachings? If we truly believe that all people are indeed equal, then an argument of distance is not an argument at all, but rather a willful ignorance of the values who supposedly profess to support so strongly.
2. Effectiveness: In the first scenario, it's quite obvious that you can save the child (assuming you can swim!) whereas in the second, people are often skeptical that the dollars they spend are going to the right places. Now, I don't doubt that there are a lot of pretty poor charities out there, but I also am sure there are good ones as well. As per my earlier entry, using sites like givewell.org (incidentally started by a couple of young hedge fund wizards who wanted to make a difference) and charitynavigator.org really can substantially simplify navigating the morasse of charities that exist. They do the work so you know what you are giving to is effective.
3. Overwhelmed by the problem: Presumably, children aren't always going to drowning in rivers on your walks to work, but the number of impoverished children who are at risk of starvation must seem overwhelming. This is somewhat true, but the fact is the dollar value to eliminate to poverty in the world is absolutely paltry compared to military spending or TARP bailouts, etc... On a more personal level, I think one of the key differences between poverty alleviation and something like climate change is that the beneficaries are individual and discrete: what I mean is that if you decide to donate, you are assured that you will be making a significant diference in the lives of 10, 100, or even a 1000 people. On the other hand, being more green will not stem the tide of global warming unless a helluva lot of other people do it too (not to knock enivronmentalism, because it's very important to). My point is simply that we all can make a substantial difference in the lives of a significant number of people because of the huge imbalance of resources between us in Canada and those who are in extreme poverty abroad. To say that you have saved the lives of an entire family, what could be more rewarding or meaningful than that?
4. I really want to do Christmas shopping: The fact is, you can do both your Christmas shopping AND make those vital charitable donations. We are lucky to be blessed by such an abundance of wealth in Canada that I think we don't actually need to make any major sacrifices to make a big difference. I know that most of the people who read this blog are professionals / soon-to-be-professionals, and I know that all your PTs and engineers, and doctors will be making far, far in excess of the average Albertan family (which is ~65,000/year). I think the average Albertan lives pretty well at that wage, and knowing that many of you will make hundreds of thousands a year, sharing some of that with others who need it more shouldn't hurt too much at all.
I think charitable giving is often framed as some sort of sacrifice that we have to make - "if I give to charity, I won't be able to buy this TV, this stereo, this new car". But I don't think that is how we should think. Rather, think of it like this - that child I sponsor will be able to learn to read and to write and be able to work their way out of poverty, the vaccines I help purchase will prevent that group of people from developing a debilitating illness, the food packages I help will literally save the lives of a family from starvation.
People are always looking for meaning, and what greater meaning and purpose can there be than giving the basic needs so people can live - live to make lifelong friendships, live to fall in love, live to know the joys of family, live to find dreams and aspirations and to realize them - this is what we value in our lives, and this is really what charity is all about.
Now, let's extrapolate this example a little bit. There is a child in a faraway African country who is starving for want of food and won't survive past this Christmas season if nothing is done. You've been saving up for your Christmas shopping, and have some money that if properly spent, will tide the child over until the next harvest. What do you do? In this scenario, I imagine a most people would choose to spend the money on gifts rather than on saving this child.
I imagine there are a few big reasons for this:
1. Distance: in the first scenario, the child is in front of you - you can see him thrashing about, perhaps hear his cries for help, whereas there is no such direct connection with the African child. But should that really make a difference? Is the child in front of you more morally valuable than the child faraway? Is the notion that all men are created equal not impressed from us from the earliest moral teachings? If we truly believe that all people are indeed equal, then an argument of distance is not an argument at all, but rather a willful ignorance of the values who supposedly profess to support so strongly.
2. Effectiveness: In the first scenario, it's quite obvious that you can save the child (assuming you can swim!) whereas in the second, people are often skeptical that the dollars they spend are going to the right places. Now, I don't doubt that there are a lot of pretty poor charities out there, but I also am sure there are good ones as well. As per my earlier entry, using sites like givewell.org (incidentally started by a couple of young hedge fund wizards who wanted to make a difference) and charitynavigator.org really can substantially simplify navigating the morasse of charities that exist. They do the work so you know what you are giving to is effective.
3. Overwhelmed by the problem: Presumably, children aren't always going to drowning in rivers on your walks to work, but the number of impoverished children who are at risk of starvation must seem overwhelming. This is somewhat true, but the fact is the dollar value to eliminate to poverty in the world is absolutely paltry compared to military spending or TARP bailouts, etc... On a more personal level, I think one of the key differences between poverty alleviation and something like climate change is that the beneficaries are individual and discrete: what I mean is that if you decide to donate, you are assured that you will be making a significant diference in the lives of 10, 100, or even a 1000 people. On the other hand, being more green will not stem the tide of global warming unless a helluva lot of other people do it too (not to knock enivronmentalism, because it's very important to). My point is simply that we all can make a substantial difference in the lives of a significant number of people because of the huge imbalance of resources between us in Canada and those who are in extreme poverty abroad. To say that you have saved the lives of an entire family, what could be more rewarding or meaningful than that?
4. I really want to do Christmas shopping: The fact is, you can do both your Christmas shopping AND make those vital charitable donations. We are lucky to be blessed by such an abundance of wealth in Canada that I think we don't actually need to make any major sacrifices to make a big difference. I know that most of the people who read this blog are professionals / soon-to-be-professionals, and I know that all your PTs and engineers, and doctors will be making far, far in excess of the average Albertan family (which is ~65,000/year). I think the average Albertan lives pretty well at that wage, and knowing that many of you will make hundreds of thousands a year, sharing some of that with others who need it more shouldn't hurt too much at all.
I think charitable giving is often framed as some sort of sacrifice that we have to make - "if I give to charity, I won't be able to buy this TV, this stereo, this new car". But I don't think that is how we should think. Rather, think of it like this - that child I sponsor will be able to learn to read and to write and be able to work their way out of poverty, the vaccines I help purchase will prevent that group of people from developing a debilitating illness, the food packages I help will literally save the lives of a family from starvation.
People are always looking for meaning, and what greater meaning and purpose can there be than giving the basic needs so people can live - live to make lifelong friendships, live to fall in love, live to know the joys of family, live to find dreams and aspirations and to realize them - this is what we value in our lives, and this is really what charity is all about.
Christmas charitable giving
'Tis the season to be jolly, and generous - you know what they say, it's better to give than to receive. If you were planning to donate some money this Christmas season, make sure what you are donating to does a good job (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/opinion/21kristof.html?ref=opinion)
Consider using www.givewell.org or charitynavigator.org to look up the charities you plan to donate to in order to see how good they are, or simply to find a really, really good charity to give to if you don't know where to start.
Consider using www.givewell.org or charitynavigator.org to look up the charities you plan to donate to in order to see how good they are, or simply to find a really, really good charity to give to if you don't know where to start.
sex vs love
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/family-and-relationships/the-growing-appeal-of-sex-without-commitment/article1804708/
I came across this fascinating article on the 'growing appeal of sex without commitment'. It discussess the growing ascendancy of the notion of friends with benefits (FWB) beyond one's earlier years and well into professional life. I watched a bunch of the trailers that they suggested, but the funny thing was at the end of them it seems that the notion of love is deemed to be more meaningful, deep, and satisfying than the more casual sexual encounters - particulatly because it is love that draws them away from their initially FWB, playboyish lifestyles.
So why is society so obssessed with love, specifically the romantic, passionate love between two people? We are brought up to think that a vital and necessary part of life is to meet that special someone and then spend the rest of your days together - and that people who don't are somehow defective in some way. What drive this imperative? Is it something instinctually written into our DNA? Many would argue that this is not the case, that humans are not designed for monogamy, and that rather the primary biological directive of the male is to inseminate as many women as possible and the primary biological directive of the female is to be able to raise and protect her offspring. If monogamy is not evolutionary, then perhaps religion is the culprit, with a litany of mores on proper sexual practice (adultery, premarital sex, etc... are generally big no-nos), but even then I believe that polygamy is not uncommon in the Bible and the Qu'ran. So society then? Perhaps monogamy was designed as a means of preserving societal stability, so that kids would have two guaranteed parents to grow up with to take care of their wants and needs. But now, does society still need the institution of monogamy to stain intact?
Could you envision a world where we formed deep and close relationships with a network of friends, but there was not one only one person that sex was shared with (somewhat like the FWB notion put forth by the globeandmail)? Or perhaps one in which polygamy was accepted, rather than despised? A little strange, but I have to wonder, in something like 'what sort of relationships are the best', is there really any absolute right or wrong answers, or do we merely become creatures of culture and habit?
I came across this fascinating article on the 'growing appeal of sex without commitment'. It discussess the growing ascendancy of the notion of friends with benefits (FWB) beyond one's earlier years and well into professional life. I watched a bunch of the trailers that they suggested, but the funny thing was at the end of them it seems that the notion of love is deemed to be more meaningful, deep, and satisfying than the more casual sexual encounters - particulatly because it is love that draws them away from their initially FWB, playboyish lifestyles.
So why is society so obssessed with love, specifically the romantic, passionate love between two people? We are brought up to think that a vital and necessary part of life is to meet that special someone and then spend the rest of your days together - and that people who don't are somehow defective in some way. What drive this imperative? Is it something instinctually written into our DNA? Many would argue that this is not the case, that humans are not designed for monogamy, and that rather the primary biological directive of the male is to inseminate as many women as possible and the primary biological directive of the female is to be able to raise and protect her offspring. If monogamy is not evolutionary, then perhaps religion is the culprit, with a litany of mores on proper sexual practice (adultery, premarital sex, etc... are generally big no-nos), but even then I believe that polygamy is not uncommon in the Bible and the Qu'ran. So society then? Perhaps monogamy was designed as a means of preserving societal stability, so that kids would have two guaranteed parents to grow up with to take care of their wants and needs. But now, does society still need the institution of monogamy to stain intact?
Could you envision a world where we formed deep and close relationships with a network of friends, but there was not one only one person that sex was shared with (somewhat like the FWB notion put forth by the globeandmail)? Or perhaps one in which polygamy was accepted, rather than despised? A little strange, but I have to wonder, in something like 'what sort of relationships are the best', is there really any absolute right or wrong answers, or do we merely become creatures of culture and habit?
Saturday 20 November 2010
parents/children
One morning this week we finished rounds and sat about doing sharing circle. Typically our conversation revolves around typical water cooler talk, for example what happened in Vampire Diaries or one of the seven most current reality TV shows, how bad the traffic and/or weather was during the drive this morning, or how wedding plans are going because wow Becky just got her invitations finished and they look fantastic.
It just so happened that there was an excess of estrogen that day and everyone was in the mood for a particularly teary type of morning, so all of the physios talked about some of their previous patients with incredible stories. In my other blog, I talked about a patient I had who was just the sweetest man and always said thank you very much! whenever I did something. I remember talking to my CI who told me to go do a chart read on him, because somewhere in there it says how he had both of his legs broken by the Nazis, and just barely scraped by and made it here.
So this leads me to the story of one of my colleague's patients she had a few years ago. I actually don't know the patient's name, so we will call him Jack. What I do know is that Jack lived in Germany as a kid, growing up as a tot before Germany converted to Reich-ism. Then Hitler came to power and his life was not the same. Instead of playing with toy cars and tricycles and whatever action figures are appropriate for little children, Jack spent his time carrying ammunition for Nazis to use to kill people. His father was blond hair blue eyed and his mother was Jewish. When he was young his dad sent his mother to a concentration camp and he never saw her again.
Jack ran away from home sometime after that, and nobody blames him. He never talks about his father other than to spit bile and hatred, and nobody blames him. Jack came to Canada, the land of opportunity, and forged a life and met his wife and just tried to live normally.
I don't know what age he was when my colleague saw him in hospital, but I can only assume it was late in life because he was old and his wife was dying. They came together, he was on ortho and she was on medicine. My colleague remembered back to a specific day (and this is where the tissue comes out and she begins rubbing her red-rimmed eyes) when she went to look for Jack for his PM joint class, and she went to his room but couldn't find him there. She went downstairs to medicine figuring he'd be in his wife's room and he was, and she stood there in the doorway and watched them for a second, assessing whether it was rude to interrupt because as cruel as we are as physiotherapists, we are still people and can still be polite. She watched as he held the hand of his dying wife, tears flowing through the wrinkles and crow's feet on his face, and thanked her from the bottom of his heart for being with him and loving him and for giving him the most wonderful life.
Who knew that an inversion of love could exist so? The parent, who is supposed to be the golden role model, burning his wife while the son, who was supposed to follow in his father's footsteps, instead burned with a love for his wife. How dare we complain about our day - our mundane and banal distresses - when we do not understand hardship?
I learned a lesson last week and it is not new but it bears repeating. Be thankful from the bottom of your heart for everything that is beautiful in life.
It just so happened that there was an excess of estrogen that day and everyone was in the mood for a particularly teary type of morning, so all of the physios talked about some of their previous patients with incredible stories. In my other blog, I talked about a patient I had who was just the sweetest man and always said thank you very much! whenever I did something. I remember talking to my CI who told me to go do a chart read on him, because somewhere in there it says how he had both of his legs broken by the Nazis, and just barely scraped by and made it here.
So this leads me to the story of one of my colleague's patients she had a few years ago. I actually don't know the patient's name, so we will call him Jack. What I do know is that Jack lived in Germany as a kid, growing up as a tot before Germany converted to Reich-ism. Then Hitler came to power and his life was not the same. Instead of playing with toy cars and tricycles and whatever action figures are appropriate for little children, Jack spent his time carrying ammunition for Nazis to use to kill people. His father was blond hair blue eyed and his mother was Jewish. When he was young his dad sent his mother to a concentration camp and he never saw her again.
Jack ran away from home sometime after that, and nobody blames him. He never talks about his father other than to spit bile and hatred, and nobody blames him. Jack came to Canada, the land of opportunity, and forged a life and met his wife and just tried to live normally.
I don't know what age he was when my colleague saw him in hospital, but I can only assume it was late in life because he was old and his wife was dying. They came together, he was on ortho and she was on medicine. My colleague remembered back to a specific day (and this is where the tissue comes out and she begins rubbing her red-rimmed eyes) when she went to look for Jack for his PM joint class, and she went to his room but couldn't find him there. She went downstairs to medicine figuring he'd be in his wife's room and he was, and she stood there in the doorway and watched them for a second, assessing whether it was rude to interrupt because as cruel as we are as physiotherapists, we are still people and can still be polite. She watched as he held the hand of his dying wife, tears flowing through the wrinkles and crow's feet on his face, and thanked her from the bottom of his heart for being with him and loving him and for giving him the most wonderful life.
Who knew that an inversion of love could exist so? The parent, who is supposed to be the golden role model, burning his wife while the son, who was supposed to follow in his father's footsteps, instead burned with a love for his wife. How dare we complain about our day - our mundane and banal distresses - when we do not understand hardship?
I learned a lesson last week and it is not new but it bears repeating. Be thankful from the bottom of your heart for everything that is beautiful in life.
Saturday 13 November 2010
run, but not too fast
I sat in the most depressing rounds yesterday. In health care, we like to think that we are making a difference to the human being, that we are curing or saving or helping to dispel sickness and the evil that is disease. Why is the classic grad school interview answer to "Why do you want to be a "insert health professional here"?" typically "Because I want to help people/I care about people"? It is because it is trite but true, however cliché it is.
We talked about a patient yesterday who had a psychiatric history of bolting. This is one of those patients that you have troubles putting in restraints because they are Prospero, they are Houdini, they are escapologists to the maximum who seemingly find a way to dissolve through physical binds and create a code white situation.
There were so many problems with the care of this patient. One of the facilities the patient was staying in previously had a fifth floor that was supposedly a secure wing, one of those where you pound five numbers and hit the pound key into the keypad on the wall onto to find an overweight security guard sitting on the other side with one eye on his portable DVD player playing re-runs of Seinfeld and the other eye on you. See the problem was that nobody thought about the design of the building and that the windows actually swivel open in the parlour, and so one day this patient managed to pop the window open and tumble out in their attempt to make a run for the border.
By the time yesterday rolled around, it had been a long time since that incident, but the question we discussed was her fractured pelvis. Our orders were rather backwards, constituting of providing rehabilitation but being ordered to not proceed to aggressively. Essentially, "get her to walk but don't get her too good at walking or she might run". So tell me the point of what we're doing here because I sure don't get it.
What is the failing here? Is the problem the patient for being a psychiatric nightmare? Is the problem the facility management and the federal and provincial funding systems that have not adequately provided an appropriate environment for this lady, bouncing her from subacute to subacute? Is the problem my health care team and its improper attitude towards this patient? Or is this the failings of psychiatric medicine, that the pills and therapies we use are primitive and barbaric?
I gravitated towards health care because I thought could make a difference in somebody's life; I thought I could help humanity one person at a time by being a good man. Instead I'm sitting at a meeting in the morning where we reflect on the number of dementia'ed out 90 year olds who are awaiting long term care placements, commenting that we should be able to sign something when we're younger and have full capacity that if we know we are going to end up this way, old, frail, confused and combative, we authorize society to mercifully euthanize us.
Monday 8 November 2010
evolution of political ideals
http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/a-new-take-on-political-ideology-24683/
A fascinating article on the evolutionary reasons why someone might be liberal or someone might be conservative....
A fascinating article on the evolutionary reasons why someone might be liberal or someone might be conservative....
Sunday 7 November 2010
the hythe life
I am entering the last week of my rural rotation in Hythe/Beaverlodge, and I confess that I am eager to return home. The rural life probably isn't ideal for me, but I have tried to expose myself to some of its (more stereotypical) elements...
1. Guns: It seems >50% of the people around here hunt: rifles, shotguns, bowhunting (no jokes, Napoleon Dynamite). Not just men - the women too, and then they eat what they hunt. Cheap way to have some game meat, mind you. I had the chance to go shooting with an RCMP officer, a very nice fellow married to one of the nurses int the hospital. We shot clay disks with a couple shotguns, and boy they do have some recoil, and then we put up an upper torso target and used a scoped .22 to snipe at it. A pretty fun experience, all-in-all, something that I wouldn't do much of in the city...
2. Farming: I've been staying in the basement of an older couple who own a farm. We've had quite a few talks about farming - a really interesting field that I would imagine the average non ag-for college-educated student knows nothing about. Today, Mr D. took me out to the farm and gave me a bit of a tour. I must say, I was pretty amazed at the array of the machinery he had. Mechanization for the win. We sat in the combine, took a ride in the tractor, drove down country roads in a large trailer truck, and quadded around one of his eight quarters (a quarter is 0.5 mile x 0.5 mile parcel of land). 8 quarters apparently produced something like 900 tons of grain and 600 tons of canola this year. What surprised me was that he mostly works by himself, except during sowing and harvesting season, when he hires some help. He also seems to repair most everything by himself, which is amazing considering any given piece of farm equipment easily costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. What a world of knowledge there is out there!
3. Country bar: This one didn't seem much different from a regular bar, although I did end up seeing some of my patients there, which was a bit of an odd experience. Everyone really does know everyone when the population is low enough. This would have been better if I was drinking, but alas I was being a responsible lamer.
4. Stars: So this might not be stereotypically rural, but the stars outside large cities are absolutely gorgeous. You an actually see thousands upon thousands of stars, so many that the constellations get a little confusing. Even the milky way forms, well, a milky band across the sky that is quite visible - gorgeous!
All-in-all a bit of a cultural immersion that I am unlikely to repeat with any regularity in the future. Still, it's good to see a slightly different way of living that's not all that far from home.
1. Guns: It seems >50% of the people around here hunt: rifles, shotguns, bowhunting (no jokes, Napoleon Dynamite). Not just men - the women too, and then they eat what they hunt. Cheap way to have some game meat, mind you. I had the chance to go shooting with an RCMP officer, a very nice fellow married to one of the nurses int the hospital. We shot clay disks with a couple shotguns, and boy they do have some recoil, and then we put up an upper torso target and used a scoped .22 to snipe at it. A pretty fun experience, all-in-all, something that I wouldn't do much of in the city...
2. Farming: I've been staying in the basement of an older couple who own a farm. We've had quite a few talks about farming - a really interesting field that I would imagine the average non ag-for college-educated student knows nothing about. Today, Mr D. took me out to the farm and gave me a bit of a tour. I must say, I was pretty amazed at the array of the machinery he had. Mechanization for the win. We sat in the combine, took a ride in the tractor, drove down country roads in a large trailer truck, and quadded around one of his eight quarters (a quarter is 0.5 mile x 0.5 mile parcel of land). 8 quarters apparently produced something like 900 tons of grain and 600 tons of canola this year. What surprised me was that he mostly works by himself, except during sowing and harvesting season, when he hires some help. He also seems to repair most everything by himself, which is amazing considering any given piece of farm equipment easily costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. What a world of knowledge there is out there!
3. Country bar: This one didn't seem much different from a regular bar, although I did end up seeing some of my patients there, which was a bit of an odd experience. Everyone really does know everyone when the population is low enough. This would have been better if I was drinking, but alas I was being a responsible lamer.
4. Stars: So this might not be stereotypically rural, but the stars outside large cities are absolutely gorgeous. You an actually see thousands upon thousands of stars, so many that the constellations get a little confusing. Even the milky way forms, well, a milky band across the sky that is quite visible - gorgeous!
All-in-all a bit of a cultural immersion that I am unlikely to repeat with any regularity in the future. Still, it's good to see a slightly different way of living that's not all that far from home.
Friday 29 October 2010
where is god?
My favorite question, addressed by Dan Piraro:
And in other news, my new desktop:
God's hands holding the brain? Or is God emergent from that black box?
And in other news, my new desktop:
God's hands holding the brain? Or is God emergent from that black box?
Sunday 24 October 2010
why don't christians vote liberal?
I attended Sunday Service at the Beaverlodge Alliance Church today - it was a nice little place, well attended by young and old alike who generally seemed friendly and congenial. Being in what must be one of the most conservative ridings in the country (Beaverlodge is in the Peace River constituency: the Conservative candidate capture 70% of the vote in the most recent federal elections), I started to ponder the topic of Christian voting.
I am in the rather slim minority of Christians who vote Liberal/NDP. Yet why do so few Christians in Canada not vote for the Conservatives? It's a bit strange, particularly since a lot of the hot button issues that polarize the USA don't apply here: no parties are advocating for any sort of rollback on abortion services and none speak of repealing the legalization of same-sex marriages. If we exclude these two issues, what advantages are the Conservatives really left with? Some sort of perceived moral superiority over the "hedonistic liberal policies" like greater appreciation for tradition, family values, etc...? But are such perception rooted in any truth?
On the other hand, I can think of some strong reasons why a Christian should at least in principle vote Liberal/NDP. They are more inclined to put money into health, education, and welfare programs - and generally, these programs tend to subsidize the relatively less well-off in our society. In order to fund these programs, they are more inclined to tax the wealthier - so all those bits in the bible about sharing our wealth together are better realized. They tend to spend more on foreign aid, so I imagine they end up helping the severely impoverished more than the Conservatives.
So, what is really more important: supporting some sort of ill-defined and possibly non-existing difference in moral approach, or ensuring that the least of us in society have a chance at life, education, healthcare, etc...?
I am in the rather slim minority of Christians who vote Liberal/NDP. Yet why do so few Christians in Canada not vote for the Conservatives? It's a bit strange, particularly since a lot of the hot button issues that polarize the USA don't apply here: no parties are advocating for any sort of rollback on abortion services and none speak of repealing the legalization of same-sex marriages. If we exclude these two issues, what advantages are the Conservatives really left with? Some sort of perceived moral superiority over the "hedonistic liberal policies" like greater appreciation for tradition, family values, etc...? But are such perception rooted in any truth?
On the other hand, I can think of some strong reasons why a Christian should at least in principle vote Liberal/NDP. They are more inclined to put money into health, education, and welfare programs - and generally, these programs tend to subsidize the relatively less well-off in our society. In order to fund these programs, they are more inclined to tax the wealthier - so all those bits in the bible about sharing our wealth together are better realized. They tend to spend more on foreign aid, so I imagine they end up helping the severely impoverished more than the Conservatives.
So, what is really more important: supporting some sort of ill-defined and possibly non-existing difference in moral approach, or ensuring that the least of us in society have a chance at life, education, healthcare, etc...?
Wednesday 20 October 2010
taylor swift / beaverlodge
You know how sometimes you can listen to a song dozens of times and never really pay attention to its lyrics, and one day when you're driving your ear just happens to lend some concentration to the task and you hear a really nice line and you say 'wow, this is a pretty nice song'? (the next part of the story for me involves playing the song to death, but that's besides the point)
"i remember that fight 230 am, you said everything was slipping out of our hands, i ran out crying out and followed me into the street, braced myself for the goodbye, cause that's all i ever known, then you took me by surprise, you said you'd never leave me alone. you said, i remember how we felt sitting by the water, and everytime i look at you it's like the first time..."
Why am I citing Taylor Swift? As I was driving up to Beaverlodge, the place I am doing my rural rotation, I tuned into the radio about 400 km northwest of Edmonton and noticed that 3 of the 5 clearest radio stations were playing country tunes (Yes, Taylor is as crossover as you can get, but let's not deny her heritage) - it was a whole new world, a far cry from the Toronto metropolis that I had inhabitiated just 72 hours prior. What was this nova terra like?
Now that I've been here for all of 48 hours, it would be awfully presumptuous of me to make ponderous generalizations about what life in Beaverlodge is like, and even more presumptuous to make these generalize the Beaverlodge experience to 'small-town' life in general. I sometimes feel that Edmonton, a city of a million, is too small, too narrow-thinking, too uncultured, etc. etc. for my tastes (what a day for gross generalizations, and let it be known I do love the people). But if that is how I feel about Edmonton, what could I say about a place that is 300 times smaller yet? What is it like to live in a city where you can almost say that everyone knows everybody, or that there should at least be no more than two degrees of separation. What is it like when your peer group could consist of only a couple dozen individuals, particularly when you're growing up? More salient to my time here, what the heck do you do on a weekend? The experience should be very different from the city one. As I might expect, the people I have met here are very friendly and welcoming. I am staying at the home of a couple that have hosted medical students for the past 10 years with open arms. The hospital staff is congenial and pleasant. I went for a jog, and in 40 minutes ran in a loop that traversed half of the town's area. There is so much to discover and learn about, a cultural immersion that one might normally travel across the oceans to experience.
From my musings, one idea has stood out: Yesterday, someone at the hospital told me that it was awfully lonely in Beaverlodge if you were an adult and alone. It really is a bit of a small place, without much of a nightlife, wheere everyone kind of knows everyone tangentially, where you can do outdoors things, but Jack Frost might put a bit of a damper on things when things are -40. It occurs to me that maybe one thing that Beaverlodge might really win at is being a place where you could fall in love and raise your kids and grow old together and just really, really focus on one another.
Sometimes couples will do really fun and interesting things together. Go to an art gallery, attend the ballet/opera/symphony, go skydiving, jetset across the world's great cities, book a seat on Spaceship Two and head off into the stars (literally). But what if you were so in love that all you wanted was to be with that person and nothing else really mattered (I exaggerate, and these things are obviously not mutually exclusive, but I hope you get my point). What if you really just wanted to focus on one another, and everything that was going on around you was a monochrome to your sweetheart's colors. Then, maybe, living in a little out-of-the-ways hamlet would be as vivid to you heart as Paris or Milan. I think have always believed that falling in love, really, truly falling in love - intertwining experiences and souls and bodies so intimately - would be even more rewarding than setting out and exploring the world and all its adventures.
At the end of the music video for 'Mine', you see the two of them getting married, having kids, growing older (though they don't get very old in the video, Ms Swift has to look her normally pretty self). For some reason, I've always imagined that in the end the two in the music video would end up growing up somewhere out-of-the-ways, and really just focus on one another. How nice and lovely would that be?? Very...
[I've played 'Mine' on repeat throughout this entire blog post]
"i remember that fight 230 am, you said everything was slipping out of our hands, i ran out crying out and followed me into the street, braced myself for the goodbye, cause that's all i ever known, then you took me by surprise, you said you'd never leave me alone. you said, i remember how we felt sitting by the water, and everytime i look at you it's like the first time..."
Why am I citing Taylor Swift? As I was driving up to Beaverlodge, the place I am doing my rural rotation, I tuned into the radio about 400 km northwest of Edmonton and noticed that 3 of the 5 clearest radio stations were playing country tunes (Yes, Taylor is as crossover as you can get, but let's not deny her heritage) - it was a whole new world, a far cry from the Toronto metropolis that I had inhabitiated just 72 hours prior. What was this nova terra like?
Now that I've been here for all of 48 hours, it would be awfully presumptuous of me to make ponderous generalizations about what life in Beaverlodge is like, and even more presumptuous to make these generalize the Beaverlodge experience to 'small-town' life in general. I sometimes feel that Edmonton, a city of a million, is too small, too narrow-thinking, too uncultured, etc. etc. for my tastes (what a day for gross generalizations, and let it be known I do love the people). But if that is how I feel about Edmonton, what could I say about a place that is 300 times smaller yet? What is it like to live in a city where you can almost say that everyone knows everybody, or that there should at least be no more than two degrees of separation. What is it like when your peer group could consist of only a couple dozen individuals, particularly when you're growing up? More salient to my time here, what the heck do you do on a weekend? The experience should be very different from the city one. As I might expect, the people I have met here are very friendly and welcoming. I am staying at the home of a couple that have hosted medical students for the past 10 years with open arms. The hospital staff is congenial and pleasant. I went for a jog, and in 40 minutes ran in a loop that traversed half of the town's area. There is so much to discover and learn about, a cultural immersion that one might normally travel across the oceans to experience.
From my musings, one idea has stood out: Yesterday, someone at the hospital told me that it was awfully lonely in Beaverlodge if you were an adult and alone. It really is a bit of a small place, without much of a nightlife, wheere everyone kind of knows everyone tangentially, where you can do outdoors things, but Jack Frost might put a bit of a damper on things when things are -40. It occurs to me that maybe one thing that Beaverlodge might really win at is being a place where you could fall in love and raise your kids and grow old together and just really, really focus on one another.
Sometimes couples will do really fun and interesting things together. Go to an art gallery, attend the ballet/opera/symphony, go skydiving, jetset across the world's great cities, book a seat on Spaceship Two and head off into the stars (literally). But what if you were so in love that all you wanted was to be with that person and nothing else really mattered (I exaggerate, and these things are obviously not mutually exclusive, but I hope you get my point). What if you really just wanted to focus on one another, and everything that was going on around you was a monochrome to your sweetheart's colors. Then, maybe, living in a little out-of-the-ways hamlet would be as vivid to you heart as Paris or Milan. I think have always believed that falling in love, really, truly falling in love - intertwining experiences and souls and bodies so intimately - would be even more rewarding than setting out and exploring the world and all its adventures.
At the end of the music video for 'Mine', you see the two of them getting married, having kids, growing older (though they don't get very old in the video, Ms Swift has to look her normally pretty self). For some reason, I've always imagined that in the end the two in the music video would end up growing up somewhere out-of-the-ways, and really just focus on one another. How nice and lovely would that be?? Very...
[I've played 'Mine' on repeat throughout this entire blog post]
Tuesday 19 October 2010
Marginalia at the Edge of the Evening
When I sit down at the edge of the bed at night and reflect upon my day, oft my mind drifts like this:
Marginalia at the Edge of the Evening - Alice Oswald
now the sound of the trees is worldwide
and I'm still here/not here
at the very lifting edge of evening.
and I should be up there. Bathing children.
because it's late, the bike's asleep on its feet,
the fields hang to the sun by slackened lines
and when the wind blows it shows
the evening's underside
(when the sun sinks it takes
a moment smaller than a spider)
I saw the luminous underneath of a moth
I saw a blackbird
mouth to the glow of the hour in hieroglyphics...
who left the light on the clouds?
pause
the man at the wheel signs his speed on the ringroad.
right here in my reach, time is as thick as stone
and as thin as a flying strand
it's night and somebody's
pushing his mower home
to the moon
***
Let us all push our mowers to the moon...
Marginalia at the Edge of the Evening - Alice Oswald
now the sound of the trees is worldwide
and I'm still here/not here
at the very lifting edge of evening.
and I should be up there. Bathing children.
because it's late, the bike's asleep on its feet,
the fields hang to the sun by slackened lines
and when the wind blows it shows
the evening's underside
(when the sun sinks it takes
a moment smaller than a spider)
I saw the luminous underneath of a moth
I saw a blackbird
mouth to the glow of the hour in hieroglyphics...
who left the light on the clouds?
pause
the man at the wheel signs his speed on the ringroad.
right here in my reach, time is as thick as stone
and as thin as a flying strand
it's night and somebody's
pushing his mower home
to the moon
***
Let us all push our mowers to the moon...
attention
I can't sleep and it's almost 4 AM. I have class at 8 AM, but for the last couple of days this has kind of been my schedule. It's getting increasingly harder for me to regulate my body now for some reason, as if by some wayward polarity I have gone from being a model student to a junior high dropout. I've missed lots of classes these last few weeks and just can't seem to get my shit together.
Apart from my bewildering current lack of self-confidence, I can't seem to shake this fascinating study out of my mind. It's not a new one, in fact it appeared in Nature over 10 years ago, but the implications are phenomenal. I wonder if you're familiar with the term hemineglect? It's a disease state in neurology that typically accompanies right-sided parietal damage that causes the individual to not pay attention to the contralateral hemifield. It's peculiar since vision systems work entirely well, they just don't attend to it for gosh knows why. If you ask them to draw a clock they will draw half a clock with half of the numbers, and if you ask them to put on their coat they only draw on one sleeve. I've heard stories of females putting on only half of their makeup and a guy who would only eat half of his meal.
So how do you get someone to pay attention to their neglected field? Rosetti et al. had the bright idea of using prism goggles - those fantastic spectacles that shift your vision an 'X' number of degrees to one side. Essentially if you think about it, if you wear glasses that shift your vision 10 degrees to the right and you're trying to throw darts at a dart board, you're going to miss until your brain processes that it should actually be 10 degrees more to the left. In the same manner, they would apply a prismatic shift to those with left prismatic neglect, so that when they removed their goggles after adaptation hypothetically they would have 10 extra degrees to the neglected side.
AND IT WORKED. Neuropsychological tests showed that they attended to more of the previously neglected field than before. Savings lasted up to four days!
I just can't get over how cool this is. Rehabilitation has been so exciting since the advent of neuroplasticity, and here is a mechanism by which we have the possibility to rehabilitate cognition. Absolutely fascinating!
Link to the full PDF: here.
Apart from my bewildering current lack of self-confidence, I can't seem to shake this fascinating study out of my mind. It's not a new one, in fact it appeared in Nature over 10 years ago, but the implications are phenomenal. I wonder if you're familiar with the term hemineglect? It's a disease state in neurology that typically accompanies right-sided parietal damage that causes the individual to not pay attention to the contralateral hemifield. It's peculiar since vision systems work entirely well, they just don't attend to it for gosh knows why. If you ask them to draw a clock they will draw half a clock with half of the numbers, and if you ask them to put on their coat they only draw on one sleeve. I've heard stories of females putting on only half of their makeup and a guy who would only eat half of his meal.
So how do you get someone to pay attention to their neglected field? Rosetti et al. had the bright idea of using prism goggles - those fantastic spectacles that shift your vision an 'X' number of degrees to one side. Essentially if you think about it, if you wear glasses that shift your vision 10 degrees to the right and you're trying to throw darts at a dart board, you're going to miss until your brain processes that it should actually be 10 degrees more to the left. In the same manner, they would apply a prismatic shift to those with left prismatic neglect, so that when they removed their goggles after adaptation hypothetically they would have 10 extra degrees to the neglected side.
AND IT WORKED. Neuropsychological tests showed that they attended to more of the previously neglected field than before. Savings lasted up to four days!
I just can't get over how cool this is. Rehabilitation has been so exciting since the advent of neuroplasticity, and here is a mechanism by which we have the possibility to rehabilitate cognition. Absolutely fascinating!
Link to the full PDF: here.
Friday 15 October 2010
LTD
I think one of my favorite themes of all time is loss. The level of pain and anguish emanating from events where you lose something is arguably unsurpassed by any other emotional state I can think of. You never forget.
I remember a few weeks ago walking onto the ward Mag was working on carrying a box of Italian bakery for the unit, and little did I know that my timing was impeccably trained to when her patient had just abruptly died. I walked out of the elevator and the air felt weird and it didn't strike me until after Mag burst into tears that this was the air of loss.
Likewise, I profoundly remember what seemed like an equally traumatizing event that happened to me when I was a child. My dad had managed to rescue a little robin from the neighbor's cat that was prowling on it. The robin had a messed up wing and so my dad tried to patch it up, and was keeping it in a tiny plastic basket that kids use to pretend they're going on picnics. I remember one afternoon thinking that birds need vitamin D just like humans do, and I put the basket out in the sun. When I came home from piano lessons, the bird had roasted to death.
I remember a few weeks ago walking onto the ward Mag was working on carrying a box of Italian bakery for the unit, and little did I know that my timing was impeccably trained to when her patient had just abruptly died. I walked out of the elevator and the air felt weird and it didn't strike me until after Mag burst into tears that this was the air of loss.
Likewise, I profoundly remember what seemed like an equally traumatizing event that happened to me when I was a child. My dad had managed to rescue a little robin from the neighbor's cat that was prowling on it. The robin had a messed up wing and so my dad tried to patch it up, and was keeping it in a tiny plastic basket that kids use to pretend they're going on picnics. I remember one afternoon thinking that birds need vitamin D just like humans do, and I put the basket out in the sun. When I came home from piano lessons, the bird had roasted to death.
Sunday 10 October 2010
city exploration
My community medicine (=public health) elective in Toronto has been quite, quite light, so I've had plenty of time to explore the city itself. Now, even if my elective was busy I would have taken the time to explore, as city exploration is probably one of my most favored leisure activities. The first thing on most travellers' lists is probably to see the top ten tourist attractions of a particular location, and understandably so.
But I am more drawn to the crisscrossing streets with their eclectic shops and to the neighborhoods, rich and poor, and to the nature and the parks that let the city breathe. In essence, I am drawn to the city's interstitium, all the stuff that makes a city a city found between the tourist attractions and the ritzy downtowns. There is little I like more than hopping on a bicycle (walking is too slow, driving is too fast) and pedalling through a virgin (to my eyes, at any rate) city, trying to find its nooks and crannies and the things that make the place unique. I am not a terribly well travelled person by any stretch of the imagination, but the more I do see the more I love urban exploration.
If you know me, you'll know that I am absolutely, 110% in love with Vancouver - the mountains that are close enough to bike to, an ocean that you can walk/bike along for dozens of kilometers, and a temperate climate that enables you to do both. That being said, I must confess that I have been rather impressed with what Toronto has to offer. Perhaps it's because I am here during fall and they say that the splashes of red and yellow gradually replacing the deciduous green and the autumn breezes make for perfect travelling weather, but these things aside I am loving the fact that the city is filled with different neighborhoods and different ethnicities and different curio shoppes and districts. Quite a vibrant place really - not too bad a place to think about living in.
But I am more drawn to the crisscrossing streets with their eclectic shops and to the neighborhoods, rich and poor, and to the nature and the parks that let the city breathe. In essence, I am drawn to the city's interstitium, all the stuff that makes a city a city found between the tourist attractions and the ritzy downtowns. There is little I like more than hopping on a bicycle (walking is too slow, driving is too fast) and pedalling through a virgin (to my eyes, at any rate) city, trying to find its nooks and crannies and the things that make the place unique. I am not a terribly well travelled person by any stretch of the imagination, but the more I do see the more I love urban exploration.
If you know me, you'll know that I am absolutely, 110% in love with Vancouver - the mountains that are close enough to bike to, an ocean that you can walk/bike along for dozens of kilometers, and a temperate climate that enables you to do both. That being said, I must confess that I have been rather impressed with what Toronto has to offer. Perhaps it's because I am here during fall and they say that the splashes of red and yellow gradually replacing the deciduous green and the autumn breezes make for perfect travelling weather, but these things aside I am loving the fact that the city is filled with different neighborhoods and different ethnicities and different curio shoppes and districts. Quite a vibrant place really - not too bad a place to think about living in.
Friday 8 October 2010
chance encounter with a shaman
I met a shaman.
It's true. Sobey's is apparently the hub for all that is strange and odd. The universe funnels all bizarreness into this one location where you can purchase fried chicken and a pop all whilst enjoying the circus that wanders through.
I was sitting at that same table on the same day minding my own business studying mirror neurons in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex when this rather rotund man dressed all in black ambles in. He looked out of place with his matching rollie-suitcase and obsidian-colored duffel bag which he plopped down at the table next to me that just moments before had been occupied by résumé-plumber-trucker guy. He eyed the room, then eyed my textbook, then grinned widely at me. Noticing that my earphones were on, he started gesticulating wildly to the point where I had the option of doing two things: A. Humor this guy or B. Briskly pack up all my belongings, walk away while pretending to ignore his protests for attention, half-run-half-mosey to a quiet location all the while stealing quick glances back to see if he's following me then setting up shop in a place where I won't be disturbed hopefully.
I have the bad habit of doing the former because I like to hear people's stories, so I pulled off my earbuds and set them down. He proceeded in a very thick immigrant accent to tell me how he's a shaman and sometimes he has to make sure he doesn't think certain things otherwise they happen, and often he thinks bad things and bad things happen to people. He's been trying for a long time to cleanse his mind and try not to think about things. He told me how he owned a three-quarters of a million dollar property just somewhere around the Caribbean islands and how he had three wives but he put that all behind him and sold all his wares so that he could tell the world about the truth. He said he operated on Whyte Ave (you might run into this guy sometime, excitement!) trying to tell the drunks about the truth.
I was wondering what the truth was when he turns and points to the University and asks me why I would go to this place of stupidity to study. I asked him what he meant, and he said, "This place is stupidity. You cannot frame the world in a classroom. Why do you go to a place of stupidity to study the truth? You will not find truth in a field of stupidity. I have learned not to lead with my mind but more with my heart. You cannot know the world if you don't experience it. In the same that you go geese hunting, you cannot try to go find the geese, you need to let the geese come to you. I have learned that sometimes it is better in life to not seek the truth but to let the truth come to you."
I thought he had a point, but at this point I thought he was also insane. He didn't seem schizo and he had a tremor when he moved his hand so I was thinking alcohol, but he didn't smell of cheap Boxer beer. I liked what he said, and told him that sometimes you need to frame the world in order to understand it better, like in pieces for better scrutiny. But you also need those experiences to learn the world too - how can you describe Rome in a paragraph? And sometimes in order to learn what things are, you need to know what they are not. Sometimes you need to experience stupidity in order to know that it is not the truth.
He was starting to irritate me when he started talking about how much he hated certain religions, and began listing them. He described how he wanted to start a new colony based on this model of society that was outlined to him in a book he was holding. I wrote down the title, "The First and Last Freedom by J. Krishnamurti" which had a foreword from Aldous Huxley, and perused it a bit, flipping through the pages on love and on community and on family and such. Something to read on a rainy day.
I had to go back to class so I shook this man's hand and wished him all the best. I had fun talking to him even though my conclusion at the end of the day was that he was balls out fucking psychotic.
But he's a shaman. Don't get to meet one every day.
It's true. Sobey's is apparently the hub for all that is strange and odd. The universe funnels all bizarreness into this one location where you can purchase fried chicken and a pop all whilst enjoying the circus that wanders through.
I was sitting at that same table on the same day minding my own business studying mirror neurons in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex when this rather rotund man dressed all in black ambles in. He looked out of place with his matching rollie-suitcase and obsidian-colored duffel bag which he plopped down at the table next to me that just moments before had been occupied by résumé-plumber-trucker guy. He eyed the room, then eyed my textbook, then grinned widely at me. Noticing that my earphones were on, he started gesticulating wildly to the point where I had the option of doing two things: A. Humor this guy or B. Briskly pack up all my belongings, walk away while pretending to ignore his protests for attention, half-run-half-mosey to a quiet location all the while stealing quick glances back to see if he's following me then setting up shop in a place where I won't be disturbed hopefully.
I have the bad habit of doing the former because I like to hear people's stories, so I pulled off my earbuds and set them down. He proceeded in a very thick immigrant accent to tell me how he's a shaman and sometimes he has to make sure he doesn't think certain things otherwise they happen, and often he thinks bad things and bad things happen to people. He's been trying for a long time to cleanse his mind and try not to think about things. He told me how he owned a three-quarters of a million dollar property just somewhere around the Caribbean islands and how he had three wives but he put that all behind him and sold all his wares so that he could tell the world about the truth. He said he operated on Whyte Ave (you might run into this guy sometime, excitement!) trying to tell the drunks about the truth.
I was wondering what the truth was when he turns and points to the University and asks me why I would go to this place of stupidity to study. I asked him what he meant, and he said, "This place is stupidity. You cannot frame the world in a classroom. Why do you go to a place of stupidity to study the truth? You will not find truth in a field of stupidity. I have learned not to lead with my mind but more with my heart. You cannot know the world if you don't experience it. In the same that you go geese hunting, you cannot try to go find the geese, you need to let the geese come to you. I have learned that sometimes it is better in life to not seek the truth but to let the truth come to you."
I thought he had a point, but at this point I thought he was also insane. He didn't seem schizo and he had a tremor when he moved his hand so I was thinking alcohol, but he didn't smell of cheap Boxer beer. I liked what he said, and told him that sometimes you need to frame the world in order to understand it better, like in pieces for better scrutiny. But you also need those experiences to learn the world too - how can you describe Rome in a paragraph? And sometimes in order to learn what things are, you need to know what they are not. Sometimes you need to experience stupidity in order to know that it is not the truth.
He was starting to irritate me when he started talking about how much he hated certain religions, and began listing them. He described how he wanted to start a new colony based on this model of society that was outlined to him in a book he was holding. I wrote down the title, "The First and Last Freedom by J. Krishnamurti" which had a foreword from Aldous Huxley, and perused it a bit, flipping through the pages on love and on community and on family and such. Something to read on a rainy day.
I had to go back to class so I shook this man's hand and wished him all the best. I had fun talking to him even though my conclusion at the end of the day was that he was balls out fucking psychotic.
But he's a shaman. Don't get to meet one every day.
Thursday 7 October 2010
robot unicorn attack
http://games.adultswim.com/robot-unicorn-attack-twitchy-online-game.html
It's Erasure's 'Always' playing in the background...
It's Erasure's 'Always' playing in the background...
when recycling makes me sad
Environmentalists, don't cringe, this has almost nothing to do with the environment. I was taking a stroll down Danforth Avenue in Toronto when I saw an old Chinese lady paying close attention to a huddle of stuffed garbage bags. She was handling something, which she happened to fumble. Now, it happened to be a rather windy day today, and in a couple seconds the pop can that she had dropped had rolled a fair distance down the street. She scurried after the can, which she quickly recovered and returned to her garbage bags.
A part of me has often wondered if people such as herself don't take some pride in being able to eke out a living by cashing in on recyclables (and along the way, doing her bit to green the earth) and thereby avoiding the need to panhandle - perhaps what is pathos to me is condescension to her. But oh boy it's hard not to feel a pang of disheartenment when I see the elderly climbing into dumpsters to make a nickel-and-dime living, a semi-regular occurence near the apartment I live.
A part of me has often wondered if people such as herself don't take some pride in being able to eke out a living by cashing in on recyclables (and along the way, doing her bit to green the earth) and thereby avoiding the need to panhandle - perhaps what is pathos to me is condescension to her. But oh boy it's hard not to feel a pang of disheartenment when I see the elderly climbing into dumpsters to make a nickel-and-dime living, a semi-regular occurence near the apartment I live.
Wednesday 6 October 2010
tips/tricks
I am currently at the Sobey's on campus attempting to read some neuroanatomy notes, but my interest is piqued considerably by the gentleman that is seated at the table right beside me. He is holding a résumé, looking slightly forlorn as he peruses the pages of his vita. He's dressed in garb that makes him resemble a trucker (but we shouldn't judge a book by its cover, right?). After a moment of looking around awkwardly, he sidles up to the café counter and orders himself a beer.
He sits down to read the newspaper left at his table for a few moments, then someone arrives. He stands and they shake hands briefly, and then the man begins perusing his résumé and critiquing its components.
I know I shouldn't judge, but I can't help myself. Here is a man who hasn't dressed up for this rather important meeting, who is sipping on an alcoholic beverage while he discusses how there was a lapse in employment between the years of 2001 to 2004 and how it is likely a future employer will notice that. I can see his plumber butt from here as he reaches into his back pocket for his wallet, doling out $60 for this help session.
I don't know why this is relevant, but this strikes me as an important moment in my life that I should capture for further analysis.
He sits down to read the newspaper left at his table for a few moments, then someone arrives. He stands and they shake hands briefly, and then the man begins perusing his résumé and critiquing its components.
I know I shouldn't judge, but I can't help myself. Here is a man who hasn't dressed up for this rather important meeting, who is sipping on an alcoholic beverage while he discusses how there was a lapse in employment between the years of 2001 to 2004 and how it is likely a future employer will notice that. I can see his plumber butt from here as he reaches into his back pocket for his wallet, doling out $60 for this help session.
I don't know why this is relevant, but this strikes me as an important moment in my life that I should capture for further analysis.
Monday 4 October 2010
Introductions
One day Joey and I were chatting over some bottomless beefsteak fries at Red Robin's (fyi, only the breast of the robin is red, the rest of the bird is quite brownish-grey), when I lamented on how rarely he updated his blog. A little hypocritical of me, as my track record is far inferior to Joey's. As our chat traversed the pitfalls and tribulations of our blogging experiences, it occured to me that things might, just might work a bit better if we both contributed to the same blog. Mutual prodding to make posts, half the posts to make - what a lovely idea! And so ROBOT UNICORN (because they are so awesome (http://games.adultswim.com/robot-unicorn-attack-twitchy-online-game.html - thanks Tim) BUDDIES (because we are buddies) was born.
Hopefully it will stay alive and magical for a while too...
Hopefully it will stay alive and magical for a while too...
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