tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17971304419482577272024-03-17T23:03:32.294-04:00On Shaman's RockShaman's Rock is not just a place in Ontario bush country. It is a state of mind.Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.comBlogger575125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-39574131401068111482024-01-18T19:24:00.000-05:002024-01-18T19:24:04.396-05:00<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Many folks are cheering the recent arrival of snow that has been missing for most of this unusual winter.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Lack of snow in October, November and December has been tough on businesses that rely on winter activity spending. Ski hills, snowmobile services, restaurants, confectionary and grocery stores and others all have been hurt by the snowless first half of winter.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Some regional tourism officials estimate financial losses in the millions of dollars because of the lack of snow. So, the recent snowfalls finally have given them reason to cheer.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Plants and animals can’t cheer, but if they could their voices would be loud and happy.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">We humans often see winter as a time pretty much devoid of life. Bears and some other animals are hibernating; many birds have gone south. However, unseen by us are life activities beneath the snow. Life that is preserved by the snow.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">A snow pack of just a few inches can stabilize soil temperatures, providing just enough warmth to keep snakes, bugs and small animals like voles and mice from freezing. The snow also gives them some protection from predators.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Some plants continue to be active beneath the winter snow. It insulates their root systems from extreme cold, while mosses, fungi and even flowers continue to function and even germinate beneath the snow. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Without snow, life becomes more difficult for animals that don’t hibernate or go south.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The lynx with its snowshoe-like paws has a harder time pursuing prey. Others, like some hares whose coats turn white when snow arrives, are more exposed to predators.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Wolverines, which have been making a bit of a comeback in Ontario, do not reproduce well in the absence of snow. Snow cover in areas where they reproduce has been diminishing. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Some Rocky Mountain regions are said to have two fewer weeks of snow cover than 50 years ago. One study has found that the Alps in Europe could lose as much as 70 per cent of its snow cover by 2100.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">These changes are increasing scientific interest in winter ecology, the study of relationships between living things and their winter environment, Scientists studying climate change are documenting how less snow is creating changes in the global environment.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">They are concerned that a warming planet with less snow and ice is forcing some plants and animals to move from regions they have occupied for centuries. For instance, areas with less annual snow melt could become unsuitable for growing food. Animals like the wolverine could abandon areas where less snow has reduced their ability to survive and reproduce.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Researchers are finding that earlier spring melting, and less of it, might be a reason why we are seeing more severe forest wildfires. Some research has found that landscapes burned by wildfires had less water from snowmelt than unburned areas. And, snow melted nine days earlier in burned areas compared with unburned areas.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">There is a lot of talk and worry about melting glaciers, but the effects of disappearing glaciers are tiny compared to shrinking snow packs. Snow holds huge amounts of moisture that is released slowly as temperatures rise, nourishing plants as they need it.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Melting snow also becomes a natural reservoir system providing water for human communities. For instance, one-third of the water used by California cities and farmland comes from melted snowpacks.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Perhaps the most important factor of snow is that it helps regulate the temperature of an increasingly warming planet. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Snow is highly reflective, sending the sun’s radiation back into the atmosphere instead of into the ground where it increases the earth’s temperature.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Scientists say that new snow cover can reflect up to 90 per cent of the sun’s radiation back into the atmosphere. Sea ice reflects only roughly 60 per cent back to the sky, land without snow 10 to 20 percent and open ocean a mere six per cent.</p><p></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">So like it or hate it, winter’s snow is a critically important part of our world. We can live without the inconveniences it brings, and even the pleasures of winter recreations. But we cannot live without the water it provides to maintain our health and grow the food we need to survive.</p>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-46483642236699935582023-12-22T08:37:00.000-05:002023-12-22T08:37:14.772-05:00<p> <em style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">(I have written and told this story many times. Christmas would not be Christmas without telling it again.)</em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">—</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Fresh fallen snow protested beneath my gumboots breaking trail down the unploughed lane. Dry, sharp squeaks, not unlike the cries of cheap chalk scrapped against too clean a blackboard. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Skuur-eek, skuur-eek.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDscZnwe0wghcYXvR4JR-YLkLCcKzx92LyvPjQOKGGmu4UsO6ef4jZ-uWiL2wp7DwPiTpQMGMbUFUQ-9T7Ank7YgETYjV10RRkBA-lRjm9ahK84nLH0o8H7LMgW9d77Njk0NcVP7A7Ns2eQFHtHjeSYTG58GKx9YnwD_EG-sjhICrlz0hcVEbLQmOI/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDscZnwe0wghcYXvR4JR-YLkLCcKzx92LyvPjQOKGGmu4UsO6ef4jZ-uWiL2wp7DwPiTpQMGMbUFUQ-9T7Ank7YgETYjV10RRkBA-lRjm9ahK84nLH0o8H7LMgW9d77Njk0NcVP7A7Ns2eQFHtHjeSYTG58GKx9YnwD_EG-sjhICrlz0hcVEbLQmOI/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The boots ignored the sounds. They moved on, ribbed rubber bottoms and laced high leather tops creating a meandering wake in the ankle-deep snow. To each side of the trail, drifted snow leaned tiredly against the backsides of the bungalows, dropped there to rest by an impatient Christmas Eve blizzard just passed through. <p></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Faint strains of music joined the squeaking as I approached our back fence. I stopped to hear the music more clearly, now identifiable as singing voices escaping through an open window. I shuffled forward and listened to the notes float out crisply and clearly, then mingle with smoke rising from the chimneys. Notes and smoke rose together into an icy midnight sky illuminated by frost crystals set shimmering by thousands of stars, and the frosty moon the Chippewas called Minidoo Geezis, the little spirit moon of early winter. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">I held my breath to hear better and determined that the music was the Christmas carol <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">O Holy Night,</em> and that the notes came from the window in my grandmother’s room. It was open to the cold because most people smoked cigarettes back then, and at gatherings cracked a window to clear the air. They sang the first verse, and when they reached the sixth line, the other voices ceased and one voice carried on alone:</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">“Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices! O Niiii . . .iiight Diii…vine! . . . .” That’s the part where the notes rise higher and higher until the singer reaches an awesome pitch.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The solo voice belonged to my grandmother, Louise LaFrance, and I knew she hit that high note while sitting on the edge of the bed that was her prison. She was crippled with limb-twisting rheumatoid arthritis and suffered searing pain and the humiliation of being bedridden, a humiliation that included needing a bedpan to relieve herself and having her son-in-law lift her into the bathtub.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The others stopped singing to listen to her. Each time she hit the high notes at the words ‘O Night Divine’, a shiver danced on my spine.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">When she finished singing <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">O Holy Night</em>, the other voices started up again, this time with <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Silent Night</em> and other favourite carols. I went into the house and found Christmas Eve celebrants – my mom, dad and some neighbours – crowded into the 10-foot by 10-foot bedroom that was my grandmother’s world. They sang long into the night, mostly in French because the neighbours were the Gauthiers who seldom spoke English to my grandmother and mother.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The crippling arthritis had attacked my grandmother not long after my birth sixteen years before. It advanced quickly, twisting her fingers like pretzels, then deforming her ankles and knees. You could see the pain in her eyes and from my bedroom I could hear her moaning in restless sleep, sometimes calling out for relief. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">She took up smoking to ease the pain. Late into the night I would hear her stir, then listen for the scrape of a wooden match against the side of a box of Redbird matches. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Sometimes I would get up and go to her door and see the red tip of the cigarette glow brightly as she inhaled and I would go in and we would talk in the smoky darkness. Mostly the talk was about growing up and sorting through the conflicts between a teenager and his parents. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">After the singing ended that night, my mother served tourtière, which I slathered with mustard. Then we gathered at the tree and opened our gifts. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">I have long forgotten what gift I got that Christmas. It doesn’t matter. My real gift was an understanding of how that frail, twisted body came to produce such sweet but powerful notes. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">I realized that those high notes were not solely the products of the lungs. They were driven by something stronger than mere flesh. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">They came from an unbreakable spirit, and a relentless will to overcome.</p>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-21424871232881045582023-12-16T09:05:00.001-05:002023-12-16T09:06:47.624-05:00<p> We tend to think of global warming and climate change as some new development, It’s not. There have been warnings about it going back many decades.</p><p>You find the warnings in the oddest places. I’m reading John D, MacDonald’s A Fearful Yellow Eye, his eighth novel in the Travis McGee crime series, and find this passage:</p><p>“I could smell a sourness in the wind. I remembered that it blew across a dying lake. For a hundred years the cities had dumped their wastes and corruptions and acids into it, and now suddenly everyone was aghast that it should have the impertinence to start dying like Lake Erie.”</p><p>It continues: </p><p>“The ecology was broken, the renewing forces at last overwhelmed. </p><p>“When the sea begins to stink, man better have some fresh green planets to colonize, because this one is going to be used up.”</p><p>A mystery novel is an unusual place to find strong environmental statements. But MacDonald was a very vocal activist who often slipped environmental comments into his mysteries. He wrote the Fear Yellow Eye criticism of the environment back in 1966, long before most people got onto the Save the Environment campaign.</p><p>Much of MacDonald’s environmental activism was directed at his adopted state of Florida. He fought dredge-and-fill projects, schemes to change the Everglades and was involved in stopping construction of a huge airport in what is now Florida’s Big Cypress Preserve.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7pn71oR9LNV2RzNjOMKqZy3NXE2TOztaL01xqVGRWsb3qzYcntmiPQXxzWJV0GGrRdFvXQtbgn5KDRMydxzAavkiEnHcrw7_YTzsQN205wpGqUwC3td4Pw_K6mwY0VHNePVgb4P9kKJTlU4OZxCaA-rwEWDzV9kMSDWPjS9L8b2DgZi_yhRJjXoTX/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7pn71oR9LNV2RzNjOMKqZy3NXE2TOztaL01xqVGRWsb3qzYcntmiPQXxzWJV0GGrRdFvXQtbgn5KDRMydxzAavkiEnHcrw7_YTzsQN205wpGqUwC3td4Pw_K6mwY0VHNePVgb4P9kKJTlU4OZxCaA-rwEWDzV9kMSDWPjS9L8b2DgZi_yhRJjXoTX/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Florida is the home of Travis McGee, MacDonald’s fictional beach bum salvage consultant who recovers property for people who have had it taken from them by illegal or unscrupulous means. <p></p><p>“I’m a high-level Robin Hood,” he says in one book. “I steal from thieves.”</p><p>McGee appears in 21 of MacDonald’s novels and has plenty to say about how overdevelopment is ruining our landscapes, especially in Florida. </p><p>In one book he notes: “The rivers and the swamps are dying, the birds are dying, the fish are dying. They’re paving the whole state. And the people who give a damn can’t be heard.”</p><p>"The air used to smell like orange blossoms,” MacDonald wrote in 1979. “Now when the wind is right, it smells like a robot's armpit.”</p><p>MacDonald has a lot of say about a lot of things, including the greed and corruption that leads people into making bad decisions. But he doesn’t let his (and McGee’s) views on the environment, or society’s wrongs, get in the way of his mysteries. </p><p>His McGee is a hard-boiled investigator with a football player’s physique that he uses to get himself out of tough situations. </p><p>He’s also a thinking person’s investigator – a knight in slightly tarnished armour who has a timeless sense of honour and obligation.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </p><p>He doesn’t like the world he sees around him and has retired to his houseboat The Busted Flush, which he won in a poker game. He comes out of retirement when he needs money, charging a fee of 50-per-cent of the value of whatever he recovers.</p><p>MacDonald began the McGee series with The Deep Blue Good-By in 1964, partly as a way of calling attention to the ruining of Florida’s natural areas by overdevelopment. He followed that with three more McGee mysteries in the same year.</p><p>Fawcett Publications, the American publisher of the paperback McGee mysteries, used to say that it had 32 million McGee books in print. Each title contained a colour to help readers remember which ones they had read.</p><p>Good fiction contains important messages, many of which tell us about life. Rarely, however, does crime fiction do this.</p><p>MacDonald’s McGee books are not just straight ahead mysteries that get solved. They are mystery fiction with something more – observations about the things McGee sees around him. Things that he doesn’t like and believes are not good for society. </p><p>Other authors and literary critics have credited the McGee series as helping to create a genre of Florida-based fiction based on ecological and social problems brought on by the huge numbers of people moving there. </p><p>Stephen King, one of the world’s most popular authors, has praised MacDonald as "the great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller." </p><p><br /></p><p> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>#</p><p><br /></p>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-17466862126878212482023-12-08T08:32:00.000-05:002023-12-08T08:32:26.106-05:00<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Society’s deep thinkers have varying theories on the three stages of life. Like childhood, adulthood, and old age. Or, learning, working, and teaching.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">I discovered a theory of my own the other day while rummaging through my clothes closet. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The first stage of life is acquiring stuff. Stage two is using the stuff, followed by stage three – getting rid of stuff. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The last stage is the hardest. I confirmed that while staring into my closet jam packed with stuff I haven’t used in years and might never use again.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">I mean how could I possibly discard my collection of neckties, none of which I have worn in years? </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">I have some treasured beauties. Power ties, fun ties. Ties that brighten the day. Ties for darker days saddened by funerals.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The most spectacular on my rack is a red and gold checkered tie that likely cost more than all the others combined. It is 100-per-cent pure silk and was a gift from a visiting Korean news executive. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2JqDa-08MM_clkIk8Hu6sdd9giLM33M040eSkAVeRZyyEpK5d7C7nlJNZQ8cWDpz8GwRrbVr3kjsDoA2_wIhzhsFFaG4L2yU17i6jeXMukJK4B_eoW5k3sGOAbrTzofT8H4LfFHklz556cyhSKilE3YF89sFbOdiTbbSl-GlL_tD8Gi73siQj_tVN/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2JqDa-08MM_clkIk8Hu6sdd9giLM33M040eSkAVeRZyyEpK5d7C7nlJNZQ8cWDpz8GwRrbVr3kjsDoA2_wIhzhsFFaG4L2yU17i6jeXMukJK4B_eoW5k3sGOAbrTzofT8H4LfFHklz556cyhSKilE3YF89sFbOdiTbbSl-GlL_tD8Gi73siQj_tVN/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a>That’s my favourite necktie but I can’t remember when I last wore it. It turns out that many other folks have not put on a necktie in ages. <br />Neckties, I’m told, are out of style despite having been an important feature of men’s dress for a long time. A Gallup poll found that 67 per cent of men no longer wear neckties to work. Another poll found that only six per cent wear a tie on a daily basis.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Neckties traditionally symbolized authority and power. Their history goes back thousands of years.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Egyptian mummies have been found with knotted clothes around their necks. The Egyptians believed that knots held and released magic.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The bodies of ancient Chinese men, plus statues of men, have been found with various neck cloths believed to symbolize the ranks of soldiers.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Later, the French who really liked the idea of neck cloths, made them a high society fashion they called the cravat. As the cravat or necktie gained popularity it was seen as </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">a symbol of decorum, elegance, and respect, as well as an opportunity for self-expression.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">After the Second World War the military connection with neckties faded greatly and more colours and styles appeared. Wider and louder ties appeared and now ties have a wide variety of colours, patterns and widths. The standard necktie now is 3.5 inches wide and 57 inches long.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">For me the most important thing about a necktie is how you knot it. The most common knot is the Four-in-Hand knot, or schoolboy knot, that is relatively small, narrow and not symmetrical.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Early in my childhood my dad taught me how to tie a Windsor knot, which is triangular, wider, symmetrical and said to project confidence.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">My dad and other men of his era would not be happy to see how ties are knotted these days, no matter what knot is used. They lived in times when neckties were carefully tied, snugged neat against the top of the collar and never left loosely sloppy.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Today neckties seem to be worn as an afterthought. They often are sloppily tied, knots crookedly below unbuttoned collars. Bottom tie tip hanging below the belt line.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Ties serve no real purpose these days. The ways people view each other have changed, so more casual dress probably makes sense.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">However, guys wearing ties remain a big attraction for women. A recent study by well-known American psychologist C. Nathan DeWall found that women still love to see men in neckties, either at work or at social events</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">An earlier study reported that 72 per cent of women are turned on when a man wears a necktie on a date.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Although I’ve reached that third stage of life when I should be disposing of all sorts of unused stuff, I think I’ll hang on to my neckties. You never know when they might make a comeback.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">As Lee Iacocca, the now deceased former Ford Motor Company president, once said: </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">“When neckties went from narrow to wide, I kept all my old ones until the style went back to narrow.”</p><div><br /></div><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"></p>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-11888669804131782602023-12-02T09:26:00.001-05:002023-12-02T09:26:31.630-05:00<p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Some people are unhappy with the growing number of retailers getting rid of self-checkouts. I am not.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Self-checkouts don’t pay income tax. They don’t contribute to social insurance plans and pensions. They don’t earn wages for people to buy groceries to take home to their families.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Self-checkouts eliminate jobs and the good things that jobs give us.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoH6YegKg4hP_cbhyxUhioHBxCYIfnkb2RqLwgDjhGUF9Gmno_Fkq4IXZOlrUnbwIuOnYTJb3EltwrmX7qOjXS79SVKlbuevGo8nAZKgg9XsQtB2NQZ5pEIl1UmHTJe7osZb8BoyqSI-b0AkblsN-EJrASu0zhXNpGvjRg2jxfOFhGWL9PijZaT32R/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoH6YegKg4hP_cbhyxUhioHBxCYIfnkb2RqLwgDjhGUF9Gmno_Fkq4IXZOlrUnbwIuOnYTJb3EltwrmX7qOjXS79SVKlbuevGo8nAZKgg9XsQtB2NQZ5pEIl1UmHTJe7osZb8BoyqSI-b0AkblsN-EJrASu0zhXNpGvjRg2jxfOFhGWL9PijZaT32R/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Also, they symbolize a trend that is corrupting our lives. That’s the trend to do things faster – hurry to where you are going; hurry to get things done. Hurry, hurry, hurry. <p></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">There’s even a name for it: Hurry Sickness or Hurry Syndrome. It is a sickness because it creates irritability with anything or anyone that slows things down. It can damage your health and relationships with family and friends.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">You see it more and more these days, notably on the highways. Impatient drivers passing cars on hills and curves, ignoring the blind spots where another vehicle could be coming straight at them.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">You see it on the streets and in the shopping malls.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">One of my daughters and her husband were subjected to someone’s impatience at a retail store on Remembrance Day. They were at a staffed checkout when the clock struck 11 a.m. and they stopped putting their goods on the conveyor belt and stood heads down for a minute of silence.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">An angry customer yelled at them to get moving because they were holding up the customer line. Imagine, slowing everything down just to remember those who sacrificed their lives for us!</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">A growing number of customers are unhappy with self-checkouts. That customer backlash, plus concerns about mechanical issues and theft, have some major retailers rethinking self-checkouts.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Booths, major United Kingdom grocery chain, is removing most of its self-checkouts. Costco, Walmart and some other big American chains have been considering reducing their number of self-checkouts.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">“Our customers have told us this over time — that the self-scan machines that we’ve got in our stores … can be slow, they can be unreliable (and) they’re obviously impersonal,” Booths managing director Nigel Murray said in a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lancashire-67373472" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: #0a396d; line-height: 26px; text-decoration-line: none;">BBC</a> interview.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Self-service machines were first introduced during the 1980s to lower labor expenses. They shifted the work of paid employees to unpaid customers and their use expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Besides mechanical issues and customer complaints, retailers with self-service machines are seeing higher merchandise losses from customer errors and intentional shoplifting. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Last year a study of 93 retailers across the globe estimated that 23 per-cent their store losses were related to self-checkouts. An earlier study found that self-service lanes had a loss rate for four per-cent, more than double the industry average for loss.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Glitches in self-checkout systems can tempt people to cheat. Some products have barcodes that don’t scan properly and a customer simply bags the item without bothering to confirm it scanned. Or, a customer might type in a wrong code by mistake and not bother to rescan the item at the proper price.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Some self-checkout theft is deliberate. For instance customers have been known to take the sticker off a cheaper item and place it over one that is more expensive.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">For instance, there is the banana trick in which you take the $2 tag off a banana and place it over the $17.99-a-pound steak.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">There is no question that self-checkouts can be convenient and save time. Retailers have been working on ways to reduce annoying glitches and to reduce theft.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">One thing they will not reduce, however, is the fact that self-checkouts are taking away jobs. There is concern that getting your groceries through self-checkouts will spread to other items.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Imagine seeing a car you like and being satisfied with its options and price, so you simply scan the windshield sticker, write a cheque and drive off. No sales staff required. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">That’s not an impossibility. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Despite its problems, self-checkout is expected to become the norm. Industry insiders have estimated that the global self-service checkout market will almost double to $5.9 billion by 2026.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">One example: Ontario car buyers no longer have to go to a Service Ontario office to register a vehicle. Car dealers now can register vehicles online, and issue ownership permits and licence plates to buyers on the spot.</p>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-30651753107759891132023-11-23T12:12:00.002-05:002023-11-23T12:21:40.323-05:00<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">There’s much talk lately about the need to reduce red tape. We live in a country in which people are swimming in it, ju</span><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">st trying to keep afloat.</span></span></p><div class="entry-content" style="box-sizing: inherit; counter-reset: footnotes 0; margin: 10px 0px 0px;"><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3eYSkabW5JdIiQbpEHfvE4L2HmOa0Fsw4ZHfhTa9hPVaoK_Aimce4w_TB_BhS4-3SjNYZlOJmfWCDrzekWnJqM_LfB3gsy6gLAhocEM0yqTK-ekiH7toqv9hfvfegQB9P03Bf_wgCTLppVw_TX2BXfbpKhKOV2pwz_LQf3iHwVCIUKAYvxLZfrPs2/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3eYSkabW5JdIiQbpEHfvE4L2HmOa0Fsw4ZHfhTa9hPVaoK_Aimce4w_TB_BhS4-3SjNYZlOJmfWCDrzekWnJqM_LfB3gsy6gLAhocEM0yqTK-ekiH7toqv9hfvfegQB9P03Bf_wgCTLppVw_TX2BXfbpKhKOV2pwz_LQf3iHwVCIUKAYvxLZfrPs2/w274-h192/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="274" /></span></a></div><span style="color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial;">The latest red tape report from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) says that small businesses estimate that dealing with red tape costs $11 billion a year.The report also says that regulation from our three levels of government – federal, provincial and municipal – cost $38.8 billion in 2020. The total amount of time spent on complying with government regulations by all Canadian businesses was 731 million hours, the equivalent of 375,000 full-time jobs.</span><p></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial;">CFIB says the smallest businesses are hurt by red tape more than larger ones. The smallest businesses pay roughly $7,000 a year per employee to comply with government regulations. Larger businesses, CFIB reports, pay $1,237 annually per employee. So, being able to spread regulatory costs over more staff give the larger business a competitive advantage over the smaller ones.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial;">Red tape is defined as excessive bureaucracy that slows getting things done and creates unreasonable costs to people and business.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial;">We’ve all seen or read about examples: for instance some authorities requiring kids to have a business licence for lemonade stands. Or, the frustration and time lost trying to navigate government websites that are long, and complicated. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial;">And, most of us have seen those Taylor Swift-like lineups at Service Canada locations where people try to do business with the federal government, often for passports. In 2022 people reported bringing lawn chairs and sleeping bags for day-long waits in Service Canada lineups.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial;">The City of Toronto once decided that people wanting to obtain a new business licence could do so only on paper, in person and at one location.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial;">Thankfully, reducing red tape is being recognized by governments and many jurisdictions are taking action to eliminate costly and time-demanding processes.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial;">The federal government passed a Red Tape Reduction Action in 2015. The law requires that for every new regulation introduced, one existing regulation must be eliminated. That means every new regulation imposing an administration burden on business must be offset by a decrease in administrative burden.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial;">The feds have reviewed the one-for-one rule and say it is working. However the review, published on a Government of Canada website, is roughly 3,000 words long, hopelessly bureaucratic and very difficult to understand.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial;">A new study into why fewer Canadians are starting new businesses estimates there are 100,000 fewer business owners than there were 20 years ago. Only 1.3 individuals out of 1,000 started a business in 2022, compared with three out of 1,000 in 2020.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial;">There are increasing calls to free small businesses from red tape and tax burdens. CFIB says that small businesses estimate that the burden of regulations could be reduced by 28 per cent without harming any public interests, which regulations are designed to protect.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial;">A strong campaigner for removing the roadblocks that prevent creation of more small businesses is Frank Stronach, founder of Magna International Inc., one of Canada’s largest companies.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial;">Stronach says that as of 2021 Canadian small businesses employed more than eight million people, close to 70 per cent of our total private sector workforce.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial;">“We’ve placed so many obstacles in the way of small businesses and burdened them with countless regulations and rules that it’s no wonder so many small business don’t survive more than a few years after opening their doors,” he has written in a number of publications, including the Minden Times.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial;">Governments are concerned about small business and have brought in numerous support programs to counter rules and regulations that are impairing small business growth. But Stronach says the way to help small business is to get out of the way: slash all the red tape and let small businesses take off and soar.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial;">Sounds like a good idea. Most governments do seem concerned about lack of small business growth. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial;">Concern is not enough. We need real action from all forms of government. Red tape is a sickness that is weakening our economy and the only way to cure it is to eliminate it.</span></p><div><br /></div></div>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-62679660491674065462023-11-16T19:34:00.000-05:002023-11-16T19:34:38.200-05:00<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Try as you might, it’s hard to ignore television commercials. Especially when you are</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">watching a lot of sports, as many of us were during the World Series and now the NHL</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">hockey season.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7WJFlKLbRIElHvthYmlGbFf6HUp26RgFB7aFnuowZgzDOLJAsBwHYPY0LbzKxaDQLQ2FnEZBiwYcxWQSX6mUSnmHCCfM7LF5y6mUF1lKQTQrdKt0jP0DLlMj_YnXmsX6p9WQQfGYzbtNMd8hBjo9jqtkuhr7UG9D7kEbVoaZcCiBL6tL7aujMFxRI/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7WJFlKLbRIElHvthYmlGbFf6HUp26RgFB7aFnuowZgzDOLJAsBwHYPY0LbzKxaDQLQ2FnEZBiwYcxWQSX6mUSnmHCCfM7LF5y6mUF1lKQTQrdKt0jP0DLlMj_YnXmsX6p9WQQfGYzbtNMd8hBjo9jqtkuhr7UG9D7kEbVoaZcCiBL6tL7aujMFxRI/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Between all the exciting plays, the ads keep coming at you. You finally start to pay<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />attention to them.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />I started paying attention to the ubiquitous burger ads. You know the ones where some<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />guy stretches his mouth open impossibly wide to bite into a large and luscious looking<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />hamburger offered by one of the many burger joint chains like Burger King,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />MacDonald’s and Wendy’s.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Those TV burgers must be four to six inches thick when stacked with<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />beef patty, onions, tomato, lettuce, bacon, onion rings and whatever other condiments<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />the makers throw in. The only mouth big enough to handle that kind of a load belongs to<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Donald Trump.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Those burgers are not what you get served at your favourite fast-food joint. They are<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />highly juiced up in elaborate ways to make your mouth water and send you out the door<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />to buy one.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />The juicing up is done by “food stylists” employed to make burgers look drool-worthy in<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />advertisements. They use a variety of clever techniques, and some inedible products, to<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />make a burger look perfect for the camera.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />When a burger is just lightly roasted it stays raw and without the 25-per-cent shrinkage<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />that comes with full cooking. It is big and juicy, but red. So a food stylist brushes it with<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />brown shoe polish to give it the fully cooked look without the shrinkage.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />The fully cooked burger you get at the fast-food place is much smaller and less<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />appetizing looking. Most are just under 115 grams (four ounces) with less than half of<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />that being the actual meat patty.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />That doesn’t mean the fast-food burger you get is not good. It’s just not as big, fresh<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />and appetizing as food stylists make them look for advertisements. And, that has<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />created some controversy.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />A 2018 study by Cancer Research United Kingdom reported that teenagers exposed to<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />TV fast-food advertising eat up to an additional 350 calories a week in food high in salt,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />sugar and fat. That’s 18,200 extra calories a year.<p></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Also, dissatisfied customers have filed lawsuits against some major fast-food outlets,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />claiming the companies make their menu items look bigger and better in advertising<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />than they really are.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />A judge in the U.S. recently ruled in one case that there is no proof that McDonald’s and<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Wendy’s sold burgers that were smaller than advertised. The judge ruled that the fast-<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />food companies’ efforts to make their burgers look appetizing are no different from other<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />companies who use “visually appealing images to foster positive associations with their<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />products.”<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />There are other cases still before the courts, including one against Burger King,<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Burgers are not the only food that gets juiced for advertising. Glycerin is sprayed on fruit<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />and salads to make them glisten and look appetizing.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />And, how tempting is an advertising photo of a plate of fluffy pancakes smothered with<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />warm maple syrup?<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Looks delicious, but maple syrup is not used in photographing pancakes for advertising.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Maple syrup can heat up and become runny under photo lights and gets quickly<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />absorbed into the pancakes. So motor oil is used instead because it it is thicker, glistens<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />nicely and does not get absorbed by the pancakes.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Those ads featuring a milkshake parfait or slice of pie with dollops of whipped cream<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />don’t use real whipped cream, which melts and gets runny under hot lights. So<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />photographers use shaving cream, which doesn’t melt and is easily shaped to give the<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />desired look.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Ads can be deceptive and manipulative but fortunately we don’t have to eat what the<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />photographers are serving up.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />The ads do encourage people, notably children, to eat the wrong things and various<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />jurisdictions around the world have discussed ways of restricting TV and online food<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />adds.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Sweden and Norway banned all ads to children in the early 1990s. Quebec also has<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />banned advertising to children during programs geared to kids.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Canada’s federal government has updated its code for food and drink ads that reach<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />children under 13 but little else.</p>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-41561954067313149862023-11-11T08:59:00.000-05:002023-11-11T08:59:22.365-05:00<header class="entry-header" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 30px 0px;"><h2 class="entry-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; line-height: 30px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 30px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">“Politics will always break your heart,” Catherine McKenna once tweeted on the social media platform now called X.</span></span></h2><h2 class="entry-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; color: #001936; line-height: 30px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 30px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">She should know. She suffered a barrage of verbal attacks as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s environment and climate change minister, and lead minister on the contentious carbon tax. </span></h2></header><div class="entry-content" style="box-sizing: inherit; counter-reset: footnotes 0; margin: 10px 0px 0px;"><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She resigned from cabinet and politics in 2021, saying she wanted to spend more time with her children, and working on climate change from outside politics.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXmJO4fFy0fyBpeEw0GP4xuATAr7JMu3MU2JrxC0QY8Nufx-9uiGnAv8MKCxgPdLnIiEeWgLyb4h_m4UlLNT6rNkd4uiMJwK883ZCKk17DtZCYoo6tI-WFf0eDrG3wRU6mSrM6dcCXcmbvht_1eC3SCFOHnW_5SUI5tEak_9ksEncIcYkSHLX10Op4/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXmJO4fFy0fyBpeEw0GP4xuATAr7JMu3MU2JrxC0QY8Nufx-9uiGnAv8MKCxgPdLnIiEeWgLyb4h_m4UlLNT6rNkd4uiMJwK883ZCKk17DtZCYoo6tI-WFf0eDrG3wRU6mSrM6dcCXcmbvht_1eC3SCFOHnW_5SUI5tEak_9ksEncIcYkSHLX10Op4/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Well, politics certainly broke a lot of hearts when Trudeau announced recently that heating oil will be exempt from the carbon tax. Other heating fuels such as propane and natural gas will not be.The exemption for home heating oil applies to all Canadians. However, most Canadians do not use it to heat their homes. Statistics Canada says that in 2021 only three percent of households nationally used home heating oil.</span><p></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Most of Canada’s home heating oil users live in the Atlantic provinces – the Liberal stronghold that has helped to keep the Trudeau government in power. Two in five Prince Edward Island homes, one in three Nova Scotia households and one in five Newfoundland and Labrador homes use furnace heating oil.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The heating oil tax exemption is estimated to save each homeowner using heating oil $250 a year.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So is it possible the heating oil exemption is designed to encourage Atlantic voters to keep supporting the Liberals? You bet it is.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Proof of this shameful political bribery was provided by one of Trudeau’s cabinet ministers. Rural Economic Development Minister Gudie Hutchings told an interviewer that if Westerners, who have complained that Atlantic voters are getting an economic benefit they are not, want similar benefits they should elect more Liberals.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">More proof that politicians continue to get bolder, and dumber.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It’s not news that politicians favour their own party’s ridings, and swing ridings they believe they can win. But it’s not often that you see a politician blatantly telling voters to vote the right way or be left out of getting the goodies.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Making it worse this time was that Gudie seemed to do it with insulting contempt for western Canadians.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Trudeau has denied that the tax relief heavily favouring the Atlantic is about saving Liberal seats there, but even some of his own Liberals have scoffed at that. At least two cabinet minister are known to have opposed the exemption.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Just two days before Trudeau announced the exemption, Housing Minister Sean Fraser told the House of Commons that exemptions would make pollution free again. A month earlier, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said it would be unfair to carve out exemptions that would benefit only Atlantic Canada. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Liberal support in Atlantic Canada has been plunging. In early 2022 polls showed Liberal support in the Atlantic was more than double the support for Conservatives. Polls this fall show a huge reversal with the Conservatives with 39 per cent and the Liberals 30 per cent.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">More and more Canadians are beginning to agree that climate change is real and requires immediate action. There is less agreement on how to reduce climate change.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Putting a price on carbon changes – in other words a carbon tax – is considered by many to be a good approach. However, there is hardly universal agreement and the topic is destined to be a controversial subject for some time to come. It likely will be a key issue in provincial elections and the next national vote scheduled for 2025.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Liberals hold a minority government kept in power by the New Democratic Party. Not much is expected to change that, but in politics there are no guarantees.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">One way or another there will be a federal election sometime in the next two years. Many political commentators say the carbon tax, and the way Atlantic voters were exempted from it, will kill the Liberal government.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">But there are two scenarios that the commentators say could save it. One, Trudeau will kill the tax for all Canadians, And two, Trudeau will resign as prime minister to allow a new leader to give the party a new look that will be acceptable to more Canadian voters.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We’ll just have to wait and see.</span></p><div><br /></div></div>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-47228699978644315022023-11-04T08:51:00.000-04:002023-11-04T08:51:42.639-04:00<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">There is much controversy over whether mental illness is a significant cause of mass shootings, which are becoming a common occurrence, notably in the gun-crazy United States of America.</span></p><div class="entry-content" style="box-sizing: inherit; counter-reset: footnotes 0; margin: 10px 0px 0px;"><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Whenever another mass shooting occurs, many conclude that mental illness was to blame.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Two of last week’s most horrific mass shootings – one in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and the other in Lewiston, Maine are examples. When you read about a Sault man shooting to death a woman, his own three children, then himself how can you not think ‘this guy was mentally ill.’</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Or the Maine massacre in which a man went on a rapid-fire rampage in a bowling alley, then a bar. How can someone kill 18 people, wound another 13 and not be mentally ill?</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The Maine killer had been treated for mental illness earlier this year, but the Sault rifleman was not known to have anything wrong with him mentally except a bad temper.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The general public tends to link mental illness with mass shootings and other violence. Psychiatry experts, however, say severe mental illness is not a key factor in most mass murders.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">A study by Columbia University in New York reports that only five per cent of mass shootings are related to severe mental illness. The experts, however, have a much narrower definition of mental illness than the general public.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Gr5tqMwIWkjYZvEUtkNIAR3Dzx7RDaSaO31XsgFbgjVUkNNXdH9Y-3EjUJRCKqJvXSI7i-Y0k9HGAom9Up7yk-c6KbTBQnOaMLA5t2TLUZ6Su_Jn8rJLd7avhPDu-GgDvd0zzkW2qLOxKBiZ8eOB3NkiRl0F4fMs69phsU_aFt14vZ2_I7Xjz08q/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Gr5tqMwIWkjYZvEUtkNIAR3Dzx7RDaSaO31XsgFbgjVUkNNXdH9Y-3EjUJRCKqJvXSI7i-Y0k9HGAom9Up7yk-c6KbTBQnOaMLA5t2TLUZ6Su_Jn8rJLd7avhPDu-GgDvd0zzkW2qLOxKBiZ8eOB3NkiRl0F4fMs69phsU_aFt14vZ2_I7Xjz08q/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The experts consider severe mental illness as schizophrenia or psychotic disorders and not lesser problems like depression and substance abuse. Most of us think anyone acting beyond what we consider normal as a bit crazy. Our federal government also has a wider definition of mental illness, reporting that one in three Canadians will be affected by mental illness in their lifetime.<p></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Mental illness is a major problem worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) says that roughly 450 million people currently struggle with mental illness. It is considered to be the leading cause of disability worldwide.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">But all the talk about it being a major factor in mass killings is a red herring that takes attention away from the real issue – guns. Without mental illness there would still be mass shootings. Without guns there would be no mass shootings.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Soldiers, law enforcement, hunters and sport shooters are the people who should be allowed guns. There is no need for anyone else to have one. And there are plenty of rules and regulations to ensure that those allowed to have them use them safely and responsibly.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Instead of debating how much of a factor mental health is in mass shootings we should be discussing how mental illness is affecting so many other aspects of our lives. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Numerous surveys and studies report that world unhappiness has increased to record highs. They point to a growing trend in which negative feelings such as worry, sadness and anger rose by 27 per cent around the world between 2010 and 2018.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">WHO estimates that one person dies by suicide every 40 seconds. More than 4,000 Canadians kill themselves every year – an average of 11 a day.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Canadian medical authorities say drug overdoses now account for more deaths than automobile accidents.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The overall problem of mental illness – not just how it might affect mass killings – needs to become a No. 1 priority for our society. What’s making the world so unhappy and how do we change that?</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The role of digital media is a good place to start examining the problem. Time on the Internet, gaming, texting and social media have taken us away from two key elements for creating happiness – exercise and being with friends.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Too many people spend more time in front of screens than on exercising or having face- to-face contact with friends. Also, digital media gives us more contact with the negative and destructive side of humanity than with the good things happening around us.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">People say things online that they would never say in person. Things that often lead to hurt feelings, bullying and other nastiness that feeds mental health issues.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">We need to become more informed and thinking intelligently about all these issues if we don’t want to live in a world that falls deeper into despair.</p><div><br /></div></div>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-62743559417673734012023-10-27T12:03:00.000-04:002023-10-27T12:03:10.622-04:00<p>I’ve never been a fan of cats. I find them self-obsessed and neurotic.</p><p>If I was a cat fan, however, I certainly would not be dressing up as one. Some people are, putting on cat masks and tails, meowing and purring and rubbing up friends while referring to themselves by the pronoun it.</p><p>It’s a fad that has been around for a while. Some people say it is harmless: if some people think they are cats, that’s their business.</p><p>Folks who do this often are referred to as furries, a subculture that dresses as cartoonish animals as a sexual fetish, or simply for fun. </p><p>Harmless enough, I guess, except it has created a blizzard of damaging flimflam designed to confuse and deceive, and it continues to grow.</p><p>Two years ago in Prince Edward Island a rumour spread that litter boxes were being placed in schools to accommodate students who identify as cats. It spread to other provinces, while appearing in school districts in several U.S. states.</p><p>Far-right politicians and media personalities promoted it as a real life issue and made it a topic in election campaigns. Last year in the U.S. at least 20 conservative political figures claimed that schools are putting litter boxes in schools for students who want to identify as cats. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWcWHLUVfRKBaYIcTTkXUODCbc-kdb3Uaxk8qSpCz796IpTJ5q6gw4QmGGeJnO9BltT2fcxEyGhRGnoglkJWmFWziQxZPtwvqzGOHrcNOBnTR7cjzZ4EZ9AeWTmnj96inIUNKqC4LxMjMjA5tx4SPkSQNaRV3aM5GuFSu3sDwonQbfULPag8ey8a9l/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWcWHLUVfRKBaYIcTTkXUODCbc-kdb3Uaxk8qSpCz796IpTJ5q6gw4QmGGeJnO9BltT2fcxEyGhRGnoglkJWmFWziQxZPtwvqzGOHrcNOBnTR7cjzZ4EZ9AeWTmnj96inIUNKqC4LxMjMjA5tx4SPkSQNaRV3aM5GuFSu3sDwonQbfULPag8ey8a9l/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Scott Jensen, a Republican who campaigned unsuccessfully to become Minnesota governor last fall, raised it in his campaign, saying:<p></p><p>“Why are we telling elementary kids that they get to choose their gender this week? Why do we have litter boxes in some of the school districts so kids can pee in them, because they identify as a furry? We’ve lost our minds.”</p><p>Marjorie Taylor Greene, the controversial Georgia Republican, told reporters outside a Donald Trump-campaign event that schools are putting out litter boxes for students. J.D. Vance, another Trump-backed Republican, also has said schools are doing this. </p><p>No evidence has been found anywhere that any school administration has put litter boxes in schools for students identifying as cats.</p><p>Cat litter is purchased by some schools but not for use as student toilets. Some schools use it to prevent slipping on icy walkways. Others, in the U.S., store cat litter and pails to use as toilets in the event of an active-shooter lockdown. </p><p>The flimflam hoax is believed to be backlash to gender non-conformity in schools. Some politicians and activists say protections for gay and transgender students have gone too far.</p><p>Untrue as it is, the litter box flimflam is causing considerable alarm among parents and much grief for schools administrations in Canada and the U.S.</p><p>“This claim as well as many others are simply false and are causing unnecessary stress to students and staff,” Norbert Carpenter, PEI director of schools, said in a statement denying the litter box rumours. </p><p>Last spring a Quebec school district was forced to publicly deny it has placed litter boxes on school properties and that its students are being led about on leashes. It made the statement after being flooded by questions and complaints from alarmed parents.</p><p>The statement warned that anyone spreading the rumour could be subject to legal action.</p><p>School boards in Renfrew and Durham regions also have had to issue similar public denials.</p><p>Spreading the litter box hoax is the work of unintelligent people. It is putting stress on and wasting time of teachers and school administrators who are being distracted by nonsense that is making their jobs more difficult. </p><p>It is shameful and says much about what our society has become – a society in which anyone can say anything about anyone (most often on social media) without challenge or retribution.</p><p>A lesson from the litter box scam is that we need to challenge everything that we hear these days. I’m getting to the point that if someone tells me it is raining outside, I’ll go to a window to see for myself. To be totally sure I’ll stick my arm out the window to see if it gets wet.</p><p>It’s a shame but truth and trust are giving way to tribalism. Truth today often is whatever a particular group promotes as truth as a means of reshaping the world into what they want it to be.</p><p><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>#</p><p><br /></p>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-39244165044735702872023-10-20T16:43:00.000-04:002023-10-20T16:43:05.402-04:00<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">I’ve tried to ignore all the hype about artificial intelligence (AI). How it will transform work and reinvent business. How it will replace me as a writer.</span><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden; text-align: left;">Any little attention I have given it has been with a great amount of skepticism. <br />Until now.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFrku7bXzVuWPULs8cqJk8OP981bmfyxPVI4dlFK6IEA7f6zWy_in-1VAD8Lxhj5CyNYXlKkGzgGW9swYRqgv43vz7rqk_Kwt9hackms1fbOz8lp4nxdDsoRnelYFGO3IuZuepOCxkFJy0qRYcxCGtva9_IAiUnifPDXoLc6T4IqZv-JfKDBCnZHp6/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFrku7bXzVuWPULs8cqJk8OP981bmfyxPVI4dlFK6IEA7f6zWy_in-1VAD8Lxhj5CyNYXlKkGzgGW9swYRqgv43vz7rqk_Kwt9hackms1fbOz8lp4nxdDsoRnelYFGO3IuZuepOCxkFJy0qRYcxCGtva9_IAiUnifPDXoLc6T4IqZv-JfKDBCnZHp6/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />I’ve just watched a ‘60 Minutes’ television news program in which CBS reporter Scott Pelley took a look at Google’s new piece of artificial intelligence named Bard. Pelley typed Bard a request asking it to produce a story based on six words. The six words were:</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden; text-align: left;">For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden; text-align: left;">In shockingly quick time Bard composed and spit out the following story:<br />“he shoes were a gift from my wife, but we never had a baby. They were sitting in the closet, collecting dust, and I knew they would never be used. So I decided to sell them.<br /></div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden; text-align: left;">“I put an ad in the paper, and I got a few responses. But the one that stood out was from a woman who said she had lost her baby a few months ago. She said she would love to have the shoes as a way to remember her child.<br /></div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden; text-align: left;">“I met with the woman, and she told me how she had been trying to conceive for years. She had finally gotten pregnant, but she had a miscarriage. She said she was devastated, and she didn’t know how she was going to go on.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden; text-align: left;">“But then she saw my ad, and she knew she had to have the shoes. She said they would give her some comfort, and they would help her to remember her child.<br /></div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden; text-align: left;">“I gave her the shoes and she was grateful. She said they meant the world to her. <br />“I’m glad I was able to help her and I’m glad to find a good home for the shoes.”<br /></div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden; text-align: left;">A human story, written by a computer using artificial intelligence!<br />A shocked Pelley said:</div><div class="entry-content" style="box-sizing: inherit; counter-reset: footnotes 0; margin: 10px 0px 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">“It created a deeply human tale with characters it invented. I am rarely speechless, I don’t know what to make of this.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">As an aside, the six words Pelley gave to Bard to create a story have a history. Back in the 1920s, author Ernest Hemingway is said to have bet some other writers $10 that he could write a novel in six words. So Hemingway wrote: For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn. And won the bet.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The fact that artificial intelligence could produce a real story from those six words is amazing, and alarming. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Some people are concerned that AI, while increasing productivity and efficiency, will eliminate thousands of human jobs. There also is concern that AI-produced fake news will create chaos in many fields, from law enforcement to politics.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Geoffrey Hinton, a retired Google executive who has been called the Godfather of Artificial Intelligence, worries that AI has the potential to one day take over from humanity.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">“I think my main message is there’s enormous uncertainty about what’s going to happen next,” he said in an interview with Pelley. “These things (AIs) do understand. And because they understand, we need to think hard about what’s going to happen next. And we just don’t know.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">It’s certainly important that further development of AI not be left solely to huge tech companies like Google. Many different segments of society need to be involved to ensure the benefits of AI are promoted safely while potential harm is controlled by regulations, and laws that punish abusers.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Said Google CEO Sundar Pichai in an interview last spring:</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">“This is why I think the development of this needs to include not just engineers, but social scientists, ethicists, philosophers and so on. . . . I think these are all things society needs to figure out as we move along. It’s not for a company to decide.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Certainly AI is scary because even the experts don’t know its full capabilities, or where it is going next. Hinton expects that within five years AI models like ChatGPT may be able to reason better than humans.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">So if in the next while you notice this column reads a bit differently – perhaps lacking its usual human flair and spark – you’ll know that I have been replaced by a computer.</p><div><br /></div></div>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-61846523485848532732023-10-12T22:35:00.000-04:002023-10-12T22:35:44.990-04:00<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Baseball broadcaster Buck Martinez said the Toronto Blue Jays’ 2023 season would be a disaster if they could not advance past the first wild-card playoff round.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhMm6TMo3heiis-1NL6Et32Lg72cEljlObUH1mUYRy7dcFgCcmn6wZHCMorAHZ8gFmkkZR721EkgiC3vHO8YHrVnMUKplKjUSPxwXVdoNNA62OAQH1ATh85D7G5gN1n0fc5QwpWtXcSImjL3dRz7aBIFpWWb0WpRLdqgGcHCfEpr3S4xepRkcZAm-G/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhMm6TMo3heiis-1NL6Et32Lg72cEljlObUH1mUYRy7dcFgCcmn6wZHCMorAHZ8gFmkkZR721EkgiC3vHO8YHrVnMUKplKjUSPxwXVdoNNA62OAQH1ATh85D7G5gN1n0fc5QwpWtXcSImjL3dRz7aBIFpWWb0WpRLdqgGcHCfEpr3S4xepRkcZAm-G/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /><span style="color: #8b8d91; text-align: left;"> </span></a></div><p></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">They didn’t. Their season ended. And yes, it was a disaster.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The Jays, a World Series prospect at the season’s start, were swept by the Minnesota Twins in the first playoff round. They scored only one run in two critical playoff games.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">It’s the third time in four years the Jays made it to post regular season play. In those three playoff years they did not win one game.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The season ended much the way it had progressed: consistently inconsistent.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">There is plenty to blame for the Jay’s disastrous season. Most of it rests with the club management, which needs a complete shakeup.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Despite denials, the club’s front office was behind the Game Two decision to pull pitcher Jose Berrios after a leadoff walk in the fourth inning. Berrios had thrown only 47 pitches and had struck out five batters in three innings. He was definitely on his game.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Things went downhill from there.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">General Manager Ross Atkins says the decision to pull Berrios was manager John Schneider’s and not influenced by the front office. I don’t believe that for a minute. The Jays’ front office has been too involved in on-field play and must accept much of the blame for a disastrous season.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Atkins and others in upper management are not baseball people. They are moneyballers who stare into their laptops and make decisions based on statistics and math.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Their laptops told them the team needed more defence so they traded away dynamic hitters Teoscar Hernandez and Lourdes Gurriel, plus outstanding young catcher Gabriel Moreno, who had a 285 batting average and 50 runs batted in this season.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">They needed that extra offence, plus they needed a manager who could inspire young hitters like Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero. Neither πlayer provided much in the abbreviated playoffs, except a couple of errors.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The redo of the Rogers Centre, the Jay’s home stadium, provides more insight into a fairly good ball team misdirected by a moneyball management. The renovations turned the place into a Party Palace focussed on gulping beer and chewing pizza, taking eyes off the real entertainment, which is supposed to be the game.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The Jays biggest problem on the field was their inability to move runners in scoring position (RISP). They ranked 24<span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 11.25px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">th</span> in moving RISPs. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">They ranked 16<span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 11.25px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">th</span> in runs scored per game, a miserable drop from fourth in 2022 and third in 2021.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">“We didn’t score runs,” Bichette said following the beating by Minnesota. “Can’t win without scoring runs.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">No kidding.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The Jays had an okay 2023 pitching staff, although not as good as the broadcasters and other homer commentators would have you believe. Some of the opposition pitchers they faced in late season were just as good, if not much better.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">When they did get good pitching the Jays hitters simply did not provide the scoring support.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Bichette provided the only honest appraisal of what the club needs before next season. Much more honest than the public relations fog provided by management.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">“So, I think there’s a lot of reflection needed, from players but from the organization from top to down,” Bichette was quoted by Sportsnet last week.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">From top down is the key phrase here. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The reflection needs to result in a cleaning out of management, including on-field manager Schneider, who follows front office orders instead of playing his own game.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The Jays have some really good individual players but the moneyball management restricted them from playing together as a top-flight team. You could see the problem on the grim faces of frustrated players in many games throughout the season</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Baseball is a game played by people, not computer algorithms. It is an art in which every move by any player has can have many outcomes.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">If you want computer baseball, then replace the umpires with laptops that call balls, strikes and base running outs. Fans then don’t have to watch the game so closely, and can spend more time and money in the beer and pizza lounges.</p><div><br /></div>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-13740642801914686202023-09-29T08:59:00.003-04:002023-09-29T08:59:32.916-04:00<p>Time to get thinner</p><p>From Shaman’s Rock</p><p>By Jim Poling Sr.</p><p>The Farmers’ Almanac is forecasting heavier than usual snowfalls for the Great Lakes region this coming winter.</p><p>That’s good news, in a perverse way. More snow means more shovelling and more shovelling means more calories burned.</p><p>Canadians definitely need to burn more calories. The World Obesity Federation says that almost one-third of Canadians are obese. It ranks Canada as the world’s 20th most obese country.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIsCbHYI8Eb0rtUUsIZngmkRhWtFJwOC6wuM2EbSGC92YdTgtebiOVSGPQpQKeIrWbQM-LOYFIKV4auDVzLK7Axu4qFhIGuJNTiYLCAZDywWzFz-MNc9Giw5o6hifO-uRvnTah9oMjkXN2hiRUv9nn8qBE3hvJm9-Klrvn4QtmvLKdL5wuEsASxj4Q/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIsCbHYI8Eb0rtUUsIZngmkRhWtFJwOC6wuM2EbSGC92YdTgtebiOVSGPQpQKeIrWbQM-LOYFIKV4auDVzLK7Axu4qFhIGuJNTiYLCAZDywWzFz-MNc9Giw5o6hifO-uRvnTah9oMjkXN2hiRUv9nn8qBE3hvJm9-Klrvn4QtmvLKdL5wuEsASxj4Q/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Obesity has increased significantly throughout the world, almost tripling since 1975. In Canada, obesity rose from 22.2 per cent of the population in 2005 to 27.2 per cent in 2018. Now it is 30.47 per cent of Canadians.<p></p><p>Even more startling, the federation predicts that 51 per cent of the world – roughly four billion people – will be overweight or obese within the next 12 years.</p><p>Too many people assume that obesity is the result of people eating too much and exercising too little. Scientific studies show however that genetics play a part in obesity. People born with certain genes are more likely to become obese than others.</p><p>Other research has shown that healthy weight can be maintained no matter what a person’s genetic background. Roughly 20 to 30 per cent of a person’s weight is determined by environmental factors, so closely watching what we eat and drink and getting enough exercise is important.</p><p>Many health experts consider obesity an epidemic that is expected to overtake smoking as the main cause of preventable deaths in Canada. Obesity now is a leading cause of Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, arthritis and other health problems.</p><p>Obesity Canada, a charity working to reduce obesity, estimates that one in 10 premature deaths among Canadian adults ages 20 to 64 are directly attributable to obesity.</p><p>The fundamental cause of obesity is an energy imbalance between calories consumed and calories expended. We eat too many foods high in fats and sugars and spend not enough time exercising.</p><p>Surveys show that 22 per cent of our diets, and 25 per cent of teenager diets, consist of fast foods, condiments and sugary beverages.</p><p>We don’t eat the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables. The federal government says we need to eat more of those, more protein and whole grain foods and make water the drink of choice.</p><p>Also, many jobs these days require less physical activity and most people get to work by car or public transport. </p><p>Even at home we are consuming less energy. We spend more time watching television and more equipment like vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers, which used to be physically pushed, now are remote controlled.</p><p>Almost 53 per cent of Canadians believe they are physically active when in fact research shows that only 15 per cent meet national guidelines for activity.</p><p>Obesity in young people is a serious problem. Only seven per cent of them are believed to be getting even moderate levels of physical activity. And, of course, young people are fast food consumers who spend much time watching a screen of some sort.</p><p>The costs of obesity are huge. The World Obesity Federation says the economic impact of overweight and obesity on the world is set to reach $4.32 trillion annually by 2035. That equals three per cent of global gross domestic product, comparable with the impact of COVID-19 in 2020.</p><p>The direct cost of obesity in Canada has been estimated at between $5 and $7 billion a year. That includes physician, medication and hospitalization costs. But these are older figures and the current direct costs are likely in the double-digit billions.</p><p>Whatever the exact cost, it is huge and direct strain on the Canadian economy. It’s an issue that has caught the attention of some of us individually. We talk a lot about the need to lose weight, eat less and exercise more. </p><p>But it is not an important issue with the general Canadian public. </p><p>Oddly enough we lament news clips and advertisements about underweight adults and children around world the suffering from not enough to eat. </p><p>The world’s poorly fed, underweight children have been a serious concern for decades. They remain a problem, however, experts say that obesity now is a larger cause of preventable deaths than underweight.</p><p><br /></p><p>#</p><p><br /></p>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-53902007472635251132023-09-24T08:33:00.002-04:002023-09-24T08:33:11.366-04:00<p>Time to say goodbye</p><p>From Shaman’s Rock</p><p>By Jim Poling Sr.</p><p>The turning leaves tell us about change; the need for it and the importance of making change at the right time. </p><p>Autumn leaves turn colour then drop to make room for a new generation that will continue the work of the trees they serve. They’ve done their best and accept that their work will be carried on by new growth.</p><p>Political leaders need to accept the same reasoning. They don’t and very few resign when they should. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_hp34FGX220X15ulrqM1SXVyG4r9cBeZI1DJb4jI6cjMc5lC49dyyPCfD-W58ekR0rEGHZS0Qi5ufyv31EqGG86IGt1b5RgdwJv3ICPIygSTZQPee_PY_QuPTAM1B4kzg8kqBwyYhzeELky_3Gr53EUZt_JWrUYl794l1wxoiEoZ4lgPovGde1exi/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_hp34FGX220X15ulrqM1SXVyG4r9cBeZI1DJb4jI6cjMc5lC49dyyPCfD-W58ekR0rEGHZS0Qi5ufyv31EqGG86IGt1b5RgdwJv3ICPIygSTZQPee_PY_QuPTAM1B4kzg8kqBwyYhzeELky_3Gr53EUZt_JWrUYl794l1wxoiEoZ4lgPovGde1exi/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>They don’t for a variety of reasons, fearing loss of power, loss of money, and loss of relevance. Also, they don’t resign when they should because they fear their leaving will be seen as an admission of having done wrong, or at least not doing everything they had promised to do.<p></p><p>Two that should resign now are Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ontario premier Doug Ford. </p><p>Trudeau has had his time - eight years leading the federal government – and a majority of Canadians no longer want him around. A poll by Nano Research shows that only 20 per cent of respondents believe he should lead his governing Liberal party into the next general election.</p><p>Another poll reports that just 27 per cent of Canadians think the country is headed in the right direction. </p><p>Trudeau became prime minister as a celebrity candidate and probably the least qualified person in the country’s history to take on the role. He no doubt did the things he thought best, making some good decisions and some bad for the country and its citizens.</p><p>He now has family problems that need his attention more than the country does. An easy and honourable way out is to step up to a microphone and say supporting family is more important than politics.</p><p>Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s approval rating has seen its largest dip since he took office five years ago. He currently ranks last in popularity among Canadian premiers. Recent polling shows his approval rating at 28 per cent, a drastic drop from 69 per cent in March 2020.</p><p>He now finds himself mired in a scandal that refuses to go away. His government’s decision to remove 7,400 acres from the environmentally-protected Greenbelt zone surrounding the Greater Toronto area has resulted in heavy criticism. It forced the resignation of his housing minister who Ontario’s ethics commission said broke ethics rules.</p><p>Ford has sloughed off criticism saying the land is needed for affordable housing. However, he has said repeatedly in the past that his government would not develop the protected lands.</p><p>There are alternatives to building housing on farmland, which the 2021 Census on Agriculture suggests Ontario is losing at a rate of 319 acres a day. It is difficult understand what Ford hopes to achieve by breaking his word on such a sensitive topic.</p><p>All this follows criticism of Ontario’s handling of the Coronavirus pandemic, health care in general, care of seniors and reducing funds for education.</p><p>Trudeau and Ford need to be replaced by new types of leaders. Leaders who are committed to something bigger than themselves and gaining votes for their political parties.</p><p>Our political party system has become one of opposition instead of co-operation. We need new leaders who are less beholding to their parties and more tuned into the voices of the people and their needs.</p><p>The world is changing dramatically and facing the difficult issues of climate change, pandemics, growing authoritarianism and inequality. Today’s leaders must have new approaches to the rapidly changing world and the ability to inspire diverse groups of people to work with them.</p><p>The world in which Trudeau and Ford were elected five to eight years ago now is a different place. There is a trend toward weakening democracies and access to information that have left general populations with less say.</p><p>There is no shame in stepping aside now and being replaced by people with new approaches and new visions. Leaders who seek solutions by listening to the common people who are the ones most affected by the changes we see now, and more change that is likely in the future.</p><p>#</p><div><br /></div>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-63303746549367028592023-09-16T05:48:00.000-04:002023-09-16T05:48:21.795-04:00<p>And so we enter the time of plenty.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaHyIisurqlE9LqFsDwf4XyHjC7ONQqK2Qwx1t70VxdUSOfbLn5uMJkYaSaGPmUH31_eGzEjtVseojbOOURwXyk2kCSBQKjtPwG6K2LRanlw4abb_GdODgNkbCAmNAqR_iRAaef7AonRdtkE08j19wsKexVlxLijue4WGFhbnRIMcuwuM4gR0uYkOJ/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaHyIisurqlE9LqFsDwf4XyHjC7ONQqK2Qwx1t70VxdUSOfbLn5uMJkYaSaGPmUH31_eGzEjtVseojbOOURwXyk2kCSBQKjtPwG6K2LRanlw4abb_GdODgNkbCAmNAqR_iRAaef7AonRdtkE08j19wsKexVlxLijue4WGFhbnRIMcuwuM4gR0uYkOJ/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Crops ripen in fields. Apple trees hang heavy with fruit. <p></p><p>Autumn is the time of plenty of food. The time of harvest and satisfaction knowing we have the food we need for lean months ahead.</p><p>Yet as we enter the time of plenty the number of children returning to school with hungry stomachs continues to increase. </p><p>Statistics Canada reports that in 2022 almost 1.8 million Canadian children lived in households that could not afford the food needed for healthy living. Almost 11 per cent of households in the Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Pine Ridge region were food insecure in 2022, the region’s district health board reported earlier this year.</p><p>Food banks say that visits to their facilities have increased by as much as 20 to 30 per cent in the last year. Feed Ontario, a collective of hunger relief organizations, says that roughly one-third of all visitors to Ontario food banks are under 18 years of age.</p><p>Feed Ontario also says that Ontario food banks were visited more than 4.3 million times during the 2021-22 year, an increase of 42 per cent over the previous three years. The number of visits in the first nine months of last year increased 24 per cent.</p><p>Also, the number of first-time visitors increased 64 per cent since 2019. </p><p>Child hunger is not just about a kid not having enough to eat now and then. It is a problem that affects our entire society for years into the future.</p><p>Hungry children can’t focus properly on classroom lessons or on learning life skills. When they don’t absorb lessons they have trouble later getting a job needed to support themselves and any family they might have in the future. </p><p>The result often is even more families with not enough food for healthy living. It is a cycle of more hungry children unable to escape the cycle of poverty and resulting food insecurity.</p><p>Hungry families and hungry children lead to numerous social problems, including crime.</p><p>Research shows a correlation between food insecurity and violent crime. One U.S. university study concluded that for every one per cent rise in food insecurity, violent crime rates increased by 12 per cent.</p><p>In the words of Pearl Buck, author of the internationally acclaimed novel The Good Earth: </p><p>“A hungry man can’t see right or wrong. He just sees food.”</p><p>Hungry people are not only perpetrators of crime, they sometimes are victims. Statistics Canada has reported that more than one in seven Canadian adults who were victims of crime from 2016 to 2018 lacked consistent access to enough food to live an active, healthy life. </p><p>There is no shortage of individuals or organizations trying to alleviate hunger among children and their families. Food Banks Canada says it supports a network of 4,750 hunger relief organizations across Canada. </p><p>There are many other hunger relief groups such as the St. Vincent de Paul Society collecting a distributing food for those in need. </p><p>All the good work being done to feed the hungry is not enough. It fills some bellies temporarily but does little to eliminate the causes of food insecurity.</p><p>Many experts say that the way to attack poverty and hunger is to work at limiting the inequalities we have in income, wealth, gender and race. Unimaginable fortunes are being made by the world’s super rich while common working people face deteriorating benefits.</p><p>Simply put, the gap between the rich and the rest of us continues to widen, assisted by poor governance and corruption. </p><p>Oxfam International, a global movement fighting poverty, says common people must work together to challenge the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few.</p><p>“We can demand an end to patriarchy, white supremacy and neoliberalism,” it says. “We can change the rules on tax to make sure the richest pay their fair share. We can demand more spending on public health and education. We can demand fair wages for everyone.” </p><p>Whatever. </p><p>All I know is that it is a total outrage that we still have children going to school hungry and relying on school breakfasts and lunches to provide their basic nutrition needs.</p><p><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>#</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-44317999973810939122023-09-08T09:17:00.000-04:002023-09-08T09:17:07.268-04:00<p> I now know why sunflowers droop. It’s not because they lack water, or because their seed heads have become heavy.</p><p>When you see sunflowers drooping, instead of standing proud and happy, they are hanging their heads in embarrassment. That’s because they have become victims of a witless fad.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSj14lB_cx1UorPj3Y6YBfp6WFzI_YR0Lmg1XaDiB4cUEqTYuC8IKKK4GcZg8Ww99iHh0RQmsUghiIKAoBbC9b5oCs6yeqo6eqkmXVzN4IFaGfiE_jb7oF26QijPUD8I7BCaw9p-q0mJZ4FUI9U4LwcM1iir-n95QmxaxjKlDa4j1HXvyr5y0YQz7K/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSj14lB_cx1UorPj3Y6YBfp6WFzI_YR0Lmg1XaDiB4cUEqTYuC8IKKK4GcZg8Ww99iHh0RQmsUghiIKAoBbC9b5oCs6yeqo6eqkmXVzN4IFaGfiE_jb7oF26QijPUD8I7BCaw9p-q0mJZ4FUI9U4LwcM1iir-n95QmxaxjKlDa4j1HXvyr5y0YQz7K/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>It’s a fad that appears occasionally but usually fades quickly with little attention. But it fell into the international media spotlight recently in Britain and there is concern it will become a major craze.<p></p><p>A British sunflower farm reported it has posted No Public Nudity signs at its sunflower fields because people were stripping to take photos of themselves nude among the big, sunny blooms. Some nude photos are posted on social media sites for the enjoyment of followers.</p><p>“We are a family area and please keep your clothes on in the sunflowers,” visitors to the farm are being told. </p><p>The farm began allowing visitors to view the spectacular blooming flowers in late July, then discovered at least six instances of people dropping their clothes for nude photographs. </p><p>One visitor reported going through the sunflower patches looking for a spectacular bloom but was shocked to find something even more spectacular – a naked woman posing for a camera.</p><p>Another person, apparently visiting the sunflowers with children, reported stumbling onto a woman wearing only a skimpy thong.</p><p>"Our son got a right eyeful last night. Should have seen his face!!"</p><p>Now some Canadian sunflower farm owners are complaining about visitors wreaking havoc in their fields. People are trampling the sunflower crops as they seek good spots to pose for selfies, clothed or not, among the flowers.</p><p>Sunflowers have inspired the urge to go naked ever since Helen Mirren starred in the British film Calendar Girls. It was based on the true story of a group of middle-aged women who pose nude for a calendar to raise money for blood cancer research. Sunflowers featured prominently in the photos.</p><p>Their nude calendar plan was an instant success and eventually raised millions of dollars for blood cancer research. That happy outcome no doubt boosted the flower’s reputation as a symbol of warmth, love and happiness.</p><p>Throughout history the flowers have been associated with sun and harvest, creating symbolism of warmth, abundance and prosperity.</p><p>Some societies view the sunflower as a symbol of hope and joy, associating it with optimism and perseverance and a representation of life itself. Others see it as a symbol of long life and lasting happiness because most varieties bloom throughout the summer.</p><p>The current fad of taking nude selfies in the sunflowers seems to be part of a growing trend toward nudism. Studies of social media data showed a significant increase in nude photo posts during the Coronavirus pandemic.</p><p>British Naturism, an organization that supports nudism, reported a more than 100- per-cent increase in new members during the first year of the pandemic.</p><p>This year’s fashion show walkways have shown the “sheer look” more prominently with bare breasts and skimpy panties visible through see-through clothing. Fashion gurus say risqué sheer looks will gain more prominence in future.</p><p>Posing for nude pictures in the sunflowers does involve some risk. </p><p>Worms, weevils, spiders, beetles and bees are there to build homes, lay eggs and snack on the sunflowers’ tasty treats. Larger critters such as raccoons, mice, rats and bats also are found there.</p><p>So if you prefer to be among the sunflowers nude, you are offering a lot more skin to curious critters.</p><p>Sunflower pollen and oils also create allergies for some people. These are seldom severe but can cause itchy mouth, watery eyes, eczema and hives, as well as breathing difficulties. </p><p>Knowing all that it’s probably best to keep your clothes on when visiting sunflower fields. Besides are your followers on Instagram and Facebook really interested in seeing your sagging body parts among sagging sunflower heads?</p><p>Some nude posers say their photos make great cards to send out and celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and even Christmas.</p><p>Maybe I’m too old-fashioned but I still prefer Christmas cards with smiling Santas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or still and quiet manger scenes.</p><p><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span># </p><div><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhmdI4QET19H6czO1p561vVsd07nt5YBtVBMWMxymYG8fHGkQM6X6SMQFmNQghM2m7qRZlUghl_2waduIjNi0uVQErQ4KRbjHfGvOFXDmi3a0vk8NL7M5YagXRPuHb-3kwdf_JTrt6kx0BCVgsvOatewxRfR9mL2dGeOB-s8utvVry-8-ZYd5ot3Nhh" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="468" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhmdI4QET19H6czO1p561vVsd07nt5YBtVBMWMxymYG8fHGkQM6X6SMQFmNQghM2m7qRZlUghl_2waduIjNi0uVQErQ4KRbjHfGvOFXDmi3a0vk8NL7M5YagXRPuHb-3kwdf_JTrt6kx0BCVgsvOatewxRfR9mL2dGeOB-s8utvVry-8-ZYd5ot3Nhh" width="173" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-59196858010523883912023-08-31T16:59:00.000-04:002023-08-31T16:59:42.636-04:00<p>My laptop computer is driving me crazy.</p><p>It’s like it has been invaded by those evil clowns you see in television commercials. You know, the ones with white faces, fiery red lips, wicked red smiles and tufts of curly red or blue hair framing a bald head.</p><p>They sneak about in the shadows, concocting new ways to make life difficult. They work quietly and efficiently, grinning mischievously while driving you whacko.</p><p>They are not just in my laptop. They’ve also invaded my cell phone and my iPad.</p><p>Most people call clowns Bozos. I call the ones in my computer equipment Spam.</p><p>Spam, in the form of dishonest text messages, emails and telephone calls, is increasing. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre says that last year it received fraud and cybercrime reports totalling $530 million in victim losses. That was almost a 40-per-cent increase from the previous year.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeGiCwW0X4Ln3F5uypc34to1p5hhPXwrAPo4uzvgFKOceKSuxhyRl4glOx7c-Sil9iLMdrK4khqWBhg2dFb_nAAgjmnTlHqp1knA45lVm0vWQc6Sh-J0MDxfwh-hHjfza7GzcfFJxdzNn0r0LJoDtjmmHpSu1rvp98fXARRYgW36g9HFPsIjTzNZHG/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeGiCwW0X4Ln3F5uypc34to1p5hhPXwrAPo4uzvgFKOceKSuxhyRl4glOx7c-Sil9iLMdrK4khqWBhg2dFb_nAAgjmnTlHqp1knA45lVm0vWQc6Sh-J0MDxfwh-hHjfza7GzcfFJxdzNn0r0LJoDtjmmHpSu1rvp98fXARRYgW36g9HFPsIjTzNZHG/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Those figures don’t actually reflect the full extent of spam fraud because the centre says most people don’t report spamming that is minor or just annoying.<p></p><p>There really is no defence against email and text spam, or the spam phone calls that come at any time of day or night. You can’t stop them. If you do find ways, the spammers come up with ways around them.</p><p>I now have roughly 500 blocked spam addresses on my cell phone. However, once a spammer discovers the block he changes the address slightly and starts again.</p><p>Some of spam is not just annoying, it’s downright dangerous. It can contain malicious links or attachments that infect your system with malware or viruses.</p><p>The purpose of most scams is to get at your information and use it to get money from you.</p><p>We put our email and text addresses up for sale or trade when we accept the privacy policies of services or websites that we visit. Those policies are long, painful reads that often include your agreement to your information being passed on to others. Who reads them when you simply are trying to find something simple on a company website? </p><p>Email addresses are worth money to scammers. They buy them in bulk to add to their mailing lists. A simple push of a button sends spam out to tens of thousands of innocent people and just one sucker falling for the scam makes it all worthwhile. </p><p>Phishing – pretending to be a legitimate major retailer or service – has become a favourite way for scammers to trick consumers. </p><p>Scammers copy a company logo and use it in a phony email. The message might say you have a $45 credit from a recent purchase. Click a link, fill in your credit card or bank info and the $45 will be deposited for you.</p><p>Retail giant Walmart has become the most imitated company. Its brand name was used in 16 percent of all phishing schemes globally during the first quarter of this year, says a study by Check Point Research, a California-based cyber threat intelligence company. That’s an increase from 13 percent in the last quarter of 2022. </p><p>Other top companies imitated by scammers are the delivery company DHL, Linkedin and Netflix. I’ve also blocked phishing schemes from Lowes building supplies, Costco Best Buy and a variety of pharmaceutical companies.</p><p>Scammers also hack the accounts of people you know then send you fake messages that appear to be from someone you trust.</p><p>Basically we are alone when it comes to fighting these cyber crimes. If you report a phishing attack or other email fraud to police you’ll likely be told to call the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre by telephone at 1-888-495-8501.</p><p>When you call that outfit someone will take down your information and say thank you. The centre simply collects information on fraud and identity theft and compiles details of past and current scams to pass on to the general public. </p><p>There’s little direct action any government agency can take. We are all on our own on this one. The best any of us can do is be very watchful and cautious, don’t open anything that looks the least bit suspicious and if a company wants something from you, give them a call or go into one of their stores.</p>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-38236367397584594322023-08-24T13:38:00.000-04:002023-08-24T13:38:21.770-04:00<p>Scenes of utter devastation from Maui, Hawaii, the Yellowknife, N.W.T. and B.C. wildfire evacuations, plus the Halifax flash flooding bring to mind a single word: Apocalypse.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj87liCOjJqNWzZIsiHXD7qZKAnRnUMCEEW32ON6IVD-J-kYMfAzfpo-f2BQ1EtDaE5TrtISZUdLHF4Ox7fiKsR07ULjgyTUwTyvJoxRepNL2IF6ShBzaXRuuYig2N6OlRKevQ42CIHg6Kr12Il4C5brP0LozhgBJkR3x70O7UxViinSLC2EgIVvwWf/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj87liCOjJqNWzZIsiHXD7qZKAnRnUMCEEW32ON6IVD-J-kYMfAzfpo-f2BQ1EtDaE5TrtISZUdLHF4Ox7fiKsR07ULjgyTUwTyvJoxRepNL2IF6ShBzaXRuuYig2N6OlRKevQ42CIHg6Kr12Il4C5brP0LozhgBJkR3x70O7UxViinSLC2EgIVvwWf/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>We are living a real life apocalypse as fires, floods and drought bring destruction and death. Record wildfires in North America, killing heatwaves in India, Pakistan and Australia, typhoons in Asia and record-breaking rainfall in the U.K. and parts of Europe confirm today’s apocalypse as a global event.<p></p><p>Elon Musk, the business magnate baptised Anglican but now claiming no religious affiliation, issued an apocalypse warming last year, predicting the end of mankind.</p><p>Apocalypses are common in Biblical texts and usually refer to an intense confrontation with God in which destruction of evil and the end of time bring divine justice and the visibility of God’s rule.</p><p>I prefer to understand apocalypse as a revelation, which is the true meaning of the Greek word apokálypsis from which the English word is derived.</p><p>Apocalypses are devastating events but they reveal how our lives can be better by changing the lifestyles that brought about the apocalypse in the first place.</p><p>Surely no intelligent person doubts that global warming is causing the damaging weather events we are witnessing. And, there can be no doubt that human lifestyles are major contributors to climate change.</p><p>We are beginning to accept that our ways of living must be changed if we are to avoid what Musk calls the end of mankind.</p><p>Many governments are committed to reducing climate changing emissions to zero by 2050. They are investing in renewable energy alternatives to fossil fuels, reducing environment damaging items such as plastics and promoting more ways of green living.</p><p>But governments are cumbersome and slow. They are incapable of reducing global warming on their own. They need a committed partnership with business to effectively change policies and practices. Businesses exist to make money, however, and changes will hit corporation bottom lines.</p><p>Collective action is needed and will be achieved only when individuals become deeply committed. That requires individuals to make better choices about where they get their energy, what foods they eat, what items they buy and how they travel.</p><p>More than that, individuals need to pressure governments and businesses to change policies and practices. Governments need individuals to vote for them and businesses cannot survive without customers so individuals can be a powerful force in making change happen.</p><p>Will individuals take today’s climate apocalypse as a revelation that we must make major changes to the way we live? That’s questionable.</p><p>Think about how filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola warned us back in 1979 about the futility and absurdity of war. His brilliant Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now portrays war’s damaging psychological effects on humans and how it indulges the darkest, ugliest parts of human nature.</p><p>Yet here we are more than half a century later with Encyclopedia Britannica posting an article on the eight deadliest wars in the still young 21st century: The Second Congo War. Syrian Civil War, Darfur Conflict, Iraq War, Afghanistan War, The War Against Boko Haram, Yemeni Civil War, Russia-Ukraine War.</p><p>Those are just the eight deadliest of the 32 conflicts now ranging in various parts of the world.</p><p>Whether we learn enough and make the changes needed to stop the current fire-flood-drought apocalypse from destroying the plant remains to be seen.</p><p>There is hope, however.</p><p>A 2021 study of 10,000 young people 16 to 25 in 10 countries found 59 per cent said they are extremely or very worried about climate change. Most of those also said their feelings about climate change negatively affect their daily lives.</p><p>Youth organizations such as Zero Hour, Earth Uprising and Climate Cardinals have been growing in recent years and are working to find solutions to global warming and climate change.</p><p>The United Nations has expressed confidence that youth will find a way to make changes that will prevent the planet’s final apocalypse.</p><p>Says a UN web page on climate actions:</p><p>“Young people are not only victims of climate change. They are also valuable contributors to climate action. They are agents of change, entrepreneurs and innovators. Whether through education, science or technology, young people are scaling up their efforts and using their skills to accelerate climate action.”</p><p>Here’s hoping!</p>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-71814517771571543762023-08-04T12:46:00.000-04:002023-08-04T12:46:27.140-04:00<p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Some good news: Despite weather disasters and war the world apparently has become a happier place.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The annual Gallup Global Emotions Report shows people around the world generally more positive in 2022 than they were a year before. More people felt well-rested, experienced enjoyment, and smiled or laughed than in 2021.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">That finding is supported by the market research company Ipsos which says global happiness is six points higher than one year ago. It says 73 per cent of adults across 32 world markets describe themselves as happy.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">I'm taking all that with a grain of salt, or more likely a shot of whiskey.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The happiness polls show pockets of unhappiness that are deeper and wider than the pollsters realize.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Gallup, an analytics and advisory company, has reported steadily rising negative feelings since 2006 when it reported a negative experience of index of 23. The index rose steadily to a record 33 in 2021 and remains there.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVC5_vibqdQEqbK-GPTNQMPsESBvIa-ErcOIvTsKgZTDBcDzCqAG32lEL3vXCDukFi0HZWMMd72vLxFaZr8MkCsY05kj8b256cpe7FrRAsIkjHCBEH00YDE8PD57ejdGf6cS5g5zYlbbBYrn2LqTy9gnHvlFHB8b3Vc8clB1KxcqgbOAbnELM8xpPA/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"> <img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVC5_vibqdQEqbK-GPTNQMPsESBvIa-ErcOIvTsKgZTDBcDzCqAG32lEL3vXCDukFi0HZWMMd72vLxFaZr8MkCsY05kj8b256cpe7FrRAsIkjHCBEH00YDE8PD57ejdGf6cS5g5zYlbbBYrn2LqTy9gnHvlFHB8b3Vc8clB1KxcqgbOAbnELM8xpPA/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /> </a>Gallup also found that 41 per cent of people last year experienced worry while 32 per cent said they experienced daily pain.But this year’s increase in global happiness is driven by a few unlikely areas. Latin America, notably Brazil, Peru, Argentina and Columbia, has seen a remarkable year-over-year happiness increase. Western counties are showing decreases with the number of Canadians feeling happy down six per cent in the last year.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">In 2012 Canada was listed as the world’s fourth happiest country. Last year we were rated 15th happiest.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The reasons why Canadian happiness has fallen so far should be fairly obvious. Ask anyone close by you and you’ll likely hear complaints about high food prices, absurdly high housing costs, increasing crime and violence and a feeling that governments have made little progress in solving those issues.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Unhappy feelings will continue until political leaders start tracking the wellbeing of their citizens. The standard political game now is to smile into the cameras, and talk about statistics on inflation, Gross Domestic Product, unemployment and other statistical trends. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">They should spend less time tracking statistical dumps and more time face to face with the people they are elected to serve. Listening to people and tracking their wellbeing will get governments a lot more insight into solutions than will bare statistics.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Jon Clifton, the CEO of Gallup, has said that the job of leaders is not to make people feel happy.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">“The role of leaders should be to reduce misery,” he says. “And the problem in the world today is that misery is rising.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">“Measuring how people feel must be a priority of world leaders if we are going to reverse this global rise of misery.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Good thoughts but governments alone cannot improve our lives or our sense of well-being. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Canadians have assumed that governments can effectively provide everything people need, from protection of rights to preventing violence to maintaining a strong economy.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">We should no longer assume that. Few of us are even aware of what the issues are or how our governments are approaching them. We’re information lightweights.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">People today view important issues in video-clip form. We are too busy to gather and absorb details that make a complete story. We form opinions with little information.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Perhaps we just get tired of hearing problems. Global warming is killing us. The health care system is failing us. The grocery company czars are fleecing us. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The news often is so depressing that we turn to the lighter stuff. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">A stunning example of how we look away from important happenings and give more attention to lightweight matters was shown recently by London, England’s Guardian newspaper.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The Guardian reported that a Google news search found that the news media ran more than 10,000 stories this year about Phillip Schofield, the British television celebrity who resigned over an affair with a young colleague. Another Google search recorded a global total of only five news stories about a scientific study showing the likelihood of major world crop losses caused by climate change are being dangerously underestimated.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Giving less importance to the real world in favour of celebrity gossip won’t help to find solutions to the serious problems facing the world.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">We all have to get better informed.</p>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-11785051104471639292023-07-27T10:25:00.000-04:002023-07-27T10:25:51.680-04:00<p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A very old guy with snow-white hair and snow-white beard fishes the ocean for weeks without catching anything. Finally, he catches a mighty marlin, but sharks eat it before he can get it to shore.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Tough luck. Stuff happens. Move on to the next story.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNygilsawM03TvJVKQRFxqqnqTo_qje9tKWYjw2CuKI4dFRpyIJ8oyXBWpOsfz5f-Wktiz9piH2i98ZynqYStPn0xpyNZqESSD3OTFs22-O-g7nFzs3Lcg_c1OSfeeBYEggi1UF9-b_4DnEIfgn_ULwEeq-vy0mlA6WPy59ZpTNZ96aoFfrDlT4NiK/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNygilsawM03TvJVKQRFxqqnqTo_qje9tKWYjw2CuKI4dFRpyIJ8oyXBWpOsfz5f-Wktiz9piH2i98ZynqYStPn0xpyNZqESSD3OTFs22-O-g7nFzs3Lcg_c1OSfeeBYEggi1UF9-b_4DnEIfgn_ULwEeq-vy0mlA6WPy59ZpTNZ96aoFfrDlT4NiK/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;">That’s a likely Internet simplification of Ernest Hemingway’s classic The Old Man and the Sea. A quick scan. No details. No context. No messages. No learning. The kind of thinned out, often inaccurate, stories we see on social media sites every day.</span><span style="font-family: arial;">If you went to a library and read the book you’d discover the full story and its valuable messages. The main message being that life is a struggle with an inevitable end, but perseverance and dignity can help us through it.</span><p></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Sadly, many of us don’t go to libraries or get our information through print sources. We scan and skim smartphones, tablets and PCs for news and information on which we base our opinions and decisions. Brief, incomplete, often manipulated stuff presented as fact.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The majority of people living in the developed world now have fingertip online access to just about all factual information that exists. Yet we are moving farther away from consuming complete, balanced, factually-based information needed to help solve the many difficult issues facing today’s societies.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Research has found that individuals instructed to find specific information online found it faster than others using printed encyclopedias. However, the online searchers were less able to recall the information accurately.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A New Zealand university study concluded back in 2014 that online reading has a negative impact on people’s cognition. The study, titled Is Google Making Us Stupid?, found that concentration, comprehension, absorption and recall rates were much lower when people read text online.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Research shows that the digital age also is reducing our attention spans. Some experts say the attention span of a learner now averages 20 minutes.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So, when we skim and scan online we go through more material, but comprehend it less than if we had read it on paper. That’s not good news considering that we face major issues that demand action supported by thoughtful and accurate information.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The move away from reading printed newspapers, magazines and books has happened astonishingly fast and is increasing. U.S. newspaper and periodical revenue has fallen 40 to 50 per cent in the past decade, and Canadian figures are believed to be similar.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A Canadian Book Consumer Study says19 percent of Canadians borrowed a book from a public library in 2021. Also, The Canadian Pediatric Society has said that while 20 percent of adolescents never read a book, almost 50 percent frequently read blogs. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Print has tried to fight back by offering their products digitally, with little success. Many newspapers, for instance, are offering skim and scan headlines that encourage one- or two-minute reads that don’t come close to giving readers a full sense of what is happening.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Nothing is gained in bemoaning this change in society. We are living through a Digital Revolution, also being called the Third Industrial Revolution. Digital life online is here to stay, shrinking the importance of print.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The goal now should be to build the benefits of online reading while restricting the detriments. Young people especially need to learn how to avoid the negatives of online reading and increase concentration and absorption.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">How can that be done? Good question but few solid answers.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There are suggestions like doing more online reading on a large screen, rather than a cellphone. Taking pencil and paper notes during online research is another suggestion.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Internet is only 30 years old and there simply has not been enough research on how time spent on computers affects cognitive development, especially in children. More research is needed to find practical ways to ameliorate the detrimental impacts.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Libraries perhaps hold part of the answer. They are places where print and digital share space, offering the advantages of book learning and online learning.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Libraries also are great equalizers. Many people who can’t afford books or a digital devices get access to information, print or digital, with a library card.</span></p>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-21767392429389807122023-07-20T17:19:00.000-04:002023-07-20T17:19:36.686-04:00<p> There are signs that the animal kingdom is fed up with us and beginning to rebel. </p><p>Two-ton killer whales are ramming yachts and fishing boats. A sea otter has been stealing surf boards from surfers on the California coast. Sharks are terrorizing people on the east coast and alligators are mauling people in Florida. </p><p>Closer to home, coyotes are more visible and bolder, while groundhogs are devastating vegetable and flower gardens. Wire mesh fencing hasn’t stopped them from consuming my wife’s parsley patch.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIb_ahXf7UZM8L3N81Lg3AUHs410lIz-Zcxj7A7uUoUjCpRGLGJoEasek1N1PjoCNqUM7B77eUp9VhWcJDzCk1IZs5BoikCzKlnmZ28v_rmgcLnwVD5rEyNku8EdLST4awr6OI0lgfe1wXQfNB9Uvajj4DnWJpmSnV7BocbVX8j3ZDpkRimRpoLMZW/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIb_ahXf7UZM8L3N81Lg3AUHs410lIz-Zcxj7A7uUoUjCpRGLGJoEasek1N1PjoCNqUM7B77eUp9VhWcJDzCk1IZs5BoikCzKlnmZ28v_rmgcLnwVD5rEyNku8EdLST4awr6OI0lgfe1wXQfNB9Uvajj4DnWJpmSnV7BocbVX8j3ZDpkRimRpoLMZW/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>News reports of animal rebellion now are so common that the shouts of the rebelling animals in George Orwell’s 1945 novella Animal Farm are echoing in my head.<p></p><p>“Four legs good, two legs bad,” Orwell’s animals shout during a rousing speech by Old Major, a big old boar, calling for a revolution. </p><p>“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing,” Old Major says, urging the animals to take control of their lives back from humans.</p><p>Relating the current animal behaviour to Orwell’s Animal Farm is perhaps an overreaction. However, something definitely is going on with the world’s animals.</p><p>Since 2020 there have been 500 reports of killer whales ramming boats off the coasts of Portugal and Spain. Several have been so badly damaged that they sank.</p><p>Last month a whale attacked a yacht off the coast of Scotland. Pods of whales have appeared off the east and west coast of North America and there is concern the whales will start attacking boats there.</p><p>Alligator attacks in Florida have increased 66 per cent in recent years. And earlier this month a 69-year-old woman walking her dog in South Carolina was attacked and killed by a gator.</p><p>Shark attacks also have increased. </p><p>Globally an estimated four dozen people have suffered shark attacks this year, six fatally. The number is on course to exceed last year’s total of 81 attacks. The annual high for attacks is 111 in 2015.</p><p>On the July 4th weekend a 15-year girl was attacked by a shark at a New York beach. She survived.</p><p>Coyote populations have grown, as have sightings in human populated areas. Researchers say coyote density in some parts of Canada has risen to as high as 2.3 coyotes per square kilometre. </p><p>There have been two noteworthy coyote attacks in the last few weeks. A nine-year-old boy was mauled June 24 in the North Kildonan area of Winnipeg. One week later a four-year-old child was attacked in the same neighbourhood. Both children were treated in hospital for non-life threatening injuries.</p><p>Some people believe that increasing wild animal-human interactions are caused by growing wild animal populations. Others say human populations spreading into animal territories is causing conflicts.</p><p>Climate change also is said to be a factor in increasing wildlife-human conflicts. Global warming is melting sea ice in the Arctic, causing polar bears to spend more time on land and creating more encounters with humans. Earlier this year a mother and small child were killed in Alaska by a polar bear.</p><p>Whatever the reasons, strange animal behaviour is another sign of Nature trying to tell us something.</p><p>Nature is a wise grandmother who can teach us much, if we are willing to listen. (The numbskulls who continue to toss Tim’s coffee cups and beer cans from car and truck windows obviously are not).</p><p>One of her important lessons is for us to abandon the human ego that makes us think of things in Nature as either useful to us or useless in general.</p><p>Everything in Nature has a purpose and is useful even if it doesn’t benefit we humans in some way.</p><p>As has been said many times by many writers: Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.</p><p>We are Nature, albeit only one part of it. So when we spit on Nature, we spit on ourselves.</p><p>Perhaps our poor understanding of Nature and the way we mistreat it is the reason the animals appear to be rebelling.</p><p>To quote again the rebellious Old Major in Animal Farm:</p><p>“There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It is summed up in a single word– Man.”</p><p><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>#</p><p><br /></p>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-49846685793458206782023-07-14T08:10:00.000-04:002023-07-14T08:10:09.356-04:00<p>Thumbs up to my little sister. She can turn mud pies into chocolate cakes. Or, a bad experience into something helpful to others.</p><p>She was bike riding with her daughter recently in eastern Ontario when her bike’s front wheel hit a crumbled piece of pavement. She was thrown over the handlebars and landed hard, breaking her arm.</p><p>She was immobile on the road’s edge with her daughter trying to help when a car approached. It didn’t stop to help. It didn’t slow down and it narrowly missed hitting them.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXVkMktsDgQE9j-GIjEGHY1bmavjYbjVWXonJFrZWKQABC6SQPQRUaoNzyU9BaVkO_1_CHkt-EyvuI92EGiDizbSLCXto0TkGgS35FDNBeODol2kxYzCLrw_pz-LnetFrL_ebavsrTsWcKlUcNsuwB-q7ztntgWQB_bnEVrlkMruXwMx2aitcsb_LT/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXVkMktsDgQE9j-GIjEGHY1bmavjYbjVWXonJFrZWKQABC6SQPQRUaoNzyU9BaVkO_1_CHkt-EyvuI92EGiDizbSLCXto0TkGgS35FDNBeODol2kxYzCLrw_pz-LnetFrL_ebavsrTsWcKlUcNsuwB-q7ztntgWQB_bnEVrlkMruXwMx2aitcsb_LT/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>When told the story I went into my “world gone crazy” outrage. It’s a sick, sick society when a driver races past an injured person lying on the edge of a road.<p></p><p>My sister had a different take. She told how some nice people came out to help from a nearby house, arranging for an ambulance, trying to make her comfortable etc.</p><p>Then came the hospital story, one much different from what we so often hear these days.</p><p>The emergency room was packed, as many are these days. But instead of taking my sister’s OHIP card and telling her to take a seat, a nurse immediately set her up with a comfortable sling, gave her pain medication, then had her take a seat.</p><p>She didn’t complain about having to wait to see a doctor because the sling and pills made it easier to bear.</p><p>My sister is a person who believes people who do their jobs thoughtfully and with kindness should be thanked and told how their work truly helped. So, she called the hospital communications department to have her appreciation passed on to ER staff and the one nurse in particular.</p><p>There she stepped into the madness of our computer-controlled world. She was told to go to her laptop, tap this, tap that and eventually end up at a screen displaying a form. Fill out the form, then tap some more to send the completed form into the miasma of hospital bureaucracy.</p><p>My sister believes there must be an easier way to pass along appreciation and thanks. </p><p>I suppose one could still use the old-fashioned approach of writing a letter, searching for an address, addressing an envelope, inserting the letter, licking the envelope seal and paying $1 plus for a stamp then posting the letter and hoping it might find the right person.</p><p>We now live in the digital age surrounded by software engineers who work daily at changing the way we do things. Surely some of them can design a digital way to say thank you quickly and directly.</p><p>My sister wonders why there isn’t a system with which any company that deals with people – not just hospitals – has a simple-to-reach site just for compliments. It takes in messages of thanks and appreciation and directs them to the employee.</p><p>Something that bypasses the nests of bureaucracy and computer systems that complicate simple living. Something that you can do quickly on your cell phone while the experience is still fresh in your mind.</p><p>It’s an interesting thought. Perhaps someone will pick up on it and one day we’ll be able to send a kudo to a helpful person without the usual rigamarole.</p><p>Meanwhile my sister turned to social media to try to thank the nurse for her exceptional kindness. Her post included the following:</p><p>“You will never know the impact your kindness had on me that day. You could have just as easily taken my info when I came in and had me go back to a seat. Instead you gave me a new sling to comfort me while I waited and gave me medication to relieve the excruciating pain the fractures in my arm were causing. Thank you for making the rest of that day tolerable. I hope this message finds you somehow.”</p><p>I too hope it finds her.</p><p>It’s a harsh world out there where excellent and intelligent job performance mixed with kindness are not easy to find. When we do find it we should celebrate it and have better ways of passing along our thanks and appreciation.</p>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-76146784247194484672023-07-07T07:30:00.000-04:002023-07-07T07:30:16.577-04:00<p> Our spring and summer of smoke is being called abnormal. It’s not. It’s a new normal that scientists predict will become an even more normal part of our lives.</p><p>“This is our potential future,” Morgan Crowley, a Canadian Forest Service fire scientist, said in an interview with the Vox media service recently. “It’s real. It’s really important that we prepare for our future and find ways to reduce the effects on our vulnerable populations.”</p><p>This year already is the worst forest fire season in Canadian and North American history. Canada has suffered more than 3,000 forest fires since the end of March, burning about 20 million acres. And, we are not quite halfway through the fire season.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJbQhA2340-nC3B0EjTWBSRap5PcJyD6tGcVTI2fdqDah183MeUZm171sI9MBpHnfd9Bn-1tpZa3mnMY4NI2i1iEsPEF__u7Y3njt1WaY5eNzofSlRTIMEfRVJ6A9DyP1XvcF7Ir53Xms0kiAfygJoTv4OddG87NLXUi5K01uZJ1ACag4nf799pJOt/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJbQhA2340-nC3B0EjTWBSRap5PcJyD6tGcVTI2fdqDah183MeUZm171sI9MBpHnfd9Bn-1tpZa3mnMY4NI2i1iEsPEF__u7Y3njt1WaY5eNzofSlRTIMEfRVJ6A9DyP1XvcF7Ir53Xms0kiAfygJoTv4OddG87NLXUi5K01uZJ1ACag4nf799pJOt/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>It’s going to get worse. More forest fires and more smoke clouding our skies and affecting our health will be a fact of life. We need to listen to, and act on, Ms. Crowley’s warning to prepare for the future and work on finding ways to protect vulnerable populations.<p></p><p>Changing climate is creating conditions that increase wildfire potential. Higher temperatures and increased wind have been drying out our forests, turning them into tinder boxes.</p><p>A key factor in recent forest fire history is something that the public has heard little about. It’s called VPD – vapour pressure deficit and is the difference between the amount of moisture actually in the air and the amount of moisture the air could hold.</p><p>When the air has much more room for moisture it sucks it out of trees and other plant growth. The larger the moisture deficit, the drier our forests become.</p><p>Drier forests don’t necessarily mean there will be more fires, but they definitely mean much drier material for a fire to burn. That’s why recent fires have been larger than usual and creating more smoke.</p><p>There is increasing concern about how wildfire smoke is affecting our health. Breathing in the smoke causes running noses, scratchy throats, irritated sinuses, coughs and headaches. The smoke causes more serious problems for people who suffer asthma, bronchitis, and pulmonary disease.</p><p>Wildfire smoke can be seen and smelled but it contains tiny toxic particulates that are invisible to the human eye. These particulates can be comprised of acids, sulphites, nitrates, soot, metals and other things can travel deep into the lungs and the bloodstream.</p><p>Some medical researchers suspect that breathing wildfire smoke can increase cancer rates – notably lung and brain cancers. They don’t have much solid evidence of that yet and say more study is needed.</p><p>There also are suspicions that wildfire smoke is more harmful to infants and also can affect developing fetuses.</p><p>New research published in the June issue of the journal Science of the Total Environment says smoke particulates from wildfires could cause 4,000 to 9,200 premature deaths a year in the U.S.</p><p>What has not received much study yet are the effects of wildfire smoke on our mental health.</p><p>The constant talk about smokey grey days and waking up to discover you can’t see the far shore of your lake can be stressful and create anxiety. </p><p>Some studies of general air pollution have found that bad air can cause unhappiness and depression. One study has said that air pollution is linked not just to depression and anxiety, but causes some functional changes in the brain.</p><p>Especially disturbing is a 2022 study that found wildfire smoke exposure during the school year lowered standardized test scores slightly. </p><p>Older studies of people affected by wildfire smoke in British Columbia and California found no increase in mental-health-related doctor visits or hospitalizations.</p><p>Today, however, psychologists are increasingly reporting patients reacting to natural disasters with feelings of loss and grief.</p><p>Global warming, drying climate despite wild rain storms and the smoke are triggering worries about the future. How long will this last? What’s next and will it be worse? All questions many of us have and which are questions that disturb our mental well-being.</p><p>“Climate change is a mental health issue,” says Nancy Piotrowski, a licensed psychologist representative for the American Psychological Association’s Society for Environmental, Population and Conservation Psychology.</p><p>So wildfire smoke is not just getting into our throats and eyes. It’s getting into our heads.</p>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-65514632833141913762023-06-23T08:30:00.002-04:002023-06-23T08:30:59.691-04:00<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">No matter what calamity the world suffers, the only really important news in the United States these days is Donald Trump.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">News networks feverishly report his limo leaving Trump Tower for another court appearance in downtown New York. Or, his $100 million Boeing 757 taxiing for takeoff to a criminal arraignment in Florida.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Media packs follow him in and out of courtrooms, then to election campaign stops where he boasts of being a stable genius who will be president again next year.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The current odds favour him winning the Republican nomination and beating Joe Biden for the presidency in 2024. However, the odds also favour him being convicted of criminal offences related to hush money payments in New York, mishandling of secret documents in Florida or trying to fix election results in Georgia.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfTN3LoM_j9MoVoKR-dj9OetyMh-p-CVEA6o988NyflEaMO7UGsYIq4ojDhGdhXK9hWf6nR8yxBxclBhvVfGA9AB6YKywBpwTP_138f_keXEnms1IzhQfkvvMym2A0uCYMwYKlGbrWTj3mxjxcsIciAAJzn0nryg9ftCzPulWgUzaa4cKLRJ4_Im9B/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfTN3LoM_j9MoVoKR-dj9OetyMh-p-CVEA6o988NyflEaMO7UGsYIq4ojDhGdhXK9hWf6nR8yxBxclBhvVfGA9AB6YKywBpwTP_138f_keXEnms1IzhQfkvvMym2A0uCYMwYKlGbrWTj3mxjxcsIciAAJzn0nryg9ftCzPulWgUzaa4cKLRJ4_Im9B/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>If he is convicted on one of those offences and imprisoned how could he continue to run for president?Easily. Nothing in U.S. law prevents him from becoming president while doing prison time. The law says that any natural born U.S. citizen who is 35 years or older and has lived in the country at least 14 years can be president.<p></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">If convicted and jailed, Trump will not be the first person to run for president while serving time. A guy named Eugene Debs did it back in 1920 and won three per cent of the popular vote. Nearly one million people voted for him.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche ran for the White House in 1992 while doing a 15-year term for fraud. He won only 0.1 per cent of the popular vote.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">There’s already one declared candidate running for the 2024 presidency from prison. Joseph Maldonado-Passage, also called Joe Exotic and star of the Netflix ‘Tiger King’ series, filed his candidacy papers in February as a Libertarian. He’s doing 21 years in Texas for animal trafficking and abuse offences and for attempting to arrange the murder of a rival zoo keeper.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">If Trump does become president while in a prison – say Sing Sing in Ossining, New York – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will have to visit him there to discuss Canada-U.S. trade agreements. Trump will demand that Trudeau meet him to redo trade agreements that he says are great for Canada but are “horrible, horrible deals for our country.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The prime minister will have to dress appropriately for the meeting, ensuring that he wears clothing and jewellery that meet prison visit rules. He’ll have to show valid photo ID.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Trump will be able to dress up a bit, although not in his standard blue suit and bright red tie. He’ll have to wear the green prison issue pants but Sing Sing inmates are allowed to wear personal tops and personal footwear that doesn’t cost more than $80.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">If it is a luncheon meeting, the food could be hamburger, carrots, peas and boiled potatoes – one of the standard Sing Sing meals. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">That will make Trump happy because his favourite meal is a quarter pounder, fries and diet Coke. Trudeau likely won’t be impressed because he has more elegant tastes. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The odds of getting the Republican presidential nomination or the odds of him winning the November 2024 presidential election could change dramatically. So could the odds of him being convicted of any of the offences and of serving any prison time.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The likelihood of a Florida conviction got a boost earlier this month when Trump’s former attorney general said the charges of wilfully holding onto secret documents appear solid.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">“I was shocked by the degree of sensitivity of these documents and how many there were . . . ,” said Bill Barr. “If even half of it is true, then he’s toast.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">Trump had a quick and nasty response to that for the media. He said Barr was a weak and lazy attorney general and a “gutless pig.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91; font-family: "Nunito Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px 1.5em; overflow: hidden;">The odds will not change, however, on one aspect of the Trump drama. No matter what happens in the courts or political arenas you can bet Donald Trump will be a main item on the daily news for many months, and perhaps years to come.</p>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1797130441948257727.post-54369873738254078292023-06-18T18:27:00.003-04:002023-06-18T18:27:51.835-04:00<p><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91; font-family: arial;">It’s disturbing to see how intelligent people who get close to Justin Trudeau get burned.</span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">The latest scorched victim is David Johnston, the former governor general who Trudeau appointed his special rapporteur on claims that China has interfered in our federal elections. He resigned that position recently citing “the highly partisan atmosphere” surrounding his appointment and his work.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;"><br /></span></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">Johnston is a prominent Canadian with an outstanding career in public service, particularly in the field of education. He has been the dean of the University of Western Ontario law school, principal of McGill University and has held other positions in other universities.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">He was appointed governor general in 2010 on the recommendation of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and served until 2017.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">He’s now another of the dedicated, intelligent people who joined the Trudeau team then found themselves cast aside or in untenable positions that left them little choice but to resign.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidbPMfRHbe5vXG2PrhaTDzuA7R0gZbbhvWJH20gGM_-YFa17R9TW05xb9A0cN2vjMbUjh5jDvP3bNio3j440iE4c-gIqoA9pP0XcUe9A55piwve1TGdbjERnGxsptUMSs82Ft0W_GYl5yRhUc2WVF9_OgK-_0UOSmquRNrrHYoS3JCVhee1u7trQ/s560/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidbPMfRHbe5vXG2PrhaTDzuA7R0gZbbhvWJH20gGM_-YFa17R9TW05xb9A0cN2vjMbUjh5jDvP3bNio3j440iE4c-gIqoA9pP0XcUe9A55piwve1TGdbjERnGxsptUMSs82Ft0W_GYl5yRhUc2WVF9_OgK-_0UOSmquRNrrHYoS3JCVhee1u7trQ/s320/New%20Opinion%20Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Jody Wilson-Raybould quit Trudeau’s cabinet in 2019 during a scandal involving SNC-Lavalin, a Quebec-based engineering firm. The firm was accused of using bribes to win contracts in Libya.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">There were reports that Trudeau’s office pressured Ms. Wilson-Raybould to intervene in the case against SNC-Lavalin. She was justice minister and attorney-general at the time, but was demoted to veterans affairs minister before she quit.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s principal secretary and friend, resigned too, saying it was important for the prime minister’s office and its work for him to step away.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">So did Jane Philpott, Trudeau’s Treasury Board president, saying she had lost confidence in the government’s handling of the Lavalin affair.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">Then a year of so later Finance Minister Bill Morneau quit Trudeau during the scandal involving WE Charity, a youth empowerment movement.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">Trudeau’s government gave WE a $43-million contract. Critics said Trudeau should have recused himself from the contract discussions because members of his family were close to the charity and had taken money from it for making appearances and speeches.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">Moreau also was close to the family that operated WE and socialized with them.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">That’s a basketful of people burned while working with Trudeau, who has a documented history of loose ethics and conflicts of interest.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">Now there’s David Johnston, an honorable man who should have declined Trudeau’s request to investigate reports of Chinese political interference. He is a friend of the Trudeau family and has longstanding personal and professional connections in China.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">The opposition parties were bound to jump all over his appointment. They did, saying that as Trudeau’s friend, Johnson had a conflict of interest in investigating Chinese interference and whether the Trudeau government did anything to stop it.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">They also noted that a Chinese company donated $140,000 to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, a charity with which Johnston was associated. The foundation later gave the money back.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">Two days before Johnston resigned, the House of Commons passed a New Democratic Party resolution calling on Trudeau to replace Johnston and urgently establish a public inquiry into Chinese political interference.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">Johnston said he respected the right of MPs to express their opinion but refused to resign, then did so two days later.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">You have to feel sorry for David Johnston, who did what he has always done: accepted a job in which he could fulfill a duty to serve his country. Wrong job. Wrong time. Wrong person to go to work for.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">The affair has left Johnston’s sterling reputation badly tarnished. Recent polling shows that only one in four Canadians have faith in his credibility and impartiality.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">Almost 70 per cent of Canadians polled said they are concerned about China’s meddling in their electoral affairs. Yet only 28 per cent of respondents said the Trudeau government’s handling of the issue has been good or very good.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">Trudeau could have appointed any number of other qualified and independent individuals to report on China’s political interference and avoided what has turned into yet another Trudeau government mess. But Trudeau is an elitist who lives in a rarified world far outside the common world the rest of us occupy.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #8b8d91;" /><span face=""Nunito Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #8b8d91;">What is especially sad is the increasing number of smart, effective people who get burned when drawn into that Trudeau world.</span></span></div>Jim Poling Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11469638267814501607noreply@blogger.com0