Those Darn Homeless and "Affordable Housing"

Seems BC is intent upon locking up people who refuse shelter accommodation. However, as Jody Patterson points out, there are a whole lot of reasons having nothing to do with mental illness to be unpersuaded by shelter amenities.

Then there are the problems of establishing permanent housing, which I discuss further below. (Hint: Affordability isn't the problem.)

About sheltering street people,

sometimes, it's as simple as not being able to bear the thought of lying on a mat in a big room with 70 or 80 other troubled souls trying to make it through the night in noisy, restless fashion. Or about having no place to leave your cart without all your worldly belongings being stolen by the morning, or another night of waiting in line outside the shelter just to find out there are no beds left, by which time all the good outdoor sleeping spots are long gone.

It's about having a spouse and wanting to sleep like a couple, or having a pet that you can't possibly leave outside alone in the cold. When our region's "cold wet weather" protocol kicks in - and believe me, it's damn cold and wet before that happens - only one adult emergency shelter, the one at St. John the Divine, welcomes couples and pets.

Then there's a whole other group of resisters with severe addictions, whose sleep/wake cycles are so completely out of whack that the idea of lying down quietly at night for eight hours isn't even an option.

Some have mental-health issues that keep them out of shelters, although not many in my experience, and certainly not enough to give Coleman the quick street cleanup he's envisioning. There's also a tiny group who would actually choose to live outside no matter what: Modern-day hermits, maybe 32 people in all in our region.

One positive solution is already here, in Vancouver. It has nothing to do with arresting people or having them corralled by police and left at shelters that may have no room for them.

The City of Vancouver has had amazing success with such populations using a new kind of shelter piloted late last year. None of it has required arresting people.

The goal of the project was to lure resisters inside by providing shelter with a difference - locked spaces for carts, couples and pets allowed, a 24-hour TV room to accommodate the sleepless, the dignity of booking another night before you left the shelter rather than having to line up much later in the day and hope for the best.

The empty buildings used for the shelters were pulled together quickly and on the cheap, with an operating cost of roughly $1.5 million for the three-month pilot. All were located in areas where people were already sleeping.

...More than 500 people who'd previously refused to use shelters came inside within a few days of the shelters opening last December.

People who are homeless have as much right to choice and dignity as anyone else. Of the choices they might make, how hard is it to imagine yourself refusing to be separated from your spouse or your pet or your entire worldly belongings?

It's not rocket science to reduce homelessness only to those people who would choose it as a lifestyle (many of whom reject the 'homeless' label).

Temporary measures include permitting and supporting tent cities, and providing serviced parking areas for people whose homes are on wheels (cars, trailers).

Permanent solutions must begin by changing the municipal by-laws that effectively enshrine NIMBYism. In few communities is it possible under current laws for the construction of a village of tiny houses. In my own community, laneway housing is still not permitted, despite Vancouver's recent example. (Regarding the latter, $150,000 to $200,000, which includes BC Hydro servicing, are the costs typically cited for the construction of a tiny house on existing property. The City of Vancouver is allowing these laneway houses only to be rented. Why would property owners bother? The costs cited are absurd. A tiny house can be built for one-tenth the price.)

The tiny house movement has coincided with the green movement. Downsizing is in vogue. Municipal laws and other regulations pertaining to buying property and house construction haven't kept up.

The problem of 'affordable housing' isn't one of lack of innovative ideas for shelter materials, construction and community design. The developers are out there who would build these things.

The problem isn't affordability of the shelters themselves. People in the US are building their own homes for NOTHING, from recycled scraps, from shipping containers, from old railway cars. Others are buying materials for under $3,000. Still others buy their tiny houses pre-built for under $25,000. Then there is the mobile home option: fifth wheels and other trailers. Too many used trailers to count sit unoccupied on RV dealer lots.

In other words, the problem isn't the HOUSING.

The problem is systemic NIMBYism, the failure of municipalities to accommodate changing community needs, the lack of will on the part of politicians at all levels to open their eyes and see where the problems truly lie, and the "I'm all right" attitude that blinds too many residents from seeing the need for change.

The problem is the LAND on which to place the housing, land whose use is not restricted by municipal laws. The problem is ALLOWABLE housing.

The problem has NOTHING TO DO WITH AFFORDABILITY and EVERYTHING to do with keeping 'those people' out.

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New T Added to My Wardrobe

... or soon will be. The new T shall serve as background to the snazzy logo which graces the top right corner of this blog.

My thanks to a certain someone who saw my comment on another site. While Challenging the Commonplace proudly sports the logo of the "Left Wing Fringe Group called Women," I expressed regret at being unable to spread the word in a more upfront, in-your-face kind of way.

Soon, I will be.

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Big Box $tores

Front Page news this week in the local paper announcing the Grand Opening of yet another Big Box Store.

A few weeks ago it was the Grand Opening of a large chain drug store, with people sleeping overnight on the sidewalk to be the first fools - oops!, I mean 'shoppers' - to bustle inside the next morning for a chance at winning the door prize of an in-store spending coupon.

In late spring, the news covered the dubious 'celebration' of opening the largest American department store at the edge of this once sleepy little burg.

Sprinkled throughout the same paper are articles encouraging all of us to economize; to reduce, reuse and recycle; to choose to use public transit; to support local farmers; and to prompt voters and their children to challenge governments to 'save the environment'.

No wonder we are all confused about how to balance our conditioned desire to acquire all the stuff that big business wants us to buy - for their shareholder's profit only - and our collective need to find meaning and safety in the society we have helped create.

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Funding to Clear the Streets?

What this story doesn't tell anyone is that the 'funding' provided to scoop homeless people off the streets of Vancouver and deposit them at the doorway of shelters will end, conveniently, shortly after the 2010 Olympics are over.

"This bill would have police arrest citizens who are not guilty of any crime, and detain them without any charge, simply because they are homeless," Eby said.

The officer takes the person to a shelter. If the person is not accommodated at the shelter, alternate accommodation may be found. As a last resort, and in order for the police officer to discharge their legal responsibility, the individual may be taken to police cells, either voluntarily or involuntarily, where they will be held until the extreme weather declaration is no longer in effect.

Oh, Brave New World.

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A Long Way to Go, Goils.

My clothes are chosen for comfort, not style and are often handed down to me by friends who know my tastes and intense dislike of shopping. Makeup left my face forever when I passed my 41st birthday. Silver streaks adorn my once blonde-streaked brown hair. Nearing 60, I have become 'invisible' to most of the population, except to be seen as a looming burden.

I lived through the ups and downs of the feminist~liberation age of the mid '60's and early '70's only to arrive in the new millennium to find that not much has changed for women, especially in the world of fashion.

Twiggy was the first emancipated model I remember, as she was only one year older than I and was in every magazine I leafed through. Being tall and robust at the time, I resolved never to fall for the 'I-have-to-be-thin-to-be-loved' dogma that was being sold to us, at a drastic personal price.

The fashion world claims two sets of victims. The first are the women who it uses as models, for a brief window, before discarding them. They are on average 25 percent below a normal, healthy woman's weight. We know how they achieve this, because many former models say so: they starve themselves. They live on water and lettuce for weeks. When they fall below a Body Mass Index of twelve, they start to consume their own muscles and tissues. Several models have dropped dead from starvation after success at fashion shows in the past few years.

And a lot of the rest of us follow blindly along, punishing our beautiful bodies, starving ourselves in an attempt to live up to the Western social standard that has been sold to us.

But there is a broader circle of victims, far beyond the cat-walk's cat-calls. They are ordinary women who are bombarded with these highly manufactured images of "beauty" every day, and react either by feeling repulsive or trying out semi-starvation for themselves. A Harvard University study found that 80 percent of women are unhappy with their bodies, and only 1 percent are "completely happy."

I belong to the 1% of women that are quite content with our bodies. I am healthy, fit and totally unconcerned with outward appearances. For the other 80% - you've got a long way to go.

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Oh... my...

Do you hear the yearning whimper?


Court-ordered sale on Galiano Island. Rustic log cabin.

This is one island away from me. It's accessible. It has its own land. My cats and I could live there, in peace. Can I pay the $89,000 asking price? Of course not.

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What's Wrong With This Picture?

As David Akin, who supplies the photo, tweets: "the gang's all here!"



My initial reaction, over three tweets: "Gawd! All but 2 r women. Ya know, it makes me feel so excluded, always has since a tot. So sick of suits in our elite instns. If you're young & female, it's even worse. All those greyheads in upper tiers of biz, gov, unis. All men, w/ only the rare token female."

This gross non-representation made me feel sick as a kid, and it still does. Soothing words to mollify, that "at least the situation has improved" only make me more angry.

How much longer must females wait to be properly represented in our society?

It won't happen in my lifetime, as it hasn't for the lifetimes of women before me.

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Crazy for Raw Food

Yep, after twelve years as a vegan I've begun eating living food. That is raw, organic food only. First to go was morning coffee, which resulted in a three day headache. Next was the one slice of whole wheat bread I consumed with tofu, garlic and tahini, which I haven't missed at all. And finally, the steamed vegetables, hot bean recipes and other specially planned menu items that were favorites on my list for an early evening meal. So far, so good.

The raw food diet has been around for a long time.

The raw food diet, though new to many, has history on its side.

It started with the ancient Greeks," says Cousens. "After studying for a time with the Essenes-an ancient Jewish sect of ascetics and mystics - Pythagoras, the sixth century BC philosopher and mathematician, returned to Greece as a believer in live foods. And according to Herodotus, the father of history, the Pelagasians lived to be around the age of 200 years on a diet of raw foods.

Dr. Max Bircher-Benner read Pythagoras' work, decided to heal himself and used raw foods in his Swiss clinic in the 1890s, His contemporary, Dr. Max Gerson, used raw foods to core Albert Scbweitzer of diabetes. He also cured Schweitzer's wife of tuberculosis of the skin. Then there was Dr. Edmond Bordeaux Szekely, who ran a live food clinic in Mexico from 1937 to 1970. People have used this diet for literally thousands of years."

Not everyone agrees that eating only raw food is good for you.

Long term, the raw diet may have questionable benefits. The same Journal of Nutrition study that touted the heart-health benefits of dining raw also found that study participants had increased levels of homocysteine due to vitamin B-12 deficiency. Further, a Washington University study found that people following a raw food diet had lower bone mass, although apparently healthy bones.

Critics of raw foodism also warn against a host of nutritional deficiencies including low calcium, iron, protein, and insufficient calories. They point out that while it’s true some enzymes are destroyed when food is heated, the body in fact produces and uses ample digestive enzymes on its own. Further, cooking can actually make certain nutrients easier to absorb, as with the beta-carotene in carrots. As Bronee points out, “Not all cooked foods are created equal. There’s a big difference between deep fried and blanched.”

I am enjoying the change. My body is responding well. I am sleeping better; my hormones are fluctuating less; I'm losing a little weight; the urge to snack on sweets in the evening has disappeared and my emotional health is improving. Not only that, I find my food bill has dropped a couple of dollars a day. What could be better than that?

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Conservatives Do It Again

This time it comes directly from Stephen Harper's mouth.

When answering a question posed today by Bob Rae in Question Period regarding the lack of his government's defence of Canada's healthcare system against US right-wing attacks, Harper responded:

"The Canadian healthcare system will not only survive attacks by right-wing commentators in the United States and [sic] even survive one by left-wing incompetents in Ontario."

The hate-on for Ontario by right-wing Conservatives in this country continues.

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Making Parliament Work - or MPW - Part 2

IF the government responded with relevant answers to all questions during Question Period,

AND IF all MPs conducted themselves with decorum whilst carrying on their Parliamentary duties,

AND IF the Liberals, Bloc and Conservatives agreed sufficiently on proposed legislation that they effectively had a coalition,

THEN what happens to the NDP's position that its MPs are the only ones who want to Make Parliament Work?

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Making Parliament Work

On Twitter this morning, I learned that Libby Davies, one of Canada's most dedicated MPs, is about to leave for Ottawa and for Parliament. She says that the NDP is "aiming to make [Parliament] work."™

If MPs deliberately act to DISRUPT Parliament - e.g., they follow recommendations on how to obstruct committees, as written in a book issued by their party, or members of the government fail to answer questions in Question Period and instead use deflection or rail against the acts of past governments -, their clear aim is that Parliament DOES NOT work. Ergo, such MPs SHOULD NOT get paid.

Voters elect certain individuals, including the person who, as the 'majority' party leader will become Prime Minister, to represent them in Ottawa and to make our federal government work for all Canadians.

Ministers of Parliament are employees of the Canadian electorate. In any job in the private sector, an employee who doesn't perform as stated in the job description - or worse, performs such as to undermine that position's function - is fired. In the latter case, such employees can be sued.

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For the Record

Regarding that "left-wing fringe group" that Mr. Harper so fondly derides - the one that includes women -, count me as a proud member.

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Prices of Food Staples Soar

On January 27 this year, I mentioned that the price of a single loaf of (whole wheat) bread, previously the least expensive in the store and made daily by a local grocer, had risen over the previous six months from $0.89 to $1.39. That same bread today is ON SALE for $2.00, which means this single staple food has gone up, over a 15 month period, by over 225 percent.

Among the ironies: the price of a 5 kg bag of whole wheat bread flour has remained constant over the same period. It can be purchased - on sale, at this grocer or regularly, at another store beyond walking distance - for $10.

Thanks to friend Daphne, I acquired a used bread maker awhile back. Now I make my own bread. But with all food staples going up, including rice, whose price also has more than doubled, now I'm thinking of cutting out all grains except my morning oatmeal. A large bag of that, for the time being, continues to sell for less than bulk price. (You really have to watch those bulk prices. They're frequently double the prices for the equivalent packaged product.)

It no longer makes sense, in other words, for the traditional staples to be considered, well, 'staples'. It now makes as much sense to make lettuce or other leafy green wraps, instead of bread sandwiches, and for this vegan to use low-cost legumes or pulses (e.g., I can get green lentils here for $2.10/kg) instead of rice. And I've already latched onto Daphne's idea of sprouting my own food, including from those same green lentils. My first batch is sprouting as I type.

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Our Family Stays Together

Thanks to two kind women and Timmy, Mango, Pip, Frankie and Boomer, Brodie's and my trip to the SPCA, which had been scheduled for this morning at 10 A.M., has been cancelled. Brodie's blankie and towel, together with his favourite 'condo' have been returned to their rightful places. The cat carrier has been put away.

One household's generous donation will ensure that Brodie has enough to eat for the next year. The second household's donation will give Kiltie what I never thought would be possible: the special food she needs not only to recover, but to stay healthy and free of future urinary tract infections.

From our household

Kiltie and Brodie

to your households

Boomer (left), and Pip, Frankie and Mango

Timmy

THANK YOU!

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Heartbreaking Decision

Brodie must go to the local SPCA. My lovable sweet boy. Nine years old, affectionate but shy; he asks to be cuddled, rather than pushes for your attention. We've been together almost eight years.

Kiltie looks to be starting another urinary infection. So another round of antibiotics. If I could afford to feed her good, canned food, she likely wouldn't be experiencing chronic UTIs in the first place. What I've been doing instead is feeding them both half canned, half dry - since neither will lay off the other's food. And Brodie eats four times as much as Kiltie.

I can't keep doing it anymore. Out of my $67/month food budget, comes the food I buy for the cats. Something has got to give. Brodie is the logical, heart-rending choice.

Now am off to the pharmacy for Kiltie's latest round of antibiotics. Am hoping to get a ride to the SPCA later today. The quicker I do this, the better. Both cats sense something is wrong.

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Cheap Chicks

This story really got to me.

I constantly hear about 'humane' ways to kill animals that some humans ingest. My response is 'what is humane about killing any animal when we really don't have to eat meat to survive?'

A vegan diet is sufficient for all our bodily needs. It is also environmentally-friendly and financially responsible, especially when the food we eat is grown at home or in our local communities.

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Update: Continued Blogging (un)Certain

UPDATE 3: It was my monitor. Just picked up a free CRT monitor, which was manufactured in 2000. Works fine, although I do miss the sharpness of my flatscreen. (So now I need better glasses. Sigh...)

My flatscreen monitor, made by LG in 2006, was the culprit. That fancy, schmancy, high-priced piece of tech will have to sit in my closet until sometime next year when, I hope, I'll have found a decent repair place and will be able to afford to get the thing fixed.

--

Sat Sep 5: UPDATE 2 - After fix described below, the monitor flashed again this morning on startup. I haven't another monitor, otherwise I'd swap to see if my LG 1970HR flatscreen is the problem - which is doubtful given it functions beautifully the rest of the day.

--

Fri Sep 4: The problem with my monitor/mini described here has persisted. Each morning the same flashing monitor, regardless of whether I shut down my mini the previous night or allowed it only to snooze.

I'm puzzled that while the mini goes on snooze throughout the day, whenever I've been away for 15 minutes, there is no flashing monitor when I hit a key to wake it up. The problem only occurs when the mini has been off overnight.

Yesterday after startup from snooze, I shut down the mini, checked all connections, cleaned dust off my super-duper power bar, then tried starting everything up again. Same problem. Decided to use the computer for the rest of the day and try a new tactic this morning.

Last night again used the snooze option rather than shut down. This morning, flashing. This time, I switched to a different power bar, one already here and obtained new with the purchase of a (long defunct) PC and barely used. While back there amongst the cords, again I looked for dust, checked the state of cords and their connections, especially those to and from the mini's power adaptor, and turned on the 'new' power bar.

Depressed the power button on the mini. It responded immediately. So did all peripherals, including the monitor. No flashing.

Am hoping all is well. However, the computer had only been off for about 15 minutes, not hours, so I won't be sure until tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed.

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Update: Continued Blogging Uncertain

UPDATE 2: After fix described below, the monitor flashed again this morning on startup. I haven't another monitor, otherwise I'd swap to see if my LG 1970HR flatscreen is the problem - which is doubtful given it functions beautifully the rest of the day.

--

Fri Sep 4: The problem with my monitor/mini described here has persisted. Each morning the same flashing monitor, regardless of whether I shut down my mini the previous night or allowed it only to snooze.

I'm puzzled that while the mini goes on snooze throughout the day, whenever I've been away for 15 minutes, there is no flashing monitor when I hit a key to wake it up. The problem only occurs when the mini has been off overnight.

Yesterday after startup from snooze, I shut down the mini, checked all connections, cleaned dust off my super-duper power bar, then tried starting everything up again. Same problem. Decided to use the computer for the rest of the day and try a new tactic this morning.

Last night again used the snooze option rather than shut down. This morning, flashing. This time, I switched to a different power bar, one already here and obtained new with the purchase of a (long defunct) PC and barely used. While back there amongst the cords, again I looked for dust, checked the state of cords and their connections, especially those to and from the mini's power adaptor, and turned on the 'new' power bar.

Depressed the power button on the mini. It responded immediately. So did all peripherals, including the monitor. No flashing.

Am hoping all is well. However, the computer had only been off for about 15 minutes, not hours, so I won't be sure until tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed.

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Continued Blogging Uncertain

I might be offline for awhile, not by choice.

For the past three days, I've been having problems with my monitor. It flashes for several seconds on startup. I can see the background, and can login and use the computer. But with the flashing I really don't want to use it because it makes me feel nauseated; and if it gets worse, perhaps it could damage my mini.

Users at Apple support suggested I get a DVI cable for the monitor. Bought the DVI cable today for $34 - which leaves $43 for food for the rest of the month. Hooked the cable up to my monitor and mini. After I spent a couple of minutes trying to get the mini to power on - the monitor started up. Once again, flashing.

Ever since I've had this mini, there's been trouble getting it to power up from the start button, especially if I've had it off in order to move my setup or attach peripherals. This time, the double-, triple, and quadruple-checking I went through, at all three connection points along the power supply, seemed worse or more sensitive.

So I'm worried. A Twitter friend suggested I plug the mini directly into the wall socket, but I haven't that option. There is only one two-socket plug in this closet and the main room offers nothing better. A power bar it must be.

Tomorrow before I start up the mini, I'll try the second of two power bars I already have here at home. I can't imagine both not working; the one I'm using currently is heavy-duty and the other was new when I got it and has barely been used. If neither works, then the cause of the problem is likely the Apple power supply: the adaptor or its connecting cable. A new power supply kit from Apple is twice the cost of the DVI cable I just got, which means I'll not be able to get that until the holidays when, hopefully, some money comes my way. Which also means I'll be completely cut off for awhile with neither phone nor computer.

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Peacocks Posturing

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff told Stephen Harper today:

Mr. Harper, your time is up. The Liberal Party cannot support this government any further. We will hold it to account. We will oppose it in Parliament.

As Mr. Ignatieff and his predecessor have said before.

Today Canadians heard also from the NDP. According to Thomas Mulcair, the NDP wants to "make [Parliament] work" and it will deal with the Harper government on a "case-by-case basis," provided the government manages "to work in the public interest."

Until I see Ignatieff delivering a non-confidence motion in Parliament, I won't believe his latest moment of bluster to be any more real than the last one.

Until I see Jack Layton get out of the Harper government substantive policy - such as bringing in a fair, proportional electoral system, as chosen by the people -, I won't believe anything he or his spokespeople say either.

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Post-Election Survey re Voter Turnout

... saw almost 90 percent of possible respondents declining to participate in the survey.

Of those who did respond,

some 35 percent of the non-voters ... said the main reason they did not vote was 'personal', including people who were busy, out of town or sick. Seven percent were pessimistic about their vote making a difference and 29 percent were "disengaged" with the process or politics in general.

The number of contactees refusing to participate in the survey should make people think twice about its conclusions regarding people's reasons for not voting.

Full survey results (PDF).

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Heart Lifting Story - Please spread word

A woman who lost her long-term employment last summer and subsequently became homeless was just offered an internship with Elle Magazine. I've been following her on Twitter and consider her one of my newfound friends.

Bri has written her first blog post on Elle's website. If you want to negate the negative spin of people who are homeless or those living on the brink; if you want to spread understanding that the desperately poor are resourceful and inventive - how else could they/we survive? - then please click this Digg link, vote up the article and spread the word.

Two weeks ago, Bri tweeted that her trailer and truck had been towed. Now she has an Elle internship, is being contacted by various media and it sounds like she's also getting other offers of employment.

It can happen, but it won't happen enough unless attitudes change - not the attitudes of people living at the bottom of the poverty well, but the attitudes of people in positions of power, including all owners of property in neighbourhoods everywhere.

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HST: Woe to families

According to some, British Columbia's new HST, to become effective July 2010, will mean serious hardship for middle-income families. For example,

That morning bagel and cup of java you grabbed this morning cost $4.20, but a year from now breakfast will cost 28 cents more.

A quarter and a few pennies may not seem like much, but over the course of a day, a month or a year, dollars lost to the harmonized sales tax are going to add up.

Just picture it: Ted and Suzy have two boys, Timmy and Sally, aged seven and 12 respectively.

Ted works as a forklift driver and his wife Suzy is a receptionist at a chiropractor's office.

Suzy took the car to work today so Ted, pressed for time, had to take a taxi. Cost for the ride today: $12.80 cents. Cost with the HST this time next year: $14.34.

Suzy gets out of work early and picks up the boys to get their haircut. As the barber dusts the hair from Timmy's forehead, mom picks the $40 tab. Next year: $42.80.

When the couple comes home tonight..., sitting on the dining room table are bills for hydro, cable and Internet, telephone and newspapers totalling $250. Next year: $267.50.

And the couple still hasn't considered a mechanic's bill, fees for the kids to go to karate classes, back-to-school supplies, and four super-saver plane tickets on sale now for a flight before Christmas to go see family in Winnipeg.

Tomorrow it's grocery shopping for the week and family night out at the International House of Pancakes - a Saturday night tradition.

Forklift driver Ted and receptionist Suzy are fortunate. Each has a full-time job.

The family has a car, a home, a telephone AND Internet connection, rather than having to choose one or the other because they can't afford both. The family also buys newspaper subscriptions, dines out once a week and travels by air for vacations and is able to visit with other members who live further away.

The children take karate classes and get their hair cut by a barber, rather than by mom or dad.

Ted, whether pressed for time or not, can afford a cab ride rather than having to walk - or to take public transit which likely would get him to his destination in the same amount of time as a cab would.

Now add to that Ted's and Suzy's daily coffee-and-bagel ritual.

To the people who buy a bagel and a coffee one or more times a day, some of you doing this five to seven days a week, I'm not worrying that you'll have to pay an additional 28 cents for the same ritual next year. Or that you'll pay more for airfare, haircuts, cab rides, etc. I worry about staying within my $67/month food budget.

Bottom line: Consumption taxes are, by definition, about consumption. The more you consume, the more you pay.

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He had a sexual addiction, right?

Headline reads: Prominent psychiatrist banned after sex with patient.

For four years, this 'mental health professional' carried on a sexual relationship with his patient.

The tribunal held by the College of Surgeons and Physicians of Newfoundland and Labrador took place behind closed doors because the former patient "was so distraught she couldn't complete a victim impact statement."

"She was a person in a very vulnerable situation," said lawyer Bob Buckingham, who was representing the victim. "There's nothing consensual whatsoever about [Dr. Thomas Cantwell's] behaviour."

Cantwell retired in the fall of 2007. Before that, he was clinical chief of mental health and addictions for Eastern Health.

One wonders how Cantwell's defence went. Did he claim to have a sexual addiction or, closer to reality, the God complex? - Oops! I mean narcissistic personality disorder, the psychiatric industry's preferred term for it?

H/t to tweeter canadaliving.

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Isn't this lovely?

Here's another technique for managing street people:

A controversial manure cure for homelessness in Surrey was apparently the result of discussions between city staff and members of the Surrey RCMP, Deputy City Manager Dan Bottrill said Monday. Bottrill said he is still trying to determine exactly who came up with the idea of spreading smelly chicken manure around a Whalley social service building to drive away vagrants.

By definition, 'vagrants' are without a place to stay, day or night. Until communities and this province see to it that there is sufficient affordable housing for all, we are going to have people on the streets.

DEAL WITH IT, HOUSE PEOPLE. Until then, allow encampments on public land so that at least people without housing can feel safe in their own tent communities. Also arrange for safe, serviced parking areas for the wheeled homeless to stay in their vehicles.

By the way, can you catch the jargon in this sentence? It's from one of the quotes in the original article: "Our neighbours in Vancouver seem to have a little better approach to the problem of dealing with the disease of substance abuse."

Can you spot it? Call it the psycho-medicalese that encourages the pathologizing of everyday life and the delicate stepping-around and reinvention of reality. The English language is now saturated with it.

H/t to Penlan who, in a comment on another post, brought this item to my attention.

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Portland's Solution to Homelessness

So much for praising Portland to the rafters: "Portland's homeless problem may seem less pressing, but that’s largely because ... Portland locks a large portion of its homeless problem in jail."

Such a solution for 'managing' people without housing is decidedly un-Canadian.

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Depression: Disorder vs Adaptation

A question worth considering:

Research in the US and other countries estimates that between 30 to 50 percent of people have met current psychiatric diagnostic criteria for major depressive disorder sometime in their lives. But the brain plays crucial roles in promoting survival and reproduction, so the pressures of evolution should have left our brains resistant to such high rates of malfunction. Mental disorders should generally be rare - why isn't depression?

According to a new study and others it cites most instances of depression

should not be thought of as a disorder at all [but rather] an adaptation, a state of mind which brings real costs, but also brings real benefits.

Depression is nature's way of telling you that you've got complex social problems that the mind is intent on solving. Therapies should try to encourage depressive rumination rather than try to stop it, and they should focus on trying to help people solve the problems that trigger their bouts of depression.

Well, duh!

But for many people the problems causing their depression are externally imposed and no amount of action on their part will resolve them. These are systemic issues: lack of affordable housing; municipal laws that favour those who own property vs. those who don't; the erosion of democratic institutions at all levels of government; industrial agriculture and aquaculture that displace small, local farming; a nationwide infrastructure and billions in taxes that prop up an auto industry which should have been allowed to fossilize; a market capitalism ideology that cleaves to the bootstrap principle for the hoi polloi but not for corporations.

Over-diagnosis of depression is one cause for the increase in numbers reported to have the 'disorder', but unquestionably more people experiencing distress haven't the means to resolve the problems which caused it in the first place, problems such as poverty. Thus their depression becomes chronic and they're likely to develop bi-polar swings. In such cases, depression as an 'adaptive' response becomes maladaptive because the resolution for which it exists never results.

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Sacramento Tent City Demolished

... only for Mayor to propose, months later, a 'city sanctioned' tent city.

I read about this in a post on the SLO Homeless blog. The writer points to the stupidity, not to mention the inhumanity, of dismantling an already-established community only to reconstruct another.

"Something in all of this doesn't make a whole lot of sense."

Ah, but it does.

You see, those who have, such as legislators and your not-so-friendly neighbourhood property owners, consider people who don't have as not being entitled, or even having the capacity, to do or look out for themselves. I mean, how dare 'those people' come together and form a community!

But those same Haves, with their glorious sense of superiority, think themselves perfectly entitled to tell the have-nots where to go, er, where to live.

In societies where acquisitiveness is the name of the game, forget what their individual charters of rights say. People with property have more rights, de facto, than people without property.

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Whoever Controls the Food Controls the People

Do you remember this beautiful, brutally honest piece about homelessness, from the point of view of someone who knows it from the inside looking out? After I'd copied and posted it to this blog, many people stopped by and said how moved they'd been by it. Me? I began crying and nodding agreement long before finishing the second paragraph.

MétisRebel continues to write with a truth that I've read nowhere else. Her latest is about the forced indignity of hungry people required to spend each day travelling to where the food is, to locations that society permits to serve or hand out food to 'the vulnerable', 'the needy', 'the less fortunate' - in this land of plenty.

You want to understand 'homelessness'? Do you REALLY want to learn the solutions? Are you - politicians, bureaucrats, nonprofit boards, NEIGHBOURS -, prepared to ACT on them?

Unless you're reading MétisRebel, you've likely no clue what the true solutions are, which means you are likely supporting, intentionally or otherwise, the status quo.

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Jack Layton of 2004: Is he back?

Was watching on CPAC the NDP Halifax convention until CPAC determined to send its viewers to a MAY 6th Senate hearing on The Provisions and Operation of DNA Identification Act (with Elizabeth Fry and John Howard Societies presenting). While the hearing is interesting, I don't appreciate being cut off my drug of choice, a convention that can give a political addict like myself the ultimate high.

At any rate, I liked the Jack Layton I heard this morning (Pacific Time). When he said 'shove it' in reference to certain CEOs' lucrative pensions (vs. the reduced pensions for workers demanded by said CEOs) I was reminded of the Layton of 2004.

I liked the man back then. Is he back?

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"Call it a sickness if you must"

In an article today Jody Paterson writes:

Think of the creative gifts that mental illness has given us over the centuries.

Would Ernest Hemingway and Virginia Woolf have set pen to paper in such compelling fashion if not for their mental illnesses? Would Van Gogh have painted with such passion and insight? Or Beethoven written with the same power?

Call it a sickness if you must, but the truth is that the world is a much better place for having people with mental illness in it.

I do not call it a sickness. Nor do I accept the term 'mental illness'.

So many people with 'mental illness', as diagnosed so conveniently by the mental health industry, identify themselves as nothing more than differently-abled or as ab-norm-al, where 'norm' has an ever-narrow and never-specified definition, by virtue of all that it is not.

How easy it is for governments to collude with the mental health industry and to write people off by virtue of their newly acquired labels. How convenient it is for the mental health industry to then disgorge their hordes to 'treat' the people it has so labelled with the latest fashionable 'disorder'.

Society needs people who differ from the norm. Society needs nonconformists. But what does society do instead? It pathologizes rather than embraces them and so society goes without the benefits of their sometime genius.

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Adding Retweet Button to Blogger

Been trying to add Tweetmeme's retweet button to my blogs for weeks. Went to various online sources and sometimes I could get it to work. However, it would never be placed where I wanted it (in the body of the post, top-left), or the URL was to the whole blog not to the individual post, or the URL was too long, or the Twitter account for the retweet was 'tweetmeme' not my own account.

The problem was getting it to work in Blogger. Well, finally figured it out.

If you're using Blogger and want to add the retweet option, do the following:

1. Go to your Dashboard -> Layout -> Edit HTML
2. Before going further, click Download Full Template - if you screw up, you can upload the old template
3. Check the box beside 'Expand Widget Templates'
4. Click Control/Command 'F' to find the following line:
   
   <div class='post-header-line-1'/>


5. Immediately below it, paste the following code:
   
   <div style='float:left;width:50px;margin:0 10px 10px 0;'>
   <script type='text/javascript'>
   tweetmeme_url = &#39;<data:post.url/>&#39;;
   tweetmeme_source = &#39;yourTwitterAcctName&#39;;
   tweetmeme_service = &#39;yourPreferredShortURLService&#39;;</script>
   <script src='http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js' type='text/javascript'/>
   </div>

Here's what my code looks like, with the lines already in the template in black:

<div class='post-header-line-1'/>
<div style='float:left;width:50px;margin:0 10px 10px 0;'>
<script type='text/javascript'>
tweetmeme_url = &#39;<data:post.url/>&#39;;
tweetmeme_source = &#39;tidewaters&#39;;
tweetmeme_service = &#39;bit.ly&#39;;</script>
<script src='http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js' type='text/javascript'/></div>
<div class='post-body entry-content'>

EDA: If you're using NoScript on Firefox, enable tweetmeme.com.

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Google AdSense UPDATE 7

Silly me. With update 6, I thought that was the end of it. Notice had been received of my account having been cancelled, although not with my getting the outstanding amount owing to me.

Then this morning I get this email from Google AdSense:

Thanks for writing in and sorry to keep you waiting. I've taken care of the phone hold. However, you still need to select a form of payment so that we can pay you :)

My goodness. A REAL PERSON read one of my emails and has removed the phone hold! And she appended that notice with a smiley face!

Select a form of payment... Done.

But this leads to another question. HAS my account been cancelled? If it had, then I couldn't have logged back in to make changes. And now given the removal of the phone hold, which means I can finally get paid, I'd prefer to keep the account active and add Google AdSense back to my blog.

Wanna bet such a request starts a whole new round of auto-replies and a clash of live support vs. the auto-bots?

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FINALLY - Google AdSense Account Closed

...but, contrary to the message just received, it was closed with the company not having paid me the $14.58 I'd earned.

Today, I tried for the third time to complete the cancellation process to get my Google AdSense account closed. As before, I filled out their cancellation form. However, in the section explaining the reason why one is closing the account, in the Other category I entered something new, the URL of the post that describes the difficulty a) verifying a phone number one hasn't got - because one hasn't a phone - and, b) with that never being resolved, closing the account.

Unlike previously, within minutes I received the following generic response - I've the damn thing memorized I've seen it so many times.

We are unable to cancel your account because you currently have payment holds on your account.

This would be the PHONE VERIFICATION hold.

Until you remove the payment holds or indicate your desire not to receive your unpaid earnings, we will be unable to close your account. Please note that we only pay out earnings that are greater than the cancellation threshold.

The cancellation threshold is $10.

Please do one of the following:

1. If you wish to be paid for your remaining earnings (above the cancellation threshold): - Remove the holds from your account.

Sigh...

Once you have removed all holds from your account, you may submit a new request for us to cancel your account...

2. If you do not wish to be paid for your remaining earnings and would like to close your account now: Please complete this form. The form will require you to acknowledge that you prefer not to receive your earnings and wish to close your account.

As it happens, before I'd removed Google AdSense, this blog had earned $14.58 from the program. That amount exceeds the $10 cancellation threshold for payment. But because no phone = no phone verification = no payment, it doesn't matter how much I'd have earned. According to Google AdSense policy, I'd never get paid. There was no point, therefore, maintaining the account. Hence, my determination to get rid of the thing.

So I proceeded with option #2, as I'd done twice before. This time, the auto-response was different though:

Thank you for taking the time to write to us. As per your request, we have permanently closed your account.

Since your account balance totalled less than $10, your unpaid earnings will not be issued.

Don't you love the way the big guys shape reality to screw the little guys?

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Facebook, We're Through

Started the process to delete my Facebook account on July 16. Ergo, after the Facebook-imposed deactivation (cooling off) period of 14 days, it was deleted on July 29. Yesterday, because people insist on linking to stuff on the damn site, I thought to try it again and created a new account under a new name... and have just begun a new 14-day deactivation period to get rid of that one too.

Why am I so out of sorts with Facebook? Well, it's not for everyone.

I've no patience with sites whose 'interactive' components fail to be interactive. With my second account, as I'd experienced on occasion with the old one, I couldn't get the damn photo tool working properly, even after 24 hours fiddling with it; and I design websites and am knowledgeable about how these things SHOULD work. Then NoScript and Firefox discovered some of FB's scripts to be suspect. One of those scripts caused my MAC (!) to hang - three times. If FB can do that to a Mac, whose operating system is more secure than Windoze, then bye-bye! (I'm as bad as any doting mother when it comes to my mini.)

Never could see the benefit of Facebook, but like a good little lamb I followed the herd. It's really not for people like me, though. I'm interested in learning, so I value exchanges of information about current events, science, tech, etc. Facebook isn't so much about that, not nearly as much as, say, Twitter.

Then I never could get into the hook-up-with-friends aspect of the site, a concept on which Facebook was built - An introvert with 65 'friends'? It challenges credibility - or with playing follow-the-leader and hurrying to sign up to 'participate' in online protests. Blogging about issues of immediate, pressing concern, yes. But just adding your name on the latest issue-of-the-hour Facebook page? The peer pressure implicit in such requests wasn't appreciated.

Maybe it just comes down to Facebook better serving the outgoing social butterfly and Twitter the quiet, loner type. But Facebook, you and I are through. For the sake of your myriad fans, may you Live Long and Prosper!

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More Phone Problems UPDATE

SOLVED. See end of post.

It never ends. First there was Staples, way back when. Then Google AdSense. Then this online retailer or that one - all of whom make the telephone field in their web forms mandatory.

Now it's RBC (Royal Bank of Canada).

Monday, I received my new 'chip' Visa card. It bore the following instructions.

Before you use your new chip card:
1. Know your PIN. [Not a problem]
2. Call to activate from your primary phone number. [Problem]

I send this message from within my RBC online account, under their subject heading VISA Products:

Received my new Visa chip card today with the sticker advising to "call to activate from your primary phone number." I haven't a phone and therefore haven't a 'primary phone number'. How do I activate my new card under these circumstances?

The reply I received:

Dear Ms. Ocean:

My name is Brad, and I'd be happy to assist you with your inquiry concerning our activation procedure.

I'm sorry for the confusion--I want to assure you that you don't need a landline in order to activate your card. However, you do need to call from the primary number we have on your Visa profile--which is (250) 748-8095. This is the number you last had both your Visa file and your RBC client profile updated with; our automated card activation system will need your call to come from that number in order to validate your card and make it ready to accept charges.

Thanks for contacting us, Ms. Ocean, and I trust I've cleared things up for you. We'll be happy to help you again if there's anything else you d like to discuss.

If you prefer, you can call us any time at 1-800-769-2512.

To which I respond:

In my initial message, I stated "I haven't a phone." How is that not clear?

At one time, I had a phone. Now I don't. Therefore "I haven't a 'primary phone number'" and my question still stands: How do I activate my new card under these circumstances?

I swear these people DON'T READ.

And yes, I'm dirt poor and have a Visa card whose balance I maintain at zero. Yet it wouldn't surprise me if, despite my flawless payment record and a high credit rating that I'll be denied its renewal because I no longer have a phone.

UPDATE: This time the squeaky wheel, perhaps oiled by my blogging & twittering about it, produced a satisfactory - and fairly prompt - response. My latest Visa card has been activated, after a verification process that didn't involve a damn phone.

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Moving Forward on EI Reform

Can we change the ribbon colour to yellow now?

Apparently, "the blue-ribbon panel on employment insurance reform that saved Canadians from a summer election is not going well."

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Vancouver Approves Laneway Housing

But property owners must rent out their converted garages, not sell them.

About 70,000 single-family lots across the city are eligible to add the new homes, which can only be built in the area usually reserved for a garage, and only used as rental units.

On a standard lot, the laneway houses can have up to 500 square feet of floor space and be up to one and a half stories high. The idea was promoted by former mayor Sam Sullivan as part of his eco-density initiative.

Tiny houses, they're the way of the future; and they're not just for renters.

Come on, Duncan! What's stopping you from following Vancouver's example? Laneway housing NOW.

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Federal Infrastructure Dollars: Should feds "monitor" how spent?

There's a conversation happening on Twitter between two people, an orangey-red Liberal and someone who likely fits best with the old Progressive Conservative label. (Gosh, I miss those PCs!) The conversation was prompted by a link to this article from The Canadian Press, tweeted by a third person, another Liberal I suspect of the purple or blue persuasion:

It's not up to his government to closely monitor how money intended for road, sewer and other projects is actually spent, suggests the federal minister in charge of infrastructure.

The federal government's main role in distributing the nearly $12 billion in cash it announced in the 2009 budget is to make sure the money gets out the door, says Transport Minister John Baird.

"It's not big government's role and Ottawa to centrally manage everything," Baird said when asked how his department is monitoring spending.

"What our job is is to provide funding, to see that it's matched and to see that things move quickly."

On this issue, I agree with Baird.

Provincial and municipal governments are elected by voters. How many voters and whether they've a true mandate to govern, given our electoral system, is a separate issue.

Regarding "stimulus" dollars for infrastructure funding, the federal government has the role of reviewing applications received from provinces and municipalities and then approving or disapproving those applications. Once applications are approved, that should be the end of the federal government's role with respect to how the money is spent.

To "monitor" the spending, as was suggested by one of the tweeters, smacks of paternalism and doesn't respect lesser governments' rights and responsibilities to govern their own jurisdictions. In other words, it fails to respect their autonomy. Further, to monitor these transferred funds suggests an assumption that without such federal 'oversight' the governments may not spend the dollars as they claimed they would. Yes, it was the federal government's insistence that it approve each and every project and that municipalities provide matching funds, but that's irrelevant to the point.

No question, a corrupt government or members within a government might spend infrastructure money contrary to that stated in its application. But then, the government in question must answer to those who put it there, the voters.

That the federal government would monitor spending by approved applicant governments not only insults all provincial and municipal governments at once, it insults voters. If any shady business happens, the latter will deal with it and more effectively than any federal intervention would. The closer people are to a government, the greater their influence on it.

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Oh, the Rapture!

No doubt said with serious and earnest face: "Lets [sic] face it Atheism is bankrupt so they have to indoctrinate young children."

That comment came in a discussion over at Rapture Ready, about Camp Quest, a new secular summer camp for youth in the US.

Out of their own mouths, people of certain rigid faith testify to their failure to exercise their 'God-given' reasoning faculties and the natural curiosity they were born with as children. I mean, how 'bout checking out the FACTS first?!

PZ Myers, over at Pharyngula, expands on the wacky discussion.

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Living Alone vs. Living in Companionship

This photo says it all.


Although I've tried to express the issue in several posts on animal companions, pets and homelessness, that image says it best.

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Well, boo hoo hoo

There are plenty of good reasons for objecting to BC's new Harmonized Sales Tax which is to be introduced next year. This isn't one of them:

"Builders and consumer groups say [the HST] is a 'disaster' that will add $36,000 to the cost of a new $800,000 home."

If you can afford a brand, spanking new $800,000 house then you can afford to pay an extra $36,000 in taxes.

That money could go toward helping house other taxpayers whose income rules out their ever being able to afford to buy their own home. Among these people are those who serve you in the stores where you shop, in the car dealerships where you buy your fancy cars, in the places where you book travel arrangements or go for all-day pampering or push a little ball around in a beautiful environment not accessible to the rest of us.

The things you buy most of the people who serve you cannot afford for themselves.

For you, $36,000 is peanuts. For ten percent of the rest of us, that amounts to four, or more, times our annual income.

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Stop Blaming Young People

Aaron Wherry (Macleans) notes this article which is of the ilk, as he puts it, "Why don't the kids like the politics?"

It's refreshing to see someone like Wherry alluding to the unfairness of identifying young people as politically disengaged and blaming them for the erosion of our democracy.

Not voting doesn't translate into being apolitical. Not voting doesn't mean being uninvolved in one's community or not caring deeply about the issues affecting it, or one's country, or the globe.

Young people are not alone in turning their backs on the ballot box. They've a lot of company. All parties have moved themselves into the mushy middle or right (as the 'middle' also moves right), thus leaving a whole segment of the population no longer able to identify with any of them. With our system of voting having been designed for two parties, if a voter doesn't support either the Liberals or Conservatives, he or she will never have his or her views meaningfully represented in government. Oldtimers, not just young people, understand this.

No wonder voter turnout continues to fall. No wonder polling numbers remain static. All parties are fighting over an ever-decreasing pile of votes, which results in an increasing percentage of it representing diehard party loyalists. The situation therefore becomes a matter of whether the typical Liberal or Conservative voter will vote for the other this time or next. If either chooses NDP or Green instead, they know they've no hope in hell of having their votes translate into meaningful representation. If these voters live outside Ontario or Quebec, again they can forget about meaningful representation, unless

• they voted Lib or Con and
• their party choice ended up forming government and
• their MP is of that party and
• their MP was chosen to be a well-placed member of the cabinet.

(The Bloc is a special case because of the size of population it is capable of representing.)

There's a silent, steady movement of resistance happening in Canada. It's time for others to wake up and stop the blame-game. The situation of eroding voter turnout will remain until first, the blaming and bashing of non-voters ends and second, politicians, journalists and members of the still voting population start listening to non-voters with respect and an intention to learn. Non-voters can tell them why close to half of the electorate no longer votes and what to do to turn things around. That last is key and relies on a solutions-based, NOT a problems-based approach.

[Cross-posted at NADER]

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Of Rights, Shelter & Government-Imposed Classes

This post is in response to MetisRebel's Survey THIS Homeless Medication.

The issue of pets touches me personally. Many people who live isolated lives, by choice or otherwise, have animal companions. A number of them, in turn, are extremely poor.

For those with animal companions, their lives may well depend on that association. Pets can help the lonely or the isolated maintain their humanity. The animals are someone to come home to, someone to care for, someone who appreciates their human's affection and ministration. The presence of an animal can be the only thing left that mediates between life and death.

Trapped in a province that allows property owners to deny others' rights they themselves have, in a province where less than 1 in 20 rental units are pet-friendly, I am paying over 70 percent of my income to stay in this bachelor apartment. With the cost of rental units soaring and the vacancy rates plummeting below two percent, nothing else is available.

BC's Residential Tenancy Act essentially supports at least 12 different classes of people. Listed in order of those having the most to the least rights in terms of housing or shelter, they represent people who:

1. own their own home and have property they rent out.
2. own a freehold home.
3. own a strata home.
4. singles or couples who rent and have no children or pets. This group has choice among 100% of rental units available.
5. couples who rent and have children.
6. single people who rent and have children - unless they are known to be on welfare, in which case they join group 7.
7. renters who are non-white, openly LGBT, or are members of other groups that are targets of discrimination.
8. people who rent and have animal companions.
9. street people with children - more likely to be sheltered than 10, 11 or 12.
10. street people living on their own who are not known addicts.
11. street couples - shelters often separate the pair.
12. street people with pets - shelter almost always denied the animals.

As to the welfare of homeless animals, I've not seen any animal with a street person who is other than cherished and cared for - see, e.g., these photos of a 'homeless' community.

I'd choose living on the street with my companions than give up either of my cats in order to be housed. Their companionship is essential to my health and the continuance of my life.

ETA: Firefighters recognize the importance of animals, as evidenced in this story just reported in the Victoria Times-Colonist.

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I think I'm in love

Well, not really.

But the social justice issue which comes closest to my heart is homelessness, and the books and films that draw my greatest favour are science fiction. So imagine my joy i) on discovering the person who wrote this beautiful piece on homelessness, ii) on finding her writing over at Homeless Tales, and iii) on reading that her latest post is titled 'The SciFi of Homelessness'.

Sigh.

Through a comparison of two science fiction TV series, Farscape and Battlestar Gallactica, MetisRebel makes points about homelessness that are rarely considered by anyone other than those affected.

As I've said before about this writer, she's a treasure. I encourage you to visit Homeless Tales. Go there with an open mind and prepared to reject all that you've been told. Read what MetisRebel and others have to say. Learn about homelessness from the experts.

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Google AdSense: Poor need not apply

... because they won't get paid.

From an email I received in May from Google Adsense:

In an effort to protect the accounts of Google AdSense publishers, we've starting using automated telephone number verification to ensure that your information is accurate and up-to-date. As a result, you should see a Required Action on your Payment History Page to 'Please verify your phone number' after you log in to your account. To initiate this process, click the 'Please verify your phone number' link and follow the instructions.

I haven't a phone.

My response at the time? Bye-bye AdSense.

Thought that was the end of it...

UPDATE 1 - May 12

AdSense is back! Had to go start the process of closing my AdSense account, which got Google's attention. For the reason for closing the account, I wrote: "Your policy excludes very low-income bloggers, including those living on the streets, the very people who could most use AdSense income. I haven't a phone."

Google is sending me a PIN by snail mail, so I can verify my account that way. Why the hell they didn't include that option in their original 'Please verify your phone number' message I've no idea, except to suppose they're as oblivious as most other people are - including the vet, local retailers, the manager at my doctor's office, all creators of online submission forms who make the telephone field mandatory...

As I told an online friend, who tried to help me with this, I get weary trying to educate people about this kind of thing. It's depressing to be reminded of one's own marginalization, which makes it that much harder to fight back against the assumptions which marginalize. There are times I just can't push myself to do it. But thanks to the gentle support of my friend, this time I pushed back and with good results.

UPDATE 2 - Bye-bye AdSense - Today, July 17.

Went through the process of PIN verification and STILL the phone verification notice has not come off my account. Which means PIN verification was a useless exercise.

So once again I began the cancellation process with the hope that SOMEONE at Google AdSense would HELP with this problem.

Well, good luck with that!

NOTHING but the same old stupid response. I am instructed either to complete the verification process - in other words the respondent didn't READ my reason for proceeding with cancellation - or to submit a form accepting that I won't get paid what I am owed.

Google AdSense owes me $14.58. But I won't get it because I haven't a phone and cannot verify having what I don't have.

So went ahead and submitted their stupid form to cancel without payment.

Am angry, frustrated, in tears, and incensed by societal assumptions which forever are placing barriers between those who have and those who don't.

... and I've just received another auto-reply to the effect that I can NEITHER cancel my account NOR get paid. I'm in an auto-reply nightmare and of course, because I haven't a phone, there's not a hope in hell of talking to a REAL LIVE PERSON.

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Ten Rules for Good Health

If you're lucky, you will be able to follow them all and live a long, contented life.

1. Don't be poor. If you can, stop. If you can't, try not to be poor for long.
2. Don't have poor parents.
3. Own a car. [Or live in a community that provides excellent, affordable, public transportation.]
4. Don't work in a stressful, low paid manual job.
5. Don't live in damp, low quality housing.
6. Be able to afford to go on a foreign holiday and sunbathe.
7. Practice not losing your job and don't become unemployed.
8. Take up all benefits you are entitled to, if you are unemployed, retired or sick or disabled [and hope the eligibility criteria aren't designed to prevent 60% of applicants getting the benefits they paid for].
9. Don't live next to a busy major road or near a polluting factory.
10. Learn how to fill in the complex housing benefit/asylum application forms before you become homeless and destitute.

From Social Determinants of Health: Canadian Perspectives.

I would add: Don't have experienced long-term child abuse, or be a member of a minority, or have a disability, or be a woman, or...

ETA: See also this side-by-side comparison of conventional vs. social-determinants tips for good health. My thanks to subscribers of the SDOH listserv for sending me this list. It's my understanding it has been circulating since 1999 and was originally conceived and distributed through email by Dave Gordon, Townsend Center for International Poverty Research at the University of Bristol.

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The colours take my breath away

They surround a shed which could as easily be converted into a tiny house. What a gorgeous setting! Sigh...

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Tube Steak

Test tube, that is. Coming soon to a grocery store near you, meat that is designed in Petri dishes then transferred into large vats to grow.

Rapidly evolving technology and increasing concern about the environmental impact of meat production are signs that vat-grown meat is moving from scientific curiosity to consumer option. In vitro meat production is a specialized form of tissue engineering, a biomedical practice in which scientists try to grow animal tissues like bone, skin, kidneys and hearts. Proponents say it will ultimately be a more efficient way to make animal meat, which would reduce the carbon footprint of meat products.

Researchers can currently grow small amounts of meat in the lab, and have even been able to get heart cells to beat in Petri dishes. Growing muscle cells on an industrial scale is the next step, scientists say.

So, for all you meat eaters out there, here is a way to eat animal flesh and be able to say that you are no longer contributing to animal cruelty or environmental degradation.

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Arizona Senator: Earth 6,000 years old

For real. On tape:

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Mushrooms

It's highly unlikely to see mushrooms in the summer season around here, but the past weeks a few brave specimens have popped up around the boles of a number of the larger evergreen trees. Their arrival indicates that rain is on the way, for reasons still unknown to mycologists.

Agaricus Agustus, also known as 'The Prince' is a highly-prized edible variety, if you can get to the mushrooms before fly maggots invade their tender flesh. They are a relative of the kind you find in some grocery stores, sought by food junkies.

Seeing these large-topped fungi prompted me to grab my camera and put pen to paper.

Woodland Den

The ground surrounding this wee cottage
Are strewn a minefield of mushroom montage
Each step set anywhere must first explore
The delicate condition of the forest floor
For fungi frolic rain plashed and cool
A few pretentious, more yet minuscule

They burst the earth in hues abundant
The odour off them robust and pungent
Therefore, place your feet so gently when
You go strolling in this woodland den.

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Meat-Free Monday

Okay, Okay, I know I go on a LOT about a meat-free diet, but the proof shows up in our bodies. Eating without ingesting animal flesh is definitely beneficial to our health.

[T]he fact that eating meat leads to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, and lethargy, I'll skip extended analysis of these facts, other than to say: When Johns Hopkins, Columbia, the American Dietetic Association, and dozens of other health organizations argue that the less meat you eat, the better off you'll be, it's worth listening to them.

To get you started, two well-known Public Health schools in the USA are promoting a Meatless Monday campaign. It is a positive step in the direction of overall health for each individual and the entire planet.

[S]cientists tell us that if all Americans switched from eating chickens and pigs to eating beans and grains for just one day per week, that would stop as much global warming as if everyone in the U.S. shifted to ultra-efficient Toyota hybrids (which is the weekly equivalent of using 12 billion fewer gallons of gasoline). Of course I have to point out the obvious: If we all stopped eating animals completely and shifted to vegetarian foods, that would save 84 billion gallons of gas per week (and all the troubles that go with that kind of consumption).

Today is Monday. Today is the day to eat a meat-free diet. If you have already committed to one-day-a-week of meat-free eating, now is the day to add another. Your body will thank you, Mother Earth will thank you and all the animals that were not slaughtered to supply you with their flesh will thank you.

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Have You Seen My Childhood?

... a song by Michael Jackson that I'd never heard before, which has become my instant favourite. It's haunting, evocative, especially for anyone whose childhood has been far from ideal. I've not seen MJ as expressive in any other video.



Have you seen my childhood?
I'm searching for
The world that I come from
'Cause I've been looking around
In the lost and found
Of my heart
No one understands me

They view it
As strange eccentricities
'Cause i keep kidding around
Like a child, but pardon me

People say i'm not okay
'Cause I love such elementary things
It's been my fate to compensate
For the child
I've never known

Have you seen my childhood?
I'm searching for
That wonder in my youth
Like pirates and adventurous dreams
Of conquest and kings on the throne

Before you judge me
Try hard to love me
Look within your heart
Then ask

Have you seen my childhood?
People say I'm strange that way
'Cause I love
Such elementary things
It's been my fate to compensate
For the childhood
I've never known

Have you seen my childhood?
I'm searching for that
Wonder in my youth
Like fantastical stories to share
The dreams I would dare
Watch me fly

Before you judge me
Try hard to love me
The painful youth
I've had
Have you seen my childhood?

Makes me wonder if all the surgery wasn't about trying to find a white ideal, but about trying to stave off becoming a man, an adult. MJ wanted to be the child he never was, to never grow up. That would account for his Neverland Ranch, surrounding himself with children, his bewilderment at sexual abuse charges ('sex is for adults, not children'), a diet which kept his weight and musculature down, surgery that reduced the size of his features....

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Monument to "Victims of Communism" Planned

The Harper government is planning a monument to "victims of Communism." (Note capital 'c'.)

Three years ago, Jason Kenney - then secretary of state for multiculturalism, now federal Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism - says he met with the Czech and Slovak Association, who brought him to a small memorial for communism's victims they had built in a private Toronto park. It was a Christ-like figure crucified on a hammer and sickle. "I said to them, sort of half jokingly, 'Any chance we could move this to Ottawa as a national monument?'" he recalls. "They said, 'That's a brilliant idea, why don't we do that? Why don't we create a monument for the victims of Communism in Ottawa?' And we immediately got to work."

Harper waxed enthusiastic in his support:

"I would strongly support the idea of such a monument to recognize the 100 million people who died violent deaths under communist regimes, as well as those who escaped these totalitarian regimes to build new lives in Canada." He suggested it belonged near Ottawa's war museum, "ideally" to be unveiled in time for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, this November.

Way. To. Go. Harper! Canada's current resident of the PMO supports the erection of a monument for victims of a political ideology of which there are several variants. Might we also erect a monument for victims of neo-liberalism? How 'bout market capitalism?

There is so much confusion of terms in that quoted National Post article it has fogged up my lenses and I've gone cross-eyed.

Help! Is there a doctor (of logic chopping) in the house?

ETA: Ah huh! The good doctor answers my call. I recommend people read his post.

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Church Flies Gay-Pride Flag

This atheist has always had a soft spot for the United Church of Canada. Here is one reason why.

A church might not be the most likely place to see a gay pride flag flying, but that's exactly what's happening at the James Bay United Church.

The church, part of the United Church of Canada, raised the rainbow flag in honour of Pride Week, which ends today with a parade downtown. It's the first year the church has decided to display the flag.

One of my few fond memories of childhood involves the UCC. As a foster child, I attended craft classes in one of their lovely old stone churches in Toronto. The people there never, not once, tried to indoctrinate me. As a result, I felt welcome.

One memory is of being in an upper room, my head bent to my task, and the sun shining through a narrow leaded window on my right, lending comfort, light and warmth. That day, I relaxed long enough to paint and to let go of some of the unhappiness and stress I always carried with me.

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Cool New Firefox Extension

... called Dispute Finder, helps you find alternative views on any given issue, including the ability to rank the quality of arguments on all sides.

Here's a video of how it works:



You can get the Firefox extension here.

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About Those Acronyms

Ever wondered what an acronym used in an article meant and searched, in vain, for its written-in-full introduction?

The Tyee, at least, has got the message from frustrated readers. For your morning smile, go read Rex Weyler's hilarious article.

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Parliamentary Games

James Travers lists ten reasons why Parliament no longer serves the people. Among them:

Happiness here is reducing complex problems to a bumper sticker. "Do the Crime, Do the Time" resonates, but it doesn't make Canadians safer any more than cutting the GST made us noticeably richer. Keep it simple, stupid, is the rule, not the exception. So stick this on your subsidized Suburban: "Don't just vote, think."

I've a better suggestion for that bumper sticker: "Think, don't vote."

Only THEN, provided enough of us choose NOT to vote, will politicos start to worry about their legitimacy to govern. Only THEN will politicos get serious about accountable and representative government.

We need to turn our backs on the whole lot of them and the system they've managed to despoil.

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Vatican to Probe US Nunneries

Over the past three decades, the number of nuns in the US has dropped from 180,000 to 60,000. So what does the Vatican decide to do about this? Investigate orders that have adopted a modern lifestyle, including allowing nuns to wear regular garb and engage in professions previously taboo.

The Vatican is quietly conducting two sweeping investigations of American nuns, a development that has startled and dismayed nuns who fear they are the targets of a doctrinal inquisition....

The more extensive of the two investigations is called an Apostolic Visitation, and the Vatican has provided only a vague rationale for it: to “look into the quality of the life” of women’s religious institutes....

The visitation focuses only on nuns actively engaged in working in society and the church, not cloistered, contemplative nuns....

The investigation was ordered by Cardinal Franc Rodé, head of the Vatican office that deals with religious orders. In a speech in Massachusetts last year, Cardinal Rodé offered barbed criticism of some American nuns “who have opted for ways that take them outside” the church.

Given this backdrop, Sister Schneiders, [a] professor in Berkeley, urged her fellow sisters not to cooperate with the visitation, saying the investigators should be treated as “uninvited guests who should be received in the parlor, not given the run of the house.” She wrote this in a private e-mail message to a few friends, but it became public and was widely circulated.

I hope the Cardinal's ambitions succeed. That would only hasten more women turning their backs on Catholicism and the Vatican.

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Cons do unto DFAIT what they did unto SWC

Recall when the Harper Conservatives began changing the language - and thus mandate and eligibility criteria for grants - used for Status of Women Canada? These changes were seen on its website and other materials, and heard in any references the Cons made to the department. Words like 'equality' were erased.

Well they've not been idle when it comes to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade either.

DFAIT insiders tell Embassy that since the Conservative government took power in 2006, political staffers have directed rank and file Foreign Affairs bureaucrats to stop using policy language created by the former Liberal government.

"There are phrases you are not supposed to use," said one Canadian diplomat, on condition of anonymity. "Anything that smacks of the previous government is totally verboten.

"There is this tendency, almost like a knee-jerk reaction, to discount or ignore or change whatever it is the Liberals did and let's put a new Conservative face on it," he added. "There's a whole range of words and expressions that are being depopulated out of the documents, and are replaced with ones that are more to the [Conservatives'] liking."

Chief among the forbidden phrases, multiple DFAIT insiders have told Embassy, are "human security," "public diplomacy" and "good governance." Preferred key words include "human rights," the "rule of law," and "democracy" or "democratic development."

When you change a language, you change a culture.

The Cons are transforming Canada one word at a time.

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