A previously unpublished rant

This is something I wrote a few weeks back, kind of similar in theme to the article below. I thought I had posted it already, but I don't see it on the blog. So here it is:

It's funny this world of convenience we live in. For example, imagine the amount of energy and material it takes to make every plastic water or soda bottle you buy and casually dispose of. Little toxic bombs in everybody's hands. But there is no complaint about this phenomenon. When the price of gas goes up a few cents, or when the average temperature of Earth goes up a few degrees there is hysteria and global conferences called. What is really going on is that people are not spending enough time thinking about how they are living. A few cents more at the pumps doesn't add up to too much, no one's a hundred percent that fixing the carbon problem will reduce the temperature, but goddamn it if we washed a glass or a fork once in while would it kill us?

Sometimes I like to think of how people fit in the overall plan of evolution. Where are we compared to the dinosaurs and the death of the Sun. Will other beings someday mine down to our civilization, using are garbage dumps as an energy source in a time where the Sun's rays are starting to ebb a bit. Are we just some wonderful interim experiment of what happens when you take the two elements of life--the Adam and Eve, if you will--and cast them into an environment such as our own.

What puzzles me a bit is our insistence that for in order for intelligent life to exist on other planets they must have conditions like our own. A stable atmosphere, a moderate temperature, water. Well what if the seeds that scatter to those stars become other beings; what if they adapt to rivers of lava and million mile an hour winds. I tell you something, we wouldn't stand a chance against those boys if they decided to wage intergalactic war.

I can see how some people just don't care that much about what they do. Their lives are consumed by who they will be, rather than who they are. I suppose it is a perfectly natural, and perhaps essential trait on the grand scale. But the problem is that there are so many good people trying to be more than they aught, and too many great brains out there bent on convincing them. If there was half the energy it took to tell people to buy Gucci or Baskin Robbins put into a campaign about how all bottles should be reused as often as possible, it would be topsy-turvey and insane, but I for one would like to see it.

Right now I am drinking a bottle of 7-Up, one of many I have consumed over my life time. I think of the massive populating of this place over the last 200 years. How it has become profitable to put a soda in a plastic bottle designed for disposal. What a short and crazy trip from staking claims to living in big urban centres. That's what Canada is, the great land grab. A new land, claimed by a shrewd crew of English traders and an hearty bunch of French settlers. And then of course there are the founding peoples. A diverse group of nations, many of whom were subjected to harsh forms of cultural, if not actual genocide, that live among us today. When one adds the many Asians, Africans, Arab and Island people that come here it makes for quite an international stew.

That is what we should be proudest of. Not our seat in the exclusive G7 club, not even our hockey championships (although we should be damn proud of those). What we should be proudest of, and work hardest at, is the fact that we are all people from different places. And assuming our species can weather a few extra degrees, and the continuing possibility of all out nuclear holocaust, in a few hundred years we'll all be Irish-Polish-Tahitian-Jamaican-Tasmanian-Burundi-Cree-French-Korean and so on.

Now we are all here in this new free for all land that no one really knew was here (except for the original peoples of course) a land that is full of resources and so much space. Endless space with a great big Jambalaya of humans who like to drink soda from plastic bottles and drive cars. Most of us live in a few very concentrated spots near the southern boarder and would never dream of doing otherwise.

But being a pissy-pants about how other people live gets boring sometimes. It's not easy being a curmudgeon. Sometimes I like to just live too. Like yesterday when we took the holiday Monday and went to the beach. Those are the days when I can just hang up that bitter old critic and dig into life. Watching people, playing Frisbee having a mini barbecue on the grass at Bird's Hill's fake lake. That's what life is all about, the rest, quite frankly is nonsense.

The New Asceticism

I’m not much of an admirer of the current “Climate Change” fever that has politicians and popular personalities of all stripes singing and dancing for massive change. My much vilified university professor, Tim Ball, taught us to be skeptical, if not downright hostile, to the doomsayers of Climate Change, and though I am no-one’s toady or disciple I will admit that my skepticism continues in the face of considerable public sentiment to the contrary.

The earth has seen massive climate change before the industrial age, and in all likelihood it will see such changes again in future eons when our species is no longer dominant. It is possible that the carbon we produce so much of these days is a significant factor in the Earth’s warming, on the other hand, no-one is sure what the weather will be like next Wednesday, so who’s to say what really causes weather, and what doesn’t. Climate scientists may claim to know what is going on, but the priests and sages of eras past have spoken with as much authority only to be debunked.

However, to me the most interesting thing about our current green obsession is not what we believe is happening to our earth, but the way in which we frame how we will make changes to prevent disaster.

For instance, we insist that there must be other ways to produce energy efficiently and are so eager to believe this that we invest in dubious technologies like bio-fuels. Currently bio-fuels consume tremendous amounts of farmland and tax dollars to produce a negligible benefit. Perhaps in time we will master the extraction of fuels from plant-life, but so far it has proven to be a wasteful and expensive dream. Nonetheless bio-fuels remain a portent myth in the race to solve the climate change riddle.

The one, most obvious, solution to this problem however gets very little ink, and virtually no sound-bites. It is an idea that is as old as civilization itself, something that has been practiced by people of all times and ages whether by choice, or far more often, by necessity. It is called: living with less. Whereas virtually every argument one reads for the adoption of green technology contains some nod toward sustainable growth there is barely a soul alive who would propose that we move toward sustainable shrinkage.

The orthodoxy of modern economics posits that a civilization, in order to be successful and relevant in global terms, must continue to grow at all costs. Even as populations shrink in the nations most guilty of carbon spewing (with the noted exception of the United States) we continue to obsess over how we can go green and keep growing.

Here’s a radical thought. Why don’t we see what it would be like to not be so fixated on our status. How about we build homes that are affordable to heat and cool rather than massive, energy sucking monuments to our own perceived greatness and success. What if we had say one vehicle per family that reflected our needs rather than our annual salaries. Could we get by without lettuce in the dead of winter, and extravagant trips to foreign climbs? If we made more of an effort to live within our means would we still feel the guilt and doom of a future with no polar ice-caps and a prolonged hurricane season?

Like so much of what appears to be relevant today Climate Change is a product of hype and is mired in hyperbole. I am all for changing the way we live on Earth, for using less, working more on ourselves and less for our economies and for spending more time getting to know this fabulous biosphere we call home. But I don’t want to do it because jet-setting millionaires like Al Gore, Bono and Leonardo DiCapprio think it’s a good idea, and I don’t want to do it so Ford can sell me a new car that runs on rabbit food. I want to do it because I believe that our lives are about more than what we have owned when we die, and because I believe that a good, moral life is worthwhile despite the presence or absence of God(s), contrite politicians, Hollywood celebrities or speculative science.

I want to do it because I believe future generations have the right to enjoy the bounty of this planet, but should do so believing that the greatest imperative is take what is necessary and not more. If global warming continues to happen apace it will probably be the most valuable lesson we could learn.

HTML lesson from a know-it-all

Hi Ren,

I know I told you how to make a link on blogger, but I'm a bit of a know-it-all, as you may recall, and I like to show off my nerdy prowess. As a consequence of my peculiar vanity I thought I'd take a second to explain a bit of HTML. When you know how to do it manually you can leave links in the comments section of ALFA and impress your friends in other important ways.**

• First you use a triangluar bracket: "<" these brackets are always used in HTML to indicate that the text inside is a command, not an actual bit of text.
• After the bracket you type an "a". The "a" stands for Anchor--not entirely sure why Anchor, but it helps to remember the "a" if you know what it stands for.
  
• After that you leave a space and type "href" where "h" is short for "hypertext" and "ref" is short for "reference".
  
• Then you put an "=," for equals.
  
• After the "=" you must place a quotation mark otherwise the link will only refer to another page from the current web address no matter what you type as your link.
• Then you enter your address.
  
• Behind the address you place another quotation mark, and a closing triangle bracket ">" to close that portion of the command.
  
• Then you type the text you want the viewer to see eg. "link".
  
• After this you must end the command. You do this by putting another triangle bracket, then a forward slash "/" with an "a" meaning "stop anchor", then a closing bracket. After this all your text will be normal again.

It should look like this:

<a href="http://www.geostationarybananaovertexas.com">link</a>

The result is this: link

**Relevant, if useless, tidbit: I first gained entry into the inner sanctum of ALFA when I revealed this bit of web wisdom to Dave in a comment.

p.s. I have also blogged this email on the disclaimer.

Your Banner Ads Suck

A little bit of hate mail for the editors of the Free Press's on-line edition:

Dear Web Masters,

Do you know how distracting it is to read any of your paper on-line? Have you tried to read an article with all the banners that flash around the corners of your eye? I had forgotten just what a pain in the ass it is until I decided to try a new browser that I have not installed an ad-blocker on. It is in fact a mild form of torture. Were it not for the fact that your banners are animated to an annoying extent it is possible that I would never have bothered to seek out an ad-blocker for my previous browser in the first place. Static ads aren't that troublesome, they are far easier to ignore, they may even be something I read from time to time. But animated banners are an entirely different matter.

I don't have any statistics on how effective animated ads are vs. static ones, but for me personally I am far less likely to purchase a product or service from an advertiser who annoys me. I urge you to read a few articles in your paper with ad-blockers off just to see what I mean. Perhaps you can launch an unofficial poll to see what readers think. My guess is that the majority will agree that animating banners is bothersome and distracting and not very effective in terms of sales.

Untitled

tossed hither in surf
all I have known
eaten away
now just a pretty shell
washed up
on the beach

my precious meat
dined upon by time
and discouragement
a decoration
for your sandcastle
with nothing true to say

thought I had
so many things to relay
my ideas were going to
light the way
now I swim in darkness
words break like waves
on dikes of dithering indifference

Oh Fickle Google

My 15 minutes of fame on the Google Image Search Engine are up. My usurped image of Santana at Woodstock no longer even places in the top 5 pages. I don't know what changed my fortunes, perhaps the link is just too dated to be relevant anymore (it is a couple of weeks old now, a lifetime it seems in this torrid age of information.) Now it's back to obscurity for this humble little blog, no more daily visits from foreign climbs, no more ill-gotten notoriety. Just you my loyal readers, just you.

It's a bit humbling to realize the power of the search engine, it's capacity to bring eyes from all over the world to a little out of the way blog like this. It's kind of like when the Madonna appears on a piece of toast in some Arkansas backwater and it somehow makes it on to CNN. Next thing you know the whole American Media Circus is on your doorstep to take pictures of your miraculous breakfast and the defective toaster that spawned the graven image. But when interest dries up you are left with a trampled lawn and a dried out piece of toast which hopefully you can get a few bucks for on e-bay.

Oh well, it's back to the drawing board I guess. Hopefully I won't be consumed with posting pictures that have provocative and/or popular search terms attached to drive traffic. Although I admit it is a bit of a jolt to have all those people watching I doubt many of them stick around to digest the real meat of the matter. In fact sometimes I wonder if you do dear readers, I haven't had a comment in many moons.

Now On Facebook

Okay so I joined the Facebook thing. I'm not sure why, it's not like I spend a whole lot of time on-line, and not as though I am looking to get more into it, especially with summer in swing. But I suppose I am curious about this entity called Facebook, and it seems like an interesting (if mildly addictive) way to keep track of people who are far away or seldom seen.

Whatever, check out my profile and invite me to be your friend. Let's do cyber coffee sometime.

Cats in the Hood

Last year we had one kitten from next door who wanted us to adopt him. His name is Buster, and I have probably mentioned his name before. Buster is all grown up now, although he is a very small cat, and he must have a hard time making it on the mean streets of the West End. There are a lot of big tough cats in this hood without a really good home, cats like Buster himself, only bigger, and meaner. The proof in the toughness of young Buster's life is that the last time I tried to pet him he got all squirrelly and hissed at me, whereas in the past he was eager for a good petting. He has a hard time trusting now, and is not the love cat he once was.

Enter this year's crop of kittens. One is a smoke gray kitten who looks a bit too much like the neighbors gray cat (named Smoke). Is it a family connection, or merely a coincidence? One can never know in the crazy mixed up world of cat sexuality, but I do know that Buster still has his boys and so perhaps Smoke is likewise endowed. In any case this younger Smoke, despite being very curious about us and our home seems to be a kept cat since s/he has a collar with a bell.

The other kitten looks a lot like our cat Merlin (Joanna has dubbed the cat "Mini Mer"). In fact, if I wasn't so sure that Merlin was an indoor cat who had himself fixed eons ago I might give pause. In any case, both these kittens are full of love and curiosity not unlike Buster was before the harsh realities of life in a poor neighborhood with a family who only has passing interest got the better of him. What will become of these little kittens? Will they survive their first years among the cars and tough cats that cruise these streets? Will they become the jaded and distant adult cat like Buster, who longs for good love but cannot trust anyone?

The Response(s)

Jun 6 (1 day ago)

Hello Ryan. Sorry for your bad trip to Olympia. I am going to see if I can locate a rock lock for the older

Trek helmets. They are a bit hard to find but I will make it work.I am the same as you,I like to keep my



stuff in good shape and for as long as possible. I to have heard the 5 year limit but if the helmet is in good

shape I would still wear it. Again,sorry and I will make it up to you.

It would be great to have your phone number?

Take care , Scot.

6:05 pm (3½ hours ago)

Ryan, Scot here again. I have some of the rok locks coming in so I will email you when they get here.
It won't cost. Thanks Scot.

9:23 pm (24 minutes ago)

Thanks Scot, but I'd like to pay for the part if possible.

It's like this: I didn't buy the helmet from your shop in the first place (I got it from Olympia on Pembina). The first time I broke it you had one in stock and replaced it for free.

I feel like I should give you something for your trouble this time; it's honourable, and I am an honourable person.

Here are my particulars (I would prefer "light mail" if it is an option):
351 Home Street R3G 1X5
783-4807

(p.s. My last email was probably a tad dramatic; it's a bit of an occupational hazard. I was just trying to burn off some of the frustration I felt in that moment; I wasn't truly outraged or anything. So, uh, thanks for listening.)

The Letter

Earlier today I ranted a bit about an experience I had in a bike shop today. It promised action, and here it is in the form of an letter sent to the store's e-mail address.

Hello Scot,

I was in your store this evening looking to replace the Zip Tite bracket that had broken on my Trek bike helmet. My helmet was manufactured in 2004 (purchaced in Feb of '05) and you previously replaced another broken Zip Tite (free of charge I might add), but this time your staff informed me that I ought to replace my bike helmet every 3 years and left it at that.

Being someone who likes to keep things for as long as possible if they are still useful (not because I am cheap, so much as I am in favour of re-using, recycling and not creating more waste than I need to) I was skeptical about the idea that a three year old helmet that looks to be in good shape should automatically become a candidate for replacement. Several opinions I have read this evening seem to offer a more reasonable lifespan of 5 years per helmet (barring any damage), others say a modern helmet should be constructed well enough to last even longer. In short, there is no consensus on when an undamaged helmet should be replaced, and what amounts to a refusal of service based on a suggested date of replacement displays little in the way of class.

I can respect the fact that your people want to make a sale, and if it were a matter of the part no longer being available I would be forced to concede that a new helmet was necessary. But having looked at the new Trek helmets in your shop I noticed that the Zip Tite, despite being a newer rendition, seems clip on in the very same manner it did previously, so that does not appear to be an issue. Perhaps you no longer carry spare Zip Tites, and a broken one automatically means it is time for a new helmet (in which case I suggest you no longer carry Trek helmets, because this part breaks frequently). But that is not what I was told. What I heard was: "your helmet is three years old, you need to replace it." After which I was told to check out the "Universal Fit Helmets" and dismissed so the person who was "helping" me could chat with her friend. With all do respect, my helmet does not need replacing, it needs a part (which one hopes will cost less than $15) and someone who is willing to sell it to me. Since you are one of the few Trek dealers in town, and the one nearest me, I was hoping to be as well served as I was last time I had this problem. I was sorely disappointed.

When to Replace Your Bike Helmet

Today I went to replace the brace in my bike helmet that had broken (for a second time). The first time I had it replaced the guy gave it to me for free. This time I was told, by people at the same store, that my helmet is too old and should be replaced.

According to the somewhat snooty mechanic who helped me a helmet should be replaced every three years because some of the plastics etc. break down. Now obviously the brace breaks down, but that's because it was poorly designed--too thin at the stress points--but the helmet itself is made out of fairly solid stuff, and has not been in any accidents.

I know the smell of horseshit, and in this instance it is the odor of a fresh dump. Clearly the call to replace a helmet every three years is brought on by the marketing departments of major manufacturers (Bell for instance). There should be no good reason that a modern helmet, designed to high standards, needs to be replaced just because of some arbitrary best before date, I mean c'mon.

I didn't tell the girl that she was feeding me a line of crap, but I looked around at the other Trek helmets and noticed that they still use the same kind of brace (although now it is a zip-trak version II), so they couldn't argue that the part was not available. I don't know what to do now. Do I cave and buy a new helmet, or stick to my principles and write a letter to the store owner and complain that his staff was selling me a line of BS. Actually, I know just what to do, I am the disclaimer after all.

From the Site Meter Files

I am fascinated by the "Site Meter" and the people who visit this site and for what. Unfortunately I haven't given people much reason to visit lately (lest they be interested in the archives), but one "recent" post has drawn a lot of traffic.

The picture I used of Carlos Santana has drawn more than a hundred hits from all over the world. "Woodstock 1969" or some variant thereof, turns out to be quite a popular search. Most people are Google Image searching, as I was when I found this shot.

Actually I just punched in Woodstock 1969 into Google image to see where I was placing in the search and came out #20 out of 48,900. This image came from another source (although specifically, I was looking for "Santana Woodstock") and now I've jumped ahead of that original shot and into a first page finish on Google Image. That's just crazy. (The Hendrix picture featured here finished 4th).

Only five of the last 20 visits from Winnipeg. There have been seven from the U.S., two unknowns, one more each from Canada, Germany, Mexico, Spain, France and Australia. Damn, I gotta get some Google-vertising up!

In honour of a wedding

I was totally inspired by the wedding of Grant and Alice yesterday. It was a beautiful ceremony, and a hell of a party for two fabulous people that I am lucky to have as friends. It left me feeling all romantic this morning so I dabbled in some poetry by making revisions to an older piece from a journal. Here is the result:

You are the one I love
the one I dream of.
No other soul can fulfill me
the way you can.
Others have been loved by me
but never have they lived in me.

You inhabit all of me
your smell, your eyes, your laughter.
You are every song I sing with feeling
the star of my wildest imaginings.
You are cinnamon sunshine and curry moon-glow
I want to taste every part of you.

Oh how I wonder what it would be like
to kiss your lips every day and night.
I have tried so hard to drown how I feel in beer
or chase it off in the pursuit of other women.
But it always boomerangs back to you
the sweetest, sexiest girl I have ever known.

Would You Trust This Face?

I got a call from Passport Canada the yesterday questioning the authority of my Driver's License Photo. To be fair, I can see how my dark hair and beard may look somewhat jihadish but it's a government issued document for god sakes. Earlier in the day they called my guarantor with what I assume was a similar line of questioning. The word of this mostly respected and almost entirely moral character (who will occasionally partake in highly immoral activities such as high-speed boat jousting during our annual fishing trip) was obviously not authoritative enough for Passport Canada, and so they had to call me and ask me if I had ever dared cover such a handsome face with an unruly beard.

"Yes," I told them, "there was a time when I was convinced that I wanted a hippie chick, and only a hippie chick. So I grew my beard and bathed a little less than was my previous custom. However realizing my folly (and the fact that I like women who smell good) I eventually shaved it off and have been far happier (and luckier) since." This answer seemed wholly satisfactory to the inquisitor and she promised I'd have my Passport in a few weeks. Grand Forks here I come!

Giving the Bank Shit, Again! (Happy Earth Day)

An email I sent to my bank today, having reached the end of my patience with the amount of advertising I receive with my monthly Visa bill.

This is just a note to let you know that although I have signed up for "paperless record keeping" I still receive a monthly bill for my Visa. Perhaps this is a legal requirement, but I must say that I object to the amount of advertising that comes with my monthly bill and the wastefulness of this unwanted annoyance.

This month's bill included a "Save on long distance..." sales letter, one of many such I have received since signing up for your Visa. I have never shown the tiniest bit of interest in an offer of this sort, and quite frankly, I never will, yet I continue to be pestered.

The other side of this page was blank and yet you included another piece of two-sided preprinted paper to tell me that someone from Lumby, BC and another person from Dartmouth, NS won some contest.

You could have published this information on the blank side of the page with the "Save on long distance" ad saving the printing costs, paper and ink that will now go into recycling without having had any effect on my motivation to purchase more things with my Visa. Better still you could have made use of the "Message Centre" in my online banking to make me aware of these things or published them in a online newsletter that I am free to sign up for or reject.

As far as I'm concerned, if someone signs up for "paperless record keeping" it is akin to putting a "no flyers" sign on one's mailbox. In other words: I do not want your advertising. If the law requires you send me a hard copy of my bill fine, but let that be all. I don't care about your Scotia Star network, most of those retailers don't exist in Manitoba anyways, and I don't care to join in any deals you are offering in conjunction with other companies. You're wasting paper and time with these pointless ads, and your are pissing off customers like myself with your thoughtlessness in the process, please stop.

Musical Thought

I’m reading a really interesting and well written article in The Walrus magazine right now about a classical musician and her (second) journey to Rwanda. She hauls around an electric keyboard and plays Bach and other classical music for various populations in Rwanda.

The author of the article at one point begins to expound on how music is a reflection of thought and can act as mirror to the ways in which we create and process meaning. By way of example she looks at the way African and Western music compare. Western music is based on resolution, it is structured like a story to create a narrative through melody and rhythm, that almost always resolves satisfactorily (or at least in keeping with the accepted scales and time signatures that define Western music.)

In contrast African music is not structured by way of resolution. It is more or less spontaneous and “organic.” There is no defined ending, no grand scheme, as one might expect in Western music. Similarly, the author postulates, our modes of thinking are structured differently.

She explores this further by taking the daily life of a woman in Kigali who pushes her bicycle up a mountain every day, rain or shine, to carry a load of goods. It is a Sisyphean task she can’t imagine enduring herself, and yet for the Rwandan woman it is a fact of daily life, and not measured in the same terms as it is in Western eyes.

I begin to understand that the reationship to time, to value, to purpose, to ourselves—Our basic existential tooling—is not a god-given inheritence but is, like music, a cultural construction. And this leaves me profoundly confused, dangling between two great fictions of existence: mine, in which there is no meaning without resolution, and hers, in which the idea of resolution has no meaning.

This speaks to the power of music to influence thought, much as it does the power of thought to influence music. I am interested in the idea that a lot of the obsessions and behaviors within our society are controlled by our culture, because we seem to place such a high value on what is inherent (and thus unchangeable) about our actions relative to what is produced by way of culture and perception. Stranger still is the possibility that revolution can really occur within art and music, and new ways of feeling and thinking are far more possible than I have realized before.

Incidentally: I was looking for a picture to go with this post and a shot of Carlos Santana came up. I immediately thought about his performance at Woodstock, which absolutely blew my mind the first time I saw it. It was so unbelievably inspired (and inspiring) to see this young group of musicians jamming out these amazing grooves (the drum solo by the kid who was 16 at the time is monumental). Talk about music that caused a revolution.

Bring Your Own Bag

Here's an article I submitted to the Free Press yesterday. Today's paper contains an article by Tom Ford on the very same subject in a very similar vein, so it seems unlikely that I will be able to collect any cash for this effort. Here it is anyways.


Although I own enough cloth shopping bags to match every outfit in my wardrobe and try to refuse plastic bags whenever they are offered—which in case you haven’t noticed is virtually every time you purchase something irregardless of quantity or size—I still have a massive cache of shopping bags, representing a wide range of retailers, under my sink. I can only swoon when I consider how many more reside in the broom closets of less fastidious people.

On April 2nd the Manitoba community of Leaf Rapids became the first in Canada to implement a radical remedy to the almost pathological way in which plastic bags are shoveled at shoppers by imposing an all out ban. Unsurprisingly, given our current penchant for environmental issues, this news has met with great interest across the country. It has even prompted the Canadian Plastics Industry Association to develop a damage-control strategy, as was evident in a recent letter published by one of its executives in Saturday’s Free Press.

The industry claims it is doing society a huge favour by providing us with so many “kitchen catchers.” If not for the zillions of light weight bags they so generously supply we’d be buying heavier gauge garbage bags which, according to their studies, will produce an even greater burden on the environment. Counter-intuitive as it sounds they actually claim that banning the wind-blown blights, which currently decorate the treetops of communities from coast to coast, will result in more plastic being sent to the dump.

Questionable industry-sponsored studies aside, this by-law is still highly contentious. The legality of imposing a ban of this sort on retailers, some lawyers have suggested, is beyond the jurisdiction of municipalities and would likely not survive a court challenge. In the context of Leaf Rapids a suit seems unlikely, especially given that the town of 500 received a donation of 5000 reusable bags from an Ontario manufacturer. But as larger communities look to enact similar legislation it becomes a very significant point.

Having government dictate how businesses can treat their patrons goes against the very nature of the free-market, and our freedom of choice. However, our compulsion to consume goes hand in hand with a sense that it is convenient, so the incentive for retailers to curtail the shopping-bag insanity simply do not exist. While environmental issues are gaining traction everywhere, retail is an industry where personal and courteous service are king. Offering a bag seems like a friendly gesture, whereas suggesting that one bring one’s own, no matter the good intentions, is offensive to many customers.

Waging war on the plastic bag pestilence that gnaws at this nation—trivial as it seems in comparison to a great many graver environmental concerns—is a worthwhile pursuit. Shopping bags swirling on the sidewalk are a powerful symbol of the obliviousness we show towards our wasteful and ecologically unsustainable patterns of consumption.

Drastic measures like banning plastic shopping bags help us question the wisdom of automatically plopping an already amply packaged item into another layer of plastic for the sake of convenience. If we had a few dozen less “kitchen catchers” on hand and actually ran out occasionally we might take time to consider how much trash our lifestyles produce. Perhaps, if there were fewer bags to carry all our purchases home, we might even be tempted to bring home less stuff.

Personally, I look forward to the day when I don’t have to say: “No thanks, I’ve got my own bag,” before the first item is even scanned, in order stay a clerk’s robotic impulse to bag.

The Babe

Just a little illustration I did with my stylus when I was in the mood to paint.

My E-Portfolio

About two weeks ago I put together an electronic portfolio for a job I was applying for. I never did get a call-back, but it's still up there. So take a look at if you want, and then let me know (back here at the Disclaimer) if there is something I should do to make it a lot better. Also, if you know someone who's looking for a guy, send 'em to my page. You know I would do the same for you.

http://rkinrade-eportfolio.blogspot.com/

Semantic Assult

Recently I had a war of words with my good friend Sky over the difference between a company and an association. This was fueled by a post on the ALFA blog Sky added which referenced a vote for America's most hated company. The winner of this informal poll was the Recording Industry Association of America. I argued that the RIAA could not be seen as a company whereas Sky posited that there is little difference between what I define as a company, and the work of the RIAA. Read the entire post here, and let me know what you think.