Man, I am out of it. Just got home after many hours of driving in bumper to bumper traffic–in the freakin’ rain! We lost count of the number of accidents between here and Staten Island.

Anyway, glad to be home. Getting to bed early tonight. Tomorrow I’ll be working from 9:30am-10:00pm (maybe longer). Yay me! But on the upside, should return home with a nice wad of cash. Then back in on (Black )Friday morning til whenever, then off for a few days.

Weird thing happened over on Facebook; I logged in this morning and reset my privacy settings, opening up to ‘my networks and friends’. I decided to unblock the last few people I had blocked on there, including Peter, thinking he had me blocked anyway, so why would it matter if I blocked him…lol Just rereading that made me feel like I was back in Jr. high school. Do we really have to resort to blocking each other out? How funny and sad that is.

Anyway, then I saw he had posted on a mutual friends link and couldn’t figure out why I’d be seeing him if he blocked me. Then I remembered why I blocked him in the first place; so I wouldn’t have to see him posting alongside me, or anywhere, for that matter. And also, so I wouldn’t have to look at his face. It’s a strangers face to me now. A total mystery man. Funny that.

So I went to re-block him, only FB wouldn’t let me. Said I had to wait 48 hours.

Guess now I’ll have to avoid FB for a couple of days

We are back from the second half of Wedding #7 — in Sudbury, ON.  I will now commence a matrimonial hiatus for the next several months.  Next up, wedding at the end of March 2010.

This is a temporary post that was not deleted. Please delete this manually. (b5dcf3c1-c9aa-44b2-ace4-1e50ccccd92d – 3bfe001a-32de-4114-a6b4-4005b770f6d7)

camisa wha tamanho 38. em lã fininha. nunca usada, com etiqueta. 100 reais + frete.

They CRAZY.

Let me quickly set the scenario:  On the subway yesterday, around 5:20 coming back from York — it takes between an hour and 10 and an hour and 30 minutes (depending on waiting for the bus at York and the traffic to Downsview) to get home.

Finally on the Bloor line heading East from St. George, and in a seat (woo!) a woman — aged around 40 — gets on and stands over me looking as if she wants me to be chivalrous and get up for her.  Now, I believe in giving up seats for people if its warranted, but I have a bad back and sitting is preferable on the subway.  One of the first criteria that will guarantee I WILL NOT give you my seat is if you are under 50 and give me a look as if you can’t believe I’m not getting up for you.  True equality between the sexes implies we both have a right to that seat, plus I’ve been here already and I’m probably going further than you are…

Then I realize this woman is not quite right somehow.  I IMMEDIATELY begin to think, “She’s going to sneeze on me, or cough on me or something.”  Commence breath holding.

She starts to yawn incessantly.  Like, constantly yawning, in my face, not covering her mouth.  She sighs several times, breathing out loudly in my direction, she rubs the back of her legs a few times, and then, then…  she WILDLY picks her nose, and puts the same hand on the bar above my head.  OH JESUS, a booger just probably landed in my hair.

Then it happens, sure as spit…  she sneezes, only half-covering her mouth, right at me.  But THEN, she has an immediate fit of coughing which commences some sort of weird bulimic ritual whereby she takes her right index finger and starts JAMMING it down her throat, gagging and coughing the whole time.  On a crowded subway people are looking, but I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who sees the finger jabbing.  She stops, and puts it BACK ON THE BAR ABOVE MY HEAD.

I’m hoping crazy isn’t contagious, otherwise, I just got it.

In which case, I will have to get the name of the barber that all crazy people seem to go to…  I’m telling you, that shit is not just a messed up ‘do, or indifference…  crazy people have carefully selected a stylistic choice, something along the lines of:

“HEY SAM!  Yeah, I need a cut…  just drag those scissors around my scalp a bit.  I’m going for the drastically-uneven layered mullet look.  Full moon and all….  should be quite a week.”

They all look like this:

A Typical Crazy-Person's 'Do

*photo from “Sexy People” blog.

At the Wee Historic Beastie this past weekend:

Blacksmith Dude (Talking to M):  Feel free to stop by any time and I can show you the basics [of blacksmithing]…but you should know, I might not be wearing any clothes.

*facepalm*

Also, I just made the most glamorous trip to Target ever–I bought a GIGANTIC bag of cat food, a large package of toilet paper, a single washcloth, and a spray that’s supposed to get your cats to stop scratching things like furniture and the carpet.  I’m not a crazy cat lady or anything! 

Posted on Thursday, November 05, 2009, via whistlercitizen.com

Saturday, October 17…1:44am

Sitting in the dark in my black Prior “Whistler Built” hood with my foot up hoping my big toe isn’t broken where I smashed it walking to the bus after work on those damn uneven paving stones after the throbbing woke me up.   Still thinking about design…

‘By design’…there is nothing by chance, nothing random, nothing meaningless.   The new Masters of Design edition of Fast Company was sitting on a very few selected shelves waiting for me.   By design, I suspect, that magazine over the years has been surprisingly difficult to find.   7-11, no, local book shop (Armchair) no, Whistler in general, no.   Of all the forward thinking, leading edge cutting, technology savvy, social media throbbing, sustainability seeking, should I say it? ‘progressive’…no, seemingly progressive communities and cultures to live in and I can’t find a copy of Fast Company.   Whistler, the outside world is calling…are you there? Or are you screening your calls?

Where is it then?   The never fully self proclaimed but equally understood and accepted (by anyone who has ever picked up an issue and wondered “why aren’t I reading this?) source of progressive thinking in the generation X Y revolution of small business is Fast Company, and more notably, the now annual Masters of Design issue – of which the current cover shot was spammed to me by the way by one of those dudes from the know?show (and if you don’t know what that is you are likely either over 40 – at highest risk a baby boomer – or living deep in the Midwest wondering what those boxes with #THTH are doing in Columbia, Missouri…and what the hell is this Tony Hawk?).

Insert – battery dying…had to stop for a moment and plug in my HTC Pro where I’ve been typing on my backlit slide out keypad on Windows Word Mobile…beat that i-Phone.

Rewind almost a decade…and I had never heard of it either. In fact, the magazine was created in 1990 something, I hope! Being born just months into the last era of life before computers and men on the moon it’s important to bridge the generation gap which sets me apart from my parents – aka the ones who created this mess, etc – and why it somehow made sense to drop out of university and pursue a career with the Gap (which when I left in 2000 something was still the highest paying job I have ever had…hopefully in the spirit of Don Fischer I pay myself more this year.)   You know what Mencius said, ‘do not seek to follow in the footsteps of those who came before, seek what they sought.’   Enter The Gap and one of the 6 or 7 district or area managers in fewer years to come and go whose name I regrettably can’t recall (sorry) who gave me a copy of Fast Company and a year’s subscription for Christmas…or in those days ‘Holiday’ to be politically correct.   Do they still call the day Jesus was born Holiday? or have they moved past that? Had it not been for that gift, I might have never known, likely like many of you reading this, what I was missing.

So years later…married, at that time with one little boy, a new home in Whistler (courtesy of the WHA) and a belt full of real inside experience as a buyer and manager for an independent turned corporate-  likewise seemingly progressive – retail company from Norway…you do the math…I shift gears and decide to pursue a 2 year business plan in the making and open my own shop where on my first official business flight to meet with the Whistleresque – re. not so progressive – folks at Patagonia I pick up the 2007 Masters of Design issue of Fast Company at YVR and sit down for a beer before my flight (yes…independents can do that and expense it).   By design, with the help of that magazine, in a few short months – September through November 2007 – I created, designed, built and opened my business.  

In no uncertain terms, that magazine influenced all aspects of shape and design from my final business plan, to buying my Thinkpad (from Lenovo for those of you in IBM withdrawal); to drafting my floor plans and selecting sugar maple laminate flooring and IKEA small business fixtures.   I would like to take all the credit, I admit, and go on about how every detail was the genius and genesis of my creative spirit but 2 years later looking back in earnest, I opened that spam message, saw Coke’s David Butler on the cover and remembered how a magazine, a couple Kokanees and few hours in airports and airplanes brought it all together.

…and if that is not enough to get you to pick up that magazine, if you can still find it, open the funky fold-out split cover page (annoying for OCD type A’s but cool) and check out the Porsche Panamera ad…a four door Carrera, WTF!  

Masters of Design is right.  …some day!

By design, Fast Company isn’t on every table, or every corner convenience store magazine rack…or any in Whistler shop that I can find (please correct me if I’m wrong).   I found my latest copy at Chapters on Granville and West Broadway, arguably the ever evolving showcase street of west coast lifestyle design; Chapters mega store with Starbuck’s, Restoration Hardware with ridiculous US$ pricing?, the original home of now defunct Caban, another Starbuck’s, Ming Wo, and that funky deli grocery…you know the one, another Starbuck’s…I count 4?, all of these alongside a fringe list of must see independents.  

Truth be told, I would have driven to the airport to pick it off the shelf there just because, just for the discovery, for the smell of the fresh news print of a dozen cities that reads success, for the buzz of a building full of people all going somewhere and for the pure tangible ‘I’m down’ satisfaction of knowing ‘I know’ that you just can’t get ordering a good book you can’t find like ‘Let My People Go Surfing’ from Amazon.com even if they do have the best price. (And if you want to know how ‘they know’ what books and music and DVD’s and clothes and furniture…you get the picture…to post on your Facebook page or what ‘random’ tweet to drop on @tonyhawk?   Pick up the magazine and get ready to load up the firewalls.)

There is something there still, beneath it all, by design, about being true to the source that this ridiculous search taught me, or better yet reminded me I forgot.   In this age of Facebook friends and counting followers on twitter, of outlet malls and discount websites that let us save those precious pennies for five dollar chai lattés, grande americanos, and trips to Maui between trips to Wal-Mart for diapers, there is still a place for Fast Company, for progress.   Not the dirty ‘progress’ of Jet Rink, tar sands and AIG’s, but the progress of ‘being progressive’.   Thankfully, I read into that, there is still a place for independents, for me and my business of giving a hand full of people a hands on eyes open experience of this place we call home, of Whistler.   It may not be what you see on every corner, or down the strip in the big boxes and no I don’t sell it online for less, and that’s OK.   It is mine and if you look hard enough you will find it and keep coming back.

Hey Guys,

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while! Had a very tough time getting online between school, ice hockey, parties and homework! Well, I’m back to the world of Cyberspace, and it appears that my cyberspace area  is doing very well! I’ve had 195 comments ( : D ) and 3,250 views ( double : D ). So all is good there! But, I’m leaving London at the end of this year : ( ! And I have several options for schools back in Virginia, Georgetown Day, Arlington Schools, Fairfax County Schools, National Cathedral School and a few others. But, to get into Georgetown Day and NCS ( well to apply at least!) I have to take the SSAT, which is basically a mini ERB if you’ve ever taken that. It tests you in writing, reading comprehension, quantitive reasoning, writing comprehension and basic math. Now, my math and home room teacher is tutoring me after school on Tuesdays to help me get ready for the test, so thats all sorted. And to apply for gifted and talented in Fairfax County and Arlington County, I had to take a differential abilities test which I took in 3rd grade, luckily enough, I got scored in the 99th percentile!

Back to the present though, I took a math test about two days ago and I scored 85 which is pretty bad, but it’s much better than what I got last time, 75 points. And I haven’t taken my retakes yet! So, next math class we will officially get the tests back and then see what areas we need to retake! I have a math tutor every Monday and Friday who also doubles as my baby sitter who takes me to Ice Hockey!

So, as I’m on the topic I might as well talk about Ice hockey! I play for a team called the Haringey Bulldogs! ( I play mainly U12 but I got to play U14 last game!) I play left wing mainly, but I can play right wing! So, I was in Bristol for a game, and it was the world’s longest bus ride ever, but thats besides the point, when we got there, we stretched , ran some and then got geared up, I played number .. hmm.. 16 I think… and I was left wing on the other side of my friend Andrew ( playing Center) and a guy named Almos ( playing right). The game was a great game, Andrew and Almos were top scorers and a kid named Jahva scored 4 goals, for a total score of 22 to 1. When I was in the changing room after the game my coach asked if I wanted to play U14, I accepted ( BIG MISTAKE for the team, I suck) but I got to play a lot, and I got body check and it hurt like heck and I got embarrassed, then I got checked again. So that was the end of good sportsmanship for me, I got really mad, stole the puck and skated up to the goal, of course the score was 21 to 1 so any goals wouldn’t make any difference, but it would give me confidence, back to the story, I was up at the goal and just letting the puck slide when the person who body checked me the first time came up behind me and thought he could pull the puck out of the goal ( the goalie was on the other side of the goal, remember this happened in about 2 seconds, not fast enough for reflexes to kick in) so he brought his stick in, and unfortunately for him, hit the puck with the wrong side of his stick, so he hit it in! Because it was an own goal and I was the last person on my team to touch the puck, I got credit for it!

Anyways, thats enough of sports, back to academics, I just feel like sharing my past test scores with the world! So, in science, I got 2 97s, one on a microscope test and one on a unit test on bacteria. In math, I got a 75  on a unit test and an 85 on a mid way unit test. In humanities, I got a 94 on a unit test and in French, a 97, 85, 100 and 94 all in unit and spelling tests. So, I’m doing pretty well, and you can tell my best and worst subjects!

Now, I want to skim over some fun stuff! I go to a choir called Capital Childrens’ Choir based here in London! My choir teacher Rachel, put me in line for a gig! I’m really excited and have been working really hard on memorizing the songs that she gave me!!! I’m so excited for Wednesday to show off my singing! Wish me luck!

That’s about it,

Peace out girl scouts!

Emily.

Yours truly

Hello? Is anyone out there?

Ooooh, boy. I’m so new to this blogging thing and very bad with computers, it seems. I forgot for a moment this morning that I’m not good at, well, doing things.

 My brain is about to explode all over the keyboard and, trust, I recognize it’s not as hard as I’m making it out to be. What did I get myself into?

I swear, this will NOT be one of those things I start & don’t finish, but-

I’m a pen and paper gal…yeesh…..

Woody Harrelson has a Doctorate.  Okay, its an honourary Doctorate of Laws (LLD).  But, it was awarded by my faculty, the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University at this semester’s convocation.

YorkU, where everybody knows your name?

Not the least bit embittered, I think its kind of fun that “Woody” has been given such a prestigious honour, and by my faculty.  It seems he has done quite a bit in his own life and publicly to address environmental issues, organic/sustainable living, and reductions of carbon footprints.  I don’t know exactly what the stated requirements are for earning an honorary doctorate, but still, good on you WH.

I do wonder, though, are these choices honouring the true amount of work these individuals do?  Are they mostly publicity for the program?  I mean, I can now go into job interviews once my degree is completed and say, “Yes, Woody Harrelson and I both earned our doctorates from the Faculty of Environmental Studies.  I mean, he’s been in the spotlight, but I believe I’m truly poised to break onto the scene.”  What does all that mean?  Probably nothing, and its probably not worth thinking about all that deeply.

On a similar note, I recently saw “Zombieland” starring Woody, and I must say, it was a Doctorate-worthy performance.  Take that OSCAR!

That’s all.

Totally unrelated to the rest of this post, but KITTY IN THE LAUNDRY BASKET! (Yeah, Max is pretty freaking cute…and he knows it)

Because I’m not full-time, I am usually out of the office Monday-Wednesday.  When I’m back to work on Thursday, there’s almost always a pile of totally wacky mail (I appreciate the regular Bed Bath and Beyond coupons, but why are they being sent to an historic site?  And then there’s all the mail that’s addressed to my predecessor, or the organization that used to run the Wee Historic Beastie…), and a bunch of random phone messages (most of which are telling me about how I can refinance my mortgage ).

But today?  One piece of mail (a Bed Bath and Beyond ad), and no phone messages.  *boggles*

Last Thursday, some woman did this in the Extreme Fitness parking lot in Thornhill…  and decided to just park somewhere else in the lot to hide.

In the barber’s chair, getting my pre-Dominican Republic haircut:

Me:  Yeah, we’re going to a destination wedding in the Dominican.

Barber:  Whoa, so, how does that work?

Me:  I think you just get the license there and then pay a fee to have it translated and notarized in Canada.

Barber:  Weird, so if you want to get divorced, what do you do?  How does THAT work?

Me:  You just get divorced.

Barber:  Cuz like, same sex couples come to Canada to get married, and like, they go back and what if they want to get a divorce?

Me:  Well, their marriages aren’t recognized anywhere else really, so, they just break up…  no big deal.

Barber:  But like, how does that work?  It would stink to have to come back to Canada to get a divorce, eh?

Me:  ((Silence))

Then, S & I on the streetcar sitting slightly in front of the way-back section where two smelly drunk, drug-dealer (admittedly-so) types with their dogs (how the FUCK do they have dogs and we don’t??!):

Creepish Guy 1 (talking about the suicide rate in the military):  So the regular suicide rate in Canada from 2005-2008 was 17.9%!  I don’t know what that means…  .9%?

Creepish Guy 2:  That’s just a percentage it means they divide it, its like, almost 18.

Creepish Guy 1:  Right.

Right…

So, we’ve officially tip-toed that much closer to the end of 2009, year o’ weddings, nuptial-palooza, matrimania, vow-stravaganza.

This Friday we fly to the Dominican Republic for the last wedding, being #7, except, that we have to go to a separate PARTY for that wedding at the end of November up north.  So, really, we have two more matrimonially-themed events, just, for the same couple.  Fine.  I’m okay with that.

This is more a concern for the last wedding we went to, which, I must say, for S & I was nice…  great location in Buffalo on a small lake, I got to play piano for the ceremony, they are great friends full of modesty and they’re humble, really happy, and deserving of great things.

Those keys are still sizzlin'

No, this was more a matter of other guests…  sadly, and truly.

I’m not sure what to think or say, really…  I wrote earlier in the year that despite the focus and overall concentration on commodities, consumerism, and capitalism in weddings, we were generally enjoying ourselves at them.  We try to stay away from conversations about registries, discussions about the proper amount to spend on a gift, the quality of the location, the quality of food, the quantity of free booze, etc. etc. etc.  I mean, we’re there to celebrate the couple right?  And each guest has a different financial footing to stand upon, as well as a varied distance from or closeness to the couple, so its understandable that people would spend different amounts…  right?

WRONG.

Or so I’m told…  but that’s just the beginning.

This wedding was beautiful.  I need to say that, and with 150 guests (who, by the way, pay nothing for the food or drink or DJ or reception hall, but give back in the form of gifts and presence), its got to be hard to keep everyone happy.  But, for those who are unhappy, you’d think a little self-control would be in the cards.  Well, this time felt different…  perhaps it was the table we sat at, but the overall mood was just not one of gratitude and happiness/togetherness.  People complained about the food’s temperature, the portions, the spots on silverware, the lack of wine at table, the lack of scotch at bar, the placement of bathrooms in the building, the unknown ingredients in the pumpkin soup…  the server’s attitudes (which, to be honest, ours was nice, and the other ones just seemed busy about their work…  are they supposed to engage us in humorous conversation?  I thought they were supposed to serve us and get out of the way…  which, they did, so success there, and its certainly not their fault if the food isn’t piping hot when it comes to their tray to our table)…  you name it.

I heard a rather disturbing story about a woman (not present at the wedding) who goes to weddings with an unwritten check, who sees what the hors d’ouevres are, the quality of the bar, the meal, the staff, the location, the table arrangements, and only THEN goes into the washroom to write a check between $200 and $350 on a sliding scale.  WTF?  Seriously?  And we’re okay with this as a society?  That she can even tell other people and they find it anything less than completely disgusting bothers me to no end.

There were complaints during the wedding, and I found those the most tacky…  sure, some of the food came out cold.  BUT IT WAS FREE.  AND BESIDES, we weren’t there for the food were we?  I mean, its the couple we need to be there for, to witness, to share, to celebrate.  But to complain out loud, loud enough for everyone at a 10-person table to hear you, loud enough for those near you at other tables to hear not only belittles yourself and your character, but it creates an atmosphere and a culture where other like-minded people feel welcome to do the same.  And while it was a small number of people in total that complained both during and after the wedding…  the overall experience was really challenged by their negative attitudes.  Not to mention the fact that S & I have lost respect for them, people I’ve known a while, people he has just met or met recently.

And truth be told, I know they don’t read this blog — and if they did, I’d consider it my opportunity to tell them how shameful I found their actions.  Growing up in a country where gays and lesbians are still fighting state-by-state and federally to have their love recognized and respected and given the rights and privileges that heterosexuals enjoy, and now living in a country where that is possible for me, I’ve come to find that the very “sanctity” of marriage itself is so easily overlooked — often by those conservative-minded people who would deny me the right to marry — in the midst of the “consumption-frenzy” of the wedding.

THAT is not for me.

Saturday at the Wee Historic Beastie:

M:  I’m the [operator of WHB machinery]

Visitor:  (turns to me)  Are you Mrs. [operator of WHB machinery]?

Me:  *facepalm*

Apparently, York U’s Office of Student Financial Services has decided that the waiting times between 1 hour and 3 hours requires some form of “reparation…”  They have now installed a huge HD screen and are playing movies on it…  currently, one can watch Shrek.

Is this a good idea? I dunno…  maybe it placates the masses.

It feels kinda weird, a room full of ethnically-diverse students taking care of financial issues concerning an overly-costly education, loans, etc.  Its like saying, “Please sit here and enjoy this movie with surround sound while we calculate our strategic rape of your wallet and future livelihood.”

There’s Purell dispensers on the wall now, everywhere, too.  So I can sit and frantically wash my hands until they bleed while my ears bleed listening to Eddie Murphy’s caustic comic delivery as the lovable, intrusive, needy, and overly observant “Donkey.”  I do like the movie though.

Andrew Torget and Brent Rogers, speaking on a WHA panel titled “Exploring and Visualizing the Mid-Nineteenth Century West Through Digital History,” each showcased their laudable efforts at using digital tools in historical research.

Torget, perhaps best known for his efforts on the Valley of the Shadow archive, spoke primarily about his latest work on slavery in Texas. As he addressed the specifics of his project he also spoke of the potential of digital history, even as he acknowledged its limitations. I especially appreciated his explanation of how data must be contextualized. As in the example of his current project, knowing when the numbers of slaves increased doesn’t answer the how or why–that’s where the work of the historian figures in, because as he said “digital data is agnostic as to causality.”  With this type of project his data sets are transparent to anyone who might want to challenge or build upon his work, which is quite different than a traditional history project where the work behind the project is generally hidden from anyone but the historian himself. Torget repeatedly emphasized that digital projects such as his foster greater collaboration among researchers.

Rogers’ presentation centered around the use of available digital tools: Wordle and TokenX. He applied these in a textual analysis of documents related to the Utah War.  His presentation offered a solid example of how a researcher with limited programing background can still use digital tools to enhance their research.  My own observation about Rogers’ work was that as he showed the outputs of his text mining, the visuals from Wordle were difficult for many audience members to understand–they wondered why some words were larger, or sideways, or in different colors?  For those of us who are used to seeing ‘word clouds’ this was self-evident, but for a different generation of historians this was mystifying.

In the Q&A portion of the session I asked the panelists what digital tools they thought every graduate student should know.  The initial response was fairly vague, Torget noting that you should learn that tools that are most relevant to your work (and my pained sigh…what if you’re on your own with this and you don’t yet know which ones are most relevant?).  But Torget and Rogers did suggest the following links to specific tools or to sites that host a variety of tools:

Wordle
MIT-Simile project
Stanford’s Spatial History Project
Tools from GMU/CHNM
Google suite tools
ArcGIS (though offered with the caveat that it can be overwhelming and KMZ is much more easily learned)
Both SHANTI and UNL Tool Reviews were recommended as good places to learn more about digital tools

The session ended with a note of frustration about the way the academy continues to dismiss the efforts of digital humanists.  Torget lamented that such projects are always done ‘on the side’ and don’t count towards tenure and suggested that there should be larger conversations happening at the AHA to affirm the value of digital projects.

As an audience participant in this session I found it disheartening that it was not more widely attended, that the audience had very few women (none were on the panel itself), and that there were only two projects featured (as opposed to other panels which typically had 3 or 4 presenters).   In my experience, data or text mining projects are best presented in an informal environment where audience members  can ‘play’ with them and experience their varying levels of functionality–so I’d like to see next year’s WHA offering a ‘hands-on’ session to teach participants how to access and use existing projects.*  It would also be ideal for the WHA to offer a training session for members who are new to text or data mining tools, especially for those of us who are affiliated with departments that don’t have strong digital presence.

*Note: I found it ironic that a conference titled the “Wired West” had very few presentation rooms with projector setups and no free wireless offered to attendees.  Though I understand that this was due to the budgetary constraints of the hotel venue, perhaps such services can be negotiated into the contracts for future WHA conferences, so all participants have access to digital resources.

You know you don’t need any more beer when you cant lift it, or you, off the floor. Dunk dude

A word from the Editor: I was visiting the blogs of a friend of mine and it seemed that the topic of population control kept reoccurring. Now population control can come in all manner or guise, some times it’s a gradual erosion of civil liberties and sometimes it’s a haymaker right to your face, like the Patriot Act. No matter what from it comes in we should be very wary. Today’s topic? The Codex Alimentarius; big brother trying to control our food or honest attempt to provide safe food and vitamins to everyone?

Steak:

Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? Not me. I’m hearing a lot of paranoia these days as we race towards 2012. And just like the years approaching 2000, it seems like all the crazies come out of the wood works, yelling that the sky is falling. Well chicken little, I’m not buying it

Fact is this whole Codex thing has been around for a lot longer than we think. It was established by an FAO Conference resolution in 1961 and a World Health Assembly resolution, WHA 16.42, in 1963. Its principle objective was to protect the health of consumers and to facilitate the trade of food by setting international standards on foods. Now that doesn’t sound all bad does it? Everyone eating the same standard of food all over the globe, that would solve a lot of problems wouldn’t it?
The Codex, put simply, is just a code of standards that covers all the main foods, whether processed, semi-processed or raw, in addition to materials used in the processing of food products.

Codex provisions concern the hygienic and nutritional quality of food, including microbiological norms, food additives, pesticide and veterinary drug residues, contaminants, labeling and presentation, and methods of sampling and risk analysis.

It’s a Global organization with many contributing members like France, Germany, Australia, Switzerland, The U.S, and Canada, just to name a few, contributing to all facets of the food industry from Labeling standards and Methods of Analysis and Sampling to examination of Pesticide Residues and Food Additives and Contaminants. So the idea that a small number of shadowy figures will be in charge of the world food supply is preposterous.

And that brings me to the main point. Why do we even need codex? If for generations we’ve been doing fine the old fashioned way. Why change things now? The answer is because were not doing it right. We all remember the tainted milk scandal of 2008, and it seems like every month there’s an outbreak of salmonella or listeriosis in tainted hot dogs or peanut butter.

I think I would be in favor of a little oversight from and accredited organization like the WHO. It’s plain to see the food and agro corporative executives, with their eyes on their disappearing 401k’s and the trying to get a piece of that sweet, sweet stimulus money, have far to much on their minds to be concerned with the health of the people who buy their products.

Eggs:

A few years ago I was doing some research on availability of vitamin supplements in the EU and I came across some very disturbing information in the form of a mysterious organization known as “Codex Alimentarius” or “Food Code” in Latin. The Codex is not a consumer protection agency, nor a human rights agency, nor a public health organization it is a trade-based commission, whose goals are clearly profit-focused. The Codex plans to bolster extreme opposition against natural forms of medicine and nutrition.
One standard, approved in 2005, called the Codex Alimentarius Vitamin and Mineral Guideline (VMG), has the power to ban many powerful vitamins and mineral supplements under the basis of for-hire studies. This means, the organization pays scientists and doctors to tell them what is most profitable. From there, more money will go to the pharmaceutical industry over natural remedies. One extreme measure even bans Vitamin C to doses of only several milligrams per dose. What sort of insanity can you expect if codex gets its way? ;

• Dietary supplements could not be sold for preventive (prophylactic) or therapeutic use.
• Potencies would be limited to extremely low dosages. Only the drug companies and the big pharmaceutical companies would have the right to produce and sell the higher potency products (at inflated prices).
• Prescriptions would be required for anything above the extremely low doses allowed (such as 35 mg. on niacin).
• Common foods such as garlic and peppermint would be classified as drugs or a third category (neither food nor drugs) that only big pharmaceutical companies could regulate and sell. Any food with any therapeutic effect can be considered a drug, even benign everyday substances like water.
• Codex regulations for dietary supplements would become binding (escape clauses would be eliminated).
• All new dietary supplements would be banned unless they go through Codex testing and approval.
• Genetically altered food would be sold worldwide without labeling.

And, according to John Hammell, a legislative advocate and the founder of International Advocates for Health Freedom (IAHF)

“If Codex Alimentarius has its way, then herbs, vitamins, minerals, homeopathic remedies, amino acids and other natural remedies you have taken for granted most of your life will be gone. The name of the game for Codex Alimentarius is to shift all remedies into the prescription category so they can be controlled exclusively by the medical monopoly and its bosses, the major pharmaceutical firms. Predictably, this scenario has been denied by both the Canadian Health Food Association and the Health Protection Branch of Canada (HPB).”


What Codex does is takes the decision making out of the hands of federal or provincial legislators, and puts it in the hands of international banks and multinational pharmaceutical companies. Codex Alimentarius Commission ,which is a joint program of the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Codex’s history is extremely interesting because it is a kind of model for this type of transnational takeover. Codex seemed benign in the beginning, as most of these things do, because they seem to have no discernable forceful impact on regulations at home. That all changed with the adoption of NAFTA and GATT because each of those agreements contained within them Sanitary (Health) and Phytosanitary agreements. Suddenly the harmless old Codex became enforceable. Nowadays Codex guidelines carry a lot of weight because they are enforceable through the World Trade Organization. Enforcement is carried out by withdrawing other trade privileges conferred by the trade agreements.

Now why would our governments want this? Well because the natural health, prevention and supplement industries represent a growing sector of the economy. As profits on natural living increase, big pharmaceutical companies, as well as big-Agro businesses, are beginning to feel threatened. If they can enact stricter laws controlling supplements, consumers like you, will have less freedom to choose a pro-active approach to health and healing. In this sense, these laws could potentially endanger our ability to care for ourselves naturally.

I’m not sure about you but I think just about everyone either has a friend or, has themselves taken a vitamin at one time or another, and some people even take them every day, and report marked improvements in health and no one has ever related a “Vitamin poisoning” in fact until 1998 typically no deaths in the United States were associated with hypervitaminosis (vitamin overdose) and they were related to tainted iron supplements. As appose to the 450 deaths every year tied to Acetaminophen abuse. It seems to me the people behind the Codex have more than out collective health in mind.

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

Instructions: Look at the list and bold those you have read. Tag other book nerds (but only if you want to).

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

Total: 5

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot

Total: 3

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

Total:3

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

Total:3

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

Total:3

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Total: 3

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville

Total: 3

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante (Should this actually be The Divine Comedy?)
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt

Total: 2

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

Total: 3

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Total: 5

I’ve read 33 of them, a third I guess minus the .33333333333333333.  I stole this from Gecko Echo’s blog, so thank you and thanks and cheers! and ta!…  Now, why the BBC has these 100 books listed is unknown to me…  presumably these are books they feel people SHOULD be reading?  Given that I’m doing my PhD and read books that aren’t fictional most of the time (except Alice in Wonderland, Wind in the Willows, etc. which I’ve read for school), and considering how I used to hate reading, I’m surprised at how many I HAVE read (although how many I REMEMBER is a lower number).  The Bible I have read most of, so I just counted it, given that reading the entire Bible seems almost impossible given the content.  I do LOVE reading nowadays.

There’s a lot of books on this list I would LIKE to read (Tolstoy, Kerouac, Austen, and Joyce especially), and some I never would care to, ever read…  never really (Memoirs of a Geisha?  Bridget Jones’ Diary?).  I don’t really put much stock in this list though, there’s very few authors from outside of the US/UK (Atwood’s Canadian, not sure who else is)…  but even outside of the white Westerner there’s only a handful of authors (Ishiguro, Marquez, Hosseini, Walker, etc.).  So WHO exactly are these books important for?

I dunno.  I don’t know much, really.  Maybe if I read more of these…

Why is a dragon here? It sure looks like a draik to me.

Today is the first day I’ve felt like the rain was trying to decide if it wanted to crystallize into unique starburst patterns.

And I saw a Vizsla in a yellow rain slicker walking home from the grocery store. Why is that exactly? Thing looked downright depressed. Shamed.

Overheard at the Capitol Visitor Center Visitor Services office:  “This is where the magic happens!  Next to the trash can, behind the door!”

(No, I don’t know what “magic” they were talking about…and you over there, get your mind out of the gutter!  )

Sometimes I’m pretty sure whoever designed my condo was on crack.  Like why on earth would you have the bathroom door open out into the hall if it then blocks the doorway into the bedroom, and there’s plenty of room in the bathroom to have the door open *IN*?

And then there’s this beautiful arrangement (yes, that’s sarcasm you hear dripping) looking back toward my front door.  Yes, that’s molding along the top of the wall that just STOPS.  In this photo, to the right is the dining area, and to the left is the kitchen.  I get that they didn’t want to have the molding in the kitchen…but seriously?  Continue it the three feet across the bump-out that houses my mechanical closet.

And that light?  Doesn’t go with ANY of the other lights in the condo.    It’s hideous, and doesn’t match anything, either color- or style-wise.  So random!  And so ugly!

Don’t get me wrong–overall, I really like the condo (even if it *IS* in the suburbs), but there’s just those few things that make me go WTF?