Crystal Clear

To other cyclists:

• Stop biking on the sidewalk – that’s the most dangerous place to cycle!
• Why are you biking the wrong way down a one-way street? (Although I do this on occasion myself) And why are you doing that at night without any lights on your bike?

To drivers:

• It is safer for everyone if you signal your turn!
• Don’t honk your horn to let me know you are there. I can hear your vehicle from quite far away and your horn is incredibly loud. (All drivers should test their horn by having their kid honk it while they stand in front of the hood. Use horns sparingly around cyclists!)
• Please don’t cut off bikes – you could be delayed by just 10 seconds and go behind me, especially if you’re passing me and then slowing down to turn.

To people:

• Please stop wasting all that water washing your sidewalk / driveway!

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While watching the Olympics (which was a community affair at the house of one member who graciously purchased extra sports channels, made available her wide screen TV, and supplied watchers with copious amounts of tea and other drinks – she’s the best!) and being inundated with high priced (and often effective) commercials, there was often much discussion.

One point came out that was very striking: advertisers want you to really believe that buying products that are discounted will save you money.

The reality: you save money when you do not buy something.

Let me say it again: when you choose not to buy something, that is when you save money.

So, when a commercial tells you differently, think about what it is really saying. If you were intending to buy a product already, and now it is on sale, then you might save money in that instance. But if it is something you were not considering before, then you are not saving money by buying it just because it is on sale.

A corollary: Special diet food. You don’t lose weight by eating food (even special low fat food). You lose weight by not eating food.

Let the myth busting commence!

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On Earth… the problem had been with cars. The disadvantages involved in pulling lots of black sticky slime from out of the ground where it had been safely hidden out of harm’s way, turning it into tar to cover the land with, smoke to fill the air with and pouring the rest into the sea, all seemed to outweigh the advantages of being able to get more quickly from one place to another – particularly when the place you arrived at had probably become, as a result of this, very similar to the place you had left, i.e. covered with tar, full of smoke and short of fish. (from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe)

Satire and humour sometimes get to the absurdity of our life in a way regular speech often can’t. And, it can help us step back a minute and think about what we’re really doing with our actions and decisions.

Because reading articles about the problems with the sealants we put down on our driveways (Environmental News Network, and US Geological Service) doesn’t always have the same shock factor nor encourages us to change our actions, like:

1. Drive less and use / encourage alternative types of transportation (transit, walking, bike lanes / paths, trains, etc)
2. Put in a different driveway – gravel, interlock, grass / interlock or ‘grassy pavers‘ and the like
3. Support restriction of harmful chemicals – like coal tar and the like

We’re always going to need to travel and move around. But maybe we can think about doing it only as much as needed, not doing it needlessly, and doing it in the least destructive way possible.

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I was told a story about a group of North Americans who visited a Latin American country to help rebuild after a natural disaster.

One day, a truck pulls up with stones for the cement. A local worker begins to shovel it out, one shovelful at a time, while the truck driver sits in his cab. A couple of the North American men jump up on the truck to help the ‘poor’ guy.

The driver jumps out of the truck and is very angry.

The entire truck is not meant to be emptied. Each shovelful was being counted and would be charged for. That count is now disrupted.

Very rarely does acting first and listening later actually produce a better result. How many times do we need to watch and experience that the most important thing is to listen first?

No one feels good when someone comes at you with an “I know what your problem is and I’m going to help you fix it, or fix it for you.”

I read a book called “When Helping Hurts” which looks at this deeper and more clearly than I’ve seen laid out before. Read the book or at least look at this visual book summary (when_helping_hurts2).

Because trying to help could actually end up hurting someone, it is critical we think deeper. Just trying to help isn’t enough.

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A few years ago (2007) the CBC did a story on the regulations on food products and how product of Canada could mean only 51 percent of the ingredients and production were Canadian.

So, that ‘fact’ was stuck in my head.

I was looking today for some labeling regulations for another product (ingredient of ‘white whole wheat flour’ – what does that mean?) and read the regulations for Product of Canada.

A food product may claim Product of Canada when all or virtually all major ingredients, processing, and labour used to make the food product are Canadian. This means that all significant ingredients are Canadian and non-Canadian material must be negligible… Generally, the percentage referred to as very little or minor is considered to be less than a total of 2 per cent of the product. (Canada Food Inspection Agency)

So, that’s pretty good! Product of Canada means ingredients and processing done in Canada. Yay! I’m glad to have my mind’s facts changed on this!

On another note, Imported by or Imported for which a Canadian address / company tell you virtually  nothing about country of origin. Hopefully that too will change and we’ll know where all our food comes from.

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I was doing some math today with some stats I was given on net worth in the US.

If all the households in the US with a net worth of at least 1 million donated just 0.01% of that to fight poverty and other charitable activities, an additional 2.3 billion dollars would be available.

Just 0.01% goes a long way.

If these same households gave 1% that would be 234 billion dollars! That would go even further.

(If your net worth is 10 million, and you gave 1%, that means you’d still have 9.9 million left. Seems like enough to keep to me.)

Enormous untapped resources. Enormous. (And I haven’t even added in the giving of 1% or 0.1% of those under 1 million. Little bits from many adds up too.)

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