freecycle

Originally uploaded by Will_Tom.

Hey, have any of you Freecycled? We have a bunch of times now and it is always facinating. Once we were giving away a bunch of clothes and pots and pans and the cutest couple came to our door. They were very nice and very clean and any moment I thought they would either tell me about Jesus’ Plan For My Life or the Swingers Club they had just joined. (no , really, they were Stepford meet Trinity Western.

The crazy part really is always the same. We post something on the service and moments later the phone starts ringing. Got Stuff? Poof! It’s gone!

You have to deal with the randomness. Today we had a nice lady come to the door who just wanted to take away some ‘new’ clothes. We also had a character from the Sin City movie take away an old paper shredder. Bree hid in the back of the apartment while I handed over the loot. Once we had a lady and her kids pick some stuff up and the kid thought we were millionares or something. He just kept saying “You have a laptop! Cool!” or “Wow! Rechargable Batteries! Look Mom! They got batteries!Plugged into the wall!”

As a rule, I think this is ok. Citizens are generally a force for good and common precautions can ensure a favourable result. The whole thing makes my faith-in-humanity-meter max out.

All power to the Freecycle.

I have a passionate, immediate need to blog and yet nothing is currently in the forefront of my mind to post about. I really want all of my posts to be “on message” or topically coherent. I have read and enjoyed blog points that are meandering or more personal but I have never posted thus. Until now I guess.

I have just finished the Vancouver Boat Show where I represented the company I work for and spearheaded their efforts to sell more stoves, heaters and BBQs to boaters. Hum. Endless yacking to peoples of various intelligences and politeness. Endless belly-aches, the same questions. The same sales pitch. Briana said I was talking in my sleep last night telling her about the three year warranty. Yes, yes darling, warranty, hmmmn.

I have a dog. He is a puppy. His name is Wagner. He is a Schnauser. See below posts and Bree’s Bopping. He doesn’t really bark. He likes people. He behaves in a typically puppy like way.

Bree is talking to Sharon here in the ‘Banff Apts’ . They are yaking away about shoes and hair colour and boys and feelings and other et ceteras. Aparently this someone has a low tolerance for men and treats them in this certain way and that is perhaps not the best thing and although they disagree with this behavior, they can relate.

Spinny Birds.

I have been ‘memed’…and by my little sister! She (mis)quotes what I once said would be a vast improvement in the human skull. She lists what would be other improvements and insists others do the same. I comply with my thoughts below.

My ideas for human improvement deal with the ability to remove the risk of sinus infections and ear infections while keeping all the abilities they provide. To wit:

Remove inner ear. Replace with solid state tuning fork system. Benefit, transferable parts, no ear infections, improved hearing. Cons include lack of balance control. Thus…

Fill sinus with elasto-polymer or metallic fill. Encase in said elasto-polymer a gyroscopic balance device to compensate for the loss of the inner ear.
Benefit includes the ending of sinus infections and the inability to get dizzy.

I tag Jason and Gillian but don’ t worry too much about it.

The social fimament shifted today in Lonoke Arkansas, as the town’s most respected citizens were accused of coercing prisoners to act as labourers and sex slaves, drug manufacturing and corruption. Read for your self.

LONOKE, Ark. (AP) - The mayor was arrested in a corruption probe, the police chief is accused in a drug-making scheme, and the prosecutor says the chief’s wife took prisoners from jail to have sex with them - and more arrests could be coming.

It’s a lot for a town of fewer than 4,300 residents to stomach in one day.

Well. Huh. That sounds like a South Park episode.

P1090493

Originally uploaded by ms_doyle.

Cultural sensitivities are and important thing. No one wants to see their Norse heroes depicted as thick skulled axe draggers. The French don’t like references to hygene or cowardice. Americans insist Uncle Sam is not imperialist and Jesus has a plan for your life. Crocodile Dundee, Buddha the jolly fat nit-wit, the parsimonious Jew. It is all touchy, it all makes it into the press; it is all cultural fodder for those trying to make us think or piss us off.

Is one culture special enough to be exempted from this treatment?

Jews and Muslims do not eat pork. I eat pork and so do people I know. None of us are causing a riot. You don’t like depictions of your religious icon? Don’t draw them. You don’t like it when others draw them? Suck it up.

Protesters protest at the embassies of the countries where the people live that draw pictures to go into newspapers for people to read. The actions of those persons are legal in those countries and beyond the jurisdiction of the governments they protest.

What is Denmark going to do? “Sorry boys no more journalism carreer for you. You drew a picture of the prophet Mohammad (may Allah truly bless him) and now you must go”.

Don’t buy La Monde (et al). Write a petition. Tell all of your friends not to buy it. Live in an autocratic regime where copies of La Monde are not permitted. These are all valid reactions.

Demanding Western Countries become dictatorships just so they have the power to suppress journalism? What do you expect to achieve?

Jocelyn recently on Awake-to-Dream posted a personal story about adapting both to a modern world filled with intellegent, skeptical people and a peer group devoted to faith and sharing that faith with others. Making that oil and water work was producing friction. She posted thusly and posed a number of questions she wished she had answers to:

Never in my life have I more wanted to just go into a group of completely non-religious people and just sit down and listen. I thought of going to my friend Cak’s room, where almost every night, a group of her friends congregate to watch TV on DVD. The questions I most wanted to ask were: What do you think about Christianity? How did you come to think that (i.e. what experiences or understanding lead you to that view)? What do you think about Christian people? What do you think when you come in contact with an “evangelistic event?”

To answer and generally contribute, I commented with the below. This was a real hum-thinker so I thought I would share it with you here.

Hey Joss,

You know I could go on, and on but my own opinions are well known and so defined in me that expressing them in this gentle forum would probably be seen as acerbic and rude so I’ll stick to some peripherals.

I have had few bad experiences with evangelicals. I even listen to them in my car on am 550 most afternoons to practice my funny accents (J Vernon Mcgee and Ian Gollahurt). Aside from not being offended by the practice, I do write them off as being irrelavant. Once in a while I wish they would do something useful with their convictions (you mentioned the Sisters in Calcutta in your post). But, like Bree the trend in my reaction has to be humour and pity.

My pre-teen and teen conversions to christianity were all about the soft sell, Great music, good activities and doe eyed brunettes got me coming back to the chapel time and time again. My rejection of the very premise of an unexplainable spiritual realm (let alone any one religion) was reached antiseptically and not form any particular aversive event. I had just seen the similarities and differences in the cultural stories, noted the appropriation of myth and tales for social control and tracked the changes through time.

There are lots of folks who could still be converted and not just the socially bankrupt. I may have a Bible-Story detector at 10,000 watts but put out the right cheese and go heavy with the emo-rock and the SFU group is surre to fish a few men.

Keep tryin’ for the answers Joss. I respect no one’s faith more than your own.

I don’t know. I want to be nice, I mean this is my little sister but for some people I meet I think, ‘hey, there is a reason youre struggling with this’.

Smile!

Originally uploaded by ms_doyle.

We were at the Vancouver Chinese New Year Parade on Pender and Columbia in Chinatown. This was the most exciting and meaningful parade I have ever attended. Real gravitas. Meaningful in ritual, cultural significance, meaningful in history and the building of a new community.

My son was with us and was enthralled by the spectacle, especially the dragons, but what really enthralled me was the town.

This city put on its shiny clothes, banged the big drums, waved its flags and exorcised the demons of a long wet winter. It felt good to shake it out.

A look for the new year

Originally uploaded by Will_Tom.

Welcoming the year of the dog and ushering in the red packets of prosperity.

Parliament

Originally uploaded by Will_Tom.

So I have just voted. I love voting. Every one around me knows…This is like the superbowl for me. The status of my franchise is verified, I choose my candidate and I vote. I love everything about this (except when my name is crossed off the list because this means I will have to wait until next time to do it again).
People look different when they are in the polling stations. They look like citizens. Never do I feel that we are all quite as equal as we are in the polling station. Various ages and shapes and shades of people look around and, well and vote! It is just perfect.

Well, it is off to the Library (the pub beside the library) for me. I shall discover with other sports fans who wins this match. Maybe we can do it again in April?

Ballot Box

Originally uploaded by Will_Tom.

With a federal election at hand, we see many examples of the importance to vote. We are exhorted by the candidates, media and entertainment personalities and a particularly unimaginative “speak up” government campaign to promote voting. I have not missed an opportunity to exercise my franchise since I attained the age of majority. I will vote again on Monday in my riding of Vancouver Center and for the first time (federally) I will possibly see and election result that runs antithetical to my own beliefs and values. Still I will be grateful for the result.

It is not just for my love of the horse race or a naive belief in vox populi, vox dei that I will be grateful, but rather a knowledge that it is all within the greater realm of what it means to live in a democracy. The conservatives will do what they will but not for long if the public will not keep them. The opinion of many (and myself) may be that Steven Harper’s party wants to serve narrow, scary and religious interests but if this turns out to be wrong and fabricated, we may keep them indeed (cough, ahem). One benfit of a plurality perhaps is the benefit of the doubt. Go on Stevie, show us what yer can do!

Please don’t try to show me parallels in the US system, there is no representation there. The media is a whitewash and the politicians are bought and paid for. What we all know as the sponsorship scandal is entrenched behaviour in Washington and here it brought down a government. Egyptian elections have more to do with public desires than those in the US (imperious voice on loan from the national film board). You try to buy votes in a whipped house where campaign financing rules couldn’t get a candidate from Windsor to Whitehorse on a Jetsgo fare.

So as I clutch my ballot in my hand and drive away thoughts of the second coming of Stockwell (or “that he really deserved that ring”) I will be satisfied in the fact that this too shall pass.