On Turning 65
I turned Sixty-Five last November.
So, Big deal. Unless you die before ‘your time’, you are going to age and sixty five is just another number in the chronological progression of everyone’s life.
For me it was a bit more than that. I slumped into a minor depression brought on by being forced into reflecting on my life which turned out to be a whole series of “What If”.
How many more unanswerable questions have to roll through my mind?
Many people I talk with tend to lean to ward an explanation that one’s life is predestined in some way. That all these events and experiences were meant to be? If that were true, than what or who writes our destiny? Is it God? Is it Karma? Is it written in astrology?
Predestination of events or circumstances is hard for me to believe in for if the methodology of our lives is pre-ordained, than it is very cruel. Too many people get hurt along the way.
So then; if our lives are not a series of predestined events, I am the one responsible for my own destiny. Ouch.
I can not in any way complain about where I find myself today. I have a good job, at least adequate, $50+ g per year is better than many. I have a loving wife, three children who are doing well and five grand children.
Who I am must be the product of my childhood. The way I was raised? What I was taught?
I cannot blame my parents for who I am, I know they loved me and tried their level best. Most of what they meant to instruct me on, has stayed with me. I am truly thankful for that.
“Train up a child in the way he should go:
and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6
Parents must love their children. … More than that.
Parents must show their children love.
Love is an action word.
The object of our love is that which we value most.
Trained to be loving is to be most blessed.
What is Your Time Worth
Posted by Rick in Education, Television on March 28th, 2009
Is your time worth being paid for? For most people, no.
Are you willing to work 1 hour or more per day for a multi national corporation making billions and not be paid?
Here’s the rub; Most people are even willing to pay for the privilege of doing so?
Each time you watch 3 hrs of TV, that’s 1 hockey game, you have sat through 1 full hr of commercials during that time. The TV producers will even hold up the game, TV timeouts they are called, so that they can run the ads.
Fair enough, some one has to pay for the air time, but, did you turn to that channel to watch commercials or watch the game? The commercials are deterrents to your enjoyment of the game and therefore the viewer should be compensated for his time. Since we pay the carrier, Shaw, Bell, Rogers, whomever, to deliver that program, why then should we not be compensated for the time spent watching the ads, after all, they are forced upon us. The producer is getting paid, let the station who is being paid by the advertiser pay the carrier to deliver their ads to the viewer. As is done with news papers.
Why should the viewer have to pay pay twice?
Does the post office require the receiver of mail to pay for another stamp? NO. Advertisers pay the post office to deliver their junk mail. You receive it free of charge.
Does UPS expect to be paid by both the sender and the receiver? NO. Why then for TV? It’s just another product. I wouldn’t mind paying for the product commercial free, but even pay-for-view has commercial time outs.
What I’m really waiting for is the television carrier who offers free satellite TV. The first carrier to do so will capture near all the business and force the TV networks to pay that carrier to include their stations. It will happen some day. Just not soon enough.
Advertising is everywhere and people are just not willing to show their displeasure even when they pay to watch it. Purchase a movie on DVD and the very first thing you see is advertising. The producers of the video are being paid twice. So bold are they that they often make it so that you can’t skip or fast forward over the commercials. Yet very few people complain.
Favorite Author
I would have to say that G. K. Chesterton is probably my favorite author. Born in London, England 1874, Gilbert Keith Chesterton was a gifted and prolific writer. A man of very strong opinions and extremely talented at defending his position. He had no difficulty what-so-ever in standing up for what he believed. One of the first men, 1922, to outline the folly in the then popular theory of using genetics for developing a super race. His “Father Brown” mystery stories, written between 1911 and 1936, are still popular today and have been adapted for television.
My favorite quotation from his works is “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.”
Read; On Running After One’s Hat.
G. K. Chesterton was a man of no excuses as depicted in a story from his youth when he served as an office clark in London. He would have to take the train to work each morning and always arrived to work early. One day, due to un-foreseen circumstance, the train was delayed over an hour. His boss aked him why he was late. His answer, “I’m sorry sir, it was my fault. I should have allowed extra time knowing that one day the train could be delayed”.
Right To Learn
Posted by Rick in Uncategorized on March 27th, 2009
The following statement is from the Summary Conclusion of the Submission of the Ontario Teachers’ Federation/Fédération des enseignantes et des enseignants de l’Ontario to the Standing Committee on Budget and Finance, February 13, 2004. “Today the expectation is that all students have both a responsibility and a right to learn, to acquire the skills and knowledge that will enable them to participate fully in society.”
If the above statement is true and should be true for all education departments across Canada, then they are failing miserably. Following this statement must then be the disclosure that education departments therefore are under obligation to provide all necessary funding for resources to ensure that no student need be at risk of failure, after all they, the students, have the RIGHT to learn. Yet, by education board statistics, 25% of secondary students are at risk of not graduating.
STV Referendum
British Columbia is going to hold a second referendum on electoral reform in conjunction with the provincial election scheduled for May 12, 2009. In order to become law the referendum will require a 60% majority. It failed in 2005 and probably will again.
In the words of New Zealand National Party MP Nick Smith, “STV [single transferable vote] is a system designed for political scientists and mathematicians, not voters….The local government elections were a disaster and an international embarrassment…”
STV is a complicated, confusing system prone to errors and delay. STV is not a true proportional representational electoral system. It will reduce local accountability, increase party control, and allow special interest groups to dominate party nominations.
STV is based on voters ranking their choices for elected representatives in only multi-member ridings, not all provincial ridings. With the majority of ridings being single member ridings, where is the fairness in the system? Is not a citizen in Northern BC equal to a Vancouverite? Not by BC-STV standards.
Let me try to explain STV as I understand it. For the May 2009 election, BC has increased the number of seats in the legislature to 85 from the 79 in 2005. Under STV, What was once 3 ridings, such as Delta will become 1 super riding which elects 5 Members to the Legislature. Each party may nominate up to 6 candidates to run for election. The 5 candidates with the most votes will fill those seats and the system then calculates, using some ingenious mathematical formula, who is the next most popular candidate, other than from a major party, to fill a 6th seat from that riding.
The best way to get a 6th party candidate elected; be a liberal or NDP and run as a proxy candidate under some made up party name but make sure that all your party voters know to vote for you as their second choice.