I'M VERY UNHAPPY WITH MY CITY COUNCIL

      I live in a small city of 100000 people. We are fortunate to have mayors and councils  who are agreeable and make sound decisions for the city. Most issues at council are settled by concensus. 

     However, last week an issue came up and the behavior was far from agreeable. 

     Most towns and cities in this area have passed motions to ban conversion therapy. Conversion therapy is a belief that ones sexual orientation can be changed by therapy. Now the believers of this idea play fast and loose with the term therapy. This therapy in some cases can be very abusive . There isn't evidence that sexual orientation can be changed . If you threaten and scare the hell out of somebody they may say that they change their sexual orientation but it's only words. 

   Now the intention of towns and cities banning conversion therapy is good but they do not have any way to enforce the issue.

   So getting back to our council. They were definitely not on the same page on this issue. One or two of them were very much against a ban on conversion therapy. Things got nasty before they decided to call the thing off. 

   One of the members of council is LDS (Latter Day Saints (Morman) and they do not have any tolerance toward LGBT issues. Just the other day one of their colleges pushed a ban on same sex activities...holding hands in public. 

    So a council that prided itself in being inclusive fumbled the ball. I'm not happy with my city council

    We are much stronger if we include people in our communities. We are better people if we reach out to others. We have to be able to accept differences from some people but those differences should not demand that everyone conform. 

     One of the things I spent a few years of my life was teaching aboriginal people. We had the mistaken idea that we could make indigenous people  into nice little white people. Look at the disaster we made. 

STILL WINTER HERE BUT....

    Today we had a high of minus 11 C and it snowed all day.  It's not a typical March day but it happens. We get most of our snow in March.

    However, it's not all bad. Owls are on the nests now. I will give you a link so that you can look at one of our well known owls on their nest. There has been a pair of great horned owls nesting at Ellis bird farm for quite a few years. Last year they had four hatch. The young were crawling around in trees. I'm not sure how many made it to adult hood.

    Anyway take a look at our owls.

https://www.ellisbirdfarm.ca/ellie--albert.html

EARLY EXPECTATIONS OF RADIO AND TELEVISION

     Your comments give me an opportunity to reconsider what I've written in a previous post. For the post on the internet I was trying to comment on one of the problems with the internet. There are others. But I made it seem like all the internet was negative which isn't so. . The internet has allowed us to achieve much by having a much better communication system.

     Then I got thinking about radio and television. I think they both started with hopes for better communication and keeping people together. Radio took a long time to get to the point where homes could have a radio . The first radios in homes where large affairs with poor quality reception. So people had to crowd around the machine and they also invited neighbors. The first radios were battery powered. Electric radios came later and transistor radios about 1954. So families and neighbors gathered around the radio. When the transistor arrived radio became an individual happening. In the beginning there were very few radio stations. Now there are thousands. 

     In 1953, I got my Grandpa's beautiful large wooden cabinet radio. I could listen to radio stations from very far away. There were many different languages and I heard different music. My experience with Grandpa's radio came to an end when I couldn't buy the battery that was required.

     As a kid I made a small radio with parts obtained around the house. We used a magnet, cold of wire, flashlight battery and earphones and wow! We had to buy the crystal. Every kid could have a radio. This gizmo was called a crystal radio.

    Television developed much the same as radio. We had one television station. All the family gathered around the TV. Neighbors got together to watch TV. We didn't have our own TV so we went to the neighbors to watch a very poor reception which was described as snowy. Does anybody have a snowy picture today? Soon homes had more than one television set. Kids had their own TV and watched their own shows. Now we have hundreds of channels to choose from and smart guys who charge us lots of money to see them. 

    So as communication devices develop and change, the listeners and viewers have to change and have a new experience. Or do the listeners and viewers have to change because of the guys with the money? We certainly hear and see far more ads so the money guys can get far more money. 

THE INTERNET PROMISE.

   Ideas for the Internet were around in the 1950's . As with most things they start in a primitive form. Researchers kept pounding away on developing an internet where all people  could communicate with each other.

    I remember my first experience with the internet.  In 1995 one of our teachers ,who was the main computer expert in the school,  set up a noon hour where she would connect to the internet. She spent the whole noon hour hooking things up and getting a telephone line. What she showed us was an article in MacLean's magazine. The magical moment I was expecting turned out to be one of the bigger disappointments in my life.

    Well, all things on the technical side of the internet continued to develop. It became much easier to get on the internet and use the internet for data storage , research and communication.

    So before my first internet encounter in 1995 it was thought that the internet would draw us together as all people could communicate with each other. That sounded  like it would bring about much improvement to our world. Nothing but positive things were predicted about the internet.

   Then the internet got so good that a few sharp business operators thought of ways to make money on the internet. The hucksters decided that ads could be used to sell things. A guy invented Face Book so that we could say things to each other and he could make money ...lots of money. 

    The problem is that people felt free to say things...anything whether it was nasty, true or false. So we began fighting and in the process being divided and fighting with each other.

    So it is a disappointment that something that was designed to bring us together ended up being used to bring all kinds of harm to society.

   Now almost everything we do on the internet is traced and the sharp operator collects all our information and uses it to control our information. 

  At the present time I'm considering buying a recumbent trike. Guess what? I see many recumbent trike ads directed at me. 

    It looks like the genie has got out of the bottle. Will that genie ever be under control again?

KEEPING WITH TIME

     I think that in many cases we have our own routines  with
 time. Some of us are early. Some of us are late. Some of us hurry and some of us dawdle along.

    I am one of those annoying people who has to get to an event early. If church starts at 10:30 , I've got to be sitting down before 10:15.  I get pretty antsy and a little testy if I'm not ahead of the game.

     I'm also one of those people who doesn't set an alarm clock. Since about 1980 , I always get up at 7:00 AM. Even after I retired I still get up at 7:00 AM. I also haven't worn a watch since the day I retired. 

    Now there's someone else in this house who has a completely different pattern of rising from sleep. No, she doesn't sleep in. It's worse than that.

    For about 4 to 6 months , the micro Manager will get up late...8:00 Am. Then for another 4 to 6 months the MM will get up early...6:00 AM. Now I don't care how early you get up. I don't care how late you get up. Just choose one or the other and stick with it. I can adapt my routine either way.

     I often wonder how I can get up at the same time without an alarm clock. I'm starting to wonder if it's about coffee time. My body tells me that at 7:00 AM I need coffee so I get up! Or have I just developed a habit of rising at 7:00 Am over the years.

     I also spent all of my working years watching the clock. When the bell went I had to be finished my lesson and send the kids on. 

    So how many of you have specific habits of keeping time? Do you have to keep a set time routine to be happy?

    So I got thinking about these things after my last post about how time goes by so rapidly.

TIME GOES FASTER THAN I DO.

    On Friday I met a young guy who I hadn't seen for a long time. Well, I should go back and edit my last sentence. He really wasn't a young guy anymore. He floored me by telling me that he would retire from teaching in two years!

    In my teacher years, did I tell you I've been retired for 22 years? , I was a department head for the last 10 years. I was a department head in three different areas. I enjoyed being department head as we were able to work as a group and set  up a standard program in an area. It's much more efficient to work as a group.

    One of the things I got to do from time to time is be part of a committee that interviewed teachers applying for a position. Somebody would go through all the applications for a job and pick out three that we would interview. 

    So here's where I first met "young man." He was one of the three picked for an interview. One applicant was in his 40's and had taught in a rural area. One standard question was how would you teach this lesson? The guy missed it completely. The second applicant was a woman in her 30's who was working on a master's program. We thought she was just looking for a short term position. The kid was 21 and applying for his first job. He nailed the lesson. After the interviews and we were going over things we decided to take the kid. Give him a chance. If he didn't turn out we could let him go as it was a contract but we wanted to take a good look at someone for a permanent contract and this was a chance for us and him. 

    Well, that was 1992. Obviously we kept him. Obviously he could teach. I liked watching him teach as he would involve the kids in the procedure. No just sitting there in a day dream for those kids. They had to participate.

    So the other day when I met "him" I was surprised that for him  retirement was right around the corner.

   Time had really gone by me on this one.

BETWEEN A ROCK AND HARD PLACE

      In Canada there are several very serious aboriginal protests going on at this time..

      Historically there are a multitude of reasons for aboriginal grievances. Europeans came and stole aboriginal land. Treaties were made with the aboriginals. The treaties were poorly written and have caused problems ever since. The government didn't hire the best lawyers when treaties were written. 

     Reserves of land were given to aboriginals. Many times parts of reserves or all of a reserve were taken back without aboriginal consent.. Promises were made and never kept. Education is a major issue. The governments idea was to take   away aboriginal language and customs by education. That education destroyed a whole generation of aboriginals.

     Anyway, I think I've made my point that there are solid reasons for grievances. What's going on today is not productive. There are a series of protests which have shut down railroads. What sparked the issue were some hereditary Chiefs in British Columbia who were protesting a gas pipeline that was to go across their territory. The RCMP began removing the protesters. Other aboriginals from far away decided to support the gas line protesters. Things boiled over.

    Now the aboriginals and government have dug their heals in and neither side is willing to back down. Some politicians are also trying to use the situation for their advantage.

    So I am sad about this situation that has become an impasse. Most of the aboriginals do not support the blockades and protests. Most aboriginals are hard working people trying to make a living. Aboriginal governing is a mess. There are elected band councils and then there are hereditary chiefs. Many times these two groups do not agree. The government set up the elected band councils The hereditary chiefs follow traditional ways. 

   The situation has become more complicated than it needs to be.

   Now many readers will not know what I'm talking about or not care but I guess I had to write this for myself.