Some things are hypothetical only. Like the effects of cheap (read exploited impoverished workers, some children)Chinese labour on the economies of the so-called First World. This was brought into my face in cold hard reality the other day. One of my basic philosophies is that I don't buy big box (Wally World, Home Despot, etc.) and that sometimes results in a so-called 'deprivation' for me (read frustrated consumer with deferred gratification psychosis).
So when a flyer arrives in my email announcing a sale of cappucino makers at Canadian Tire at $24.99 the other day, I just about raced up there. My cappucino maker, given to me by my children in 1983 had been smashed to bits, by accident, by a friend about 10 years ago and I had lived in the desire of a new one ever since. I had never seen one on sale in a non-Big Box store since then. So I secured and tested my new cappucino maker and felt smug and satisfied with my 'bargain'.
However, it set me to thinking of the old cappucino maker and how my kids had saved up for it to make it a really special gift and it had cost them around $250.00 over 20 years ago. Now in the terms of today's dollars that would be over $1,000.00. And here I obtain a very similar maker (actually more streamlined and smooth looking)for the pocket change of $25.00. Good on me.
But wait - at the cost of how many local jobs, how many Canadian/American workers? There is suddenly nothing to gloat over, some Chinese child putting the streamlined bits of my coffee maker together? I look at the unit and ponder on all of this. This micro-image of global market distortion and wonder when the Chinese people will claim their rightful and abundant place on this fragile planet.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Friday, October 27, 2006
A life not a lifestyle
Read something about this the other day. How us baby boomers never grow up, we are trapped in this childlike state that necessitates instructions for all aspects of our lives, like fashion, like furniture, cars and houses. Restaurants, vacations, briefcases, computers, coffee - all so-called lifestyle choices. Got me to thinking about solutions, office solutions, clutter solutions. Not to mention all those silly notices on things - "warning coffee is HOT". Duh. or "don't immerse in water when appliance is plugged in." Right. As if we are all two planks ignorant and more insensate than a turnip. Are we? Do I need a little plaid jacket for my dog? Or a pink Ipod? How about earth tones in the dining room - everyone HAS this year? Are these all the Great Distractions to counteract the Great Decider? Are we so busy with lifestyle we forget our lives? So we drift along as Great Consumers, on to the next Vogue Declaration of what we need? Like infants? Is there original thinking anymore? Is it rarer than a hen's tooth? Can't I have my style and you have yours? Would that be OK? How many magazines would that put out of business? Not to mention TV shows and interior designers and paint shops. Would that mean then that we could be free to collect seeds and march against the war in protest and just grow our hair and use lanolin on our dry skin and make our own soap and.....just wondering.
Monday, October 23, 2006
20 (or more)Things to do before I die
Live to be a great-grandmother
Get a book published (or 3 or 4)
Get a line of cards featuring my photography and poems.
Have a retreat/workshops/organic/off the grid house/farm/centre in St. Joseph's.
Have a small pickup band with my daughter and granddaughter and SING and PLAY music.
Dine with someone every night.
Be married (happilly, natch)again.
Teach knitting and writing.
Grow vegetables and herbs and happy chickens
Grow a great garden
Own a boat
Fish
Build a wondrous kitchen
Be self-sustaining in a simple life.
See the Northern lights
Be healthy and wise
Adopt another dog
Plant trees
Build a labyrinth
Become a good carpenter/cabinet maker
Teach people about longevity
Grow my hair very long
Get a book published (or 3 or 4)
Get a line of cards featuring my photography and poems.
Have a retreat/workshops/organic/off the grid house/farm/centre in St. Joseph's.
Have a small pickup band with my daughter and granddaughter and SING and PLAY music.
Dine with someone every night.
Be married (happilly, natch)again.
Teach knitting and writing.
Grow vegetables and herbs and happy chickens
Grow a great garden
Own a boat
Fish
Build a wondrous kitchen
Be self-sustaining in a simple life.
See the Northern lights
Be healthy and wise
Adopt another dog
Plant trees
Build a labyrinth
Become a good carpenter/cabinet maker
Teach people about longevity
Grow my hair very long
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
10,000
Well that seems to be the magic number that keeps popping into my consciousness lately. 10,000: it sounds like a lot of anything, doesn't it.
Firstly, I saw it in a health and get well type e-magazine. 10,000 steps a day to health and a positive outlook.
I did some further checking, how much mileage would 10,000 steps cover? It turns out to be around 5 miles, more or less, depending on the length of the stride. And how many calories would that burn? Around 600: Your lunch or a good breakfast. How hard is it to walk 5 miles a day? Well, it's not that bad but you have to map out the time for it. Make it a priority.
And I have, and it's astonishing the sense of well-being I have after a few weeks of this daily 10,000 steps. I actually look forward to the time and get to see and hear my neighbourhood at different hours of the day and night. Not the safest of neighbourhoods, but what is these days. Gentle police on patrol have stopped and said 'be careful' but my dog is insurance, I feel. Only one semi-nasty encounter with a lout and his unleashed dog. (Ever noticed how the owners of unleashed dogs never ever poop-scoop?)
10,000 hours of writing practice was the time given to become a successful writer. Anyone, they said, could become a highly proficient writer with 10,000 hours of practice. I've been writing since I could - 5 or 6 years old. 10,000 hours of it are hard to grasp. At 8 hours per day and clicking these numbers along on the e-calculator that translates (with vacation time) at about 4 years of steady writing. Does school work count? Probably not. Even now (and my output is not dismal), I write about 10 hours week. Not intensive enough by a long shot.
But it sure gives me a lot to think about in the creation of a fulfilling life.
Firstly, I saw it in a health and get well type e-magazine. 10,000 steps a day to health and a positive outlook.
I did some further checking, how much mileage would 10,000 steps cover? It turns out to be around 5 miles, more or less, depending on the length of the stride. And how many calories would that burn? Around 600: Your lunch or a good breakfast. How hard is it to walk 5 miles a day? Well, it's not that bad but you have to map out the time for it. Make it a priority.
And I have, and it's astonishing the sense of well-being I have after a few weeks of this daily 10,000 steps. I actually look forward to the time and get to see and hear my neighbourhood at different hours of the day and night. Not the safest of neighbourhoods, but what is these days. Gentle police on patrol have stopped and said 'be careful' but my dog is insurance, I feel. Only one semi-nasty encounter with a lout and his unleashed dog. (Ever noticed how the owners of unleashed dogs never ever poop-scoop?)
10,000 hours of writing practice was the time given to become a successful writer. Anyone, they said, could become a highly proficient writer with 10,000 hours of practice. I've been writing since I could - 5 or 6 years old. 10,000 hours of it are hard to grasp. At 8 hours per day and clicking these numbers along on the e-calculator that translates (with vacation time) at about 4 years of steady writing. Does school work count? Probably not. Even now (and my output is not dismal), I write about 10 hours week. Not intensive enough by a long shot.
But it sure gives me a lot to think about in the creation of a fulfilling life.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
A slice of Spam
My day's beginnings are like many, I suspect.
After breakfast, I go to a little room I have designated as a sacred place for meditation, journalling and contemplation, a place to ease my sanity back into my head when I become too disturbed by the frightful machinations of the insane that we have put in power.
I then ease into emails, thankful for a spam-catcher that takes a full 98%, and counting, of all my incoming emails and deems them garbage. Fully 50% of these trash-emails have the heading "She wants a better sex?" and I wonder in what non-English speaking nation this email has originated and continued blissfully on sliding twenty five of this same old question daily into my ever thickening spam-folder for well-nigh five years now.
It's the 'a' that does it for me. *A* better sex. She would like to be a man? Is that a better sex? Or possibly androgynous or haemophrodite? Would that be a better sex for the lady (whoever she is)?
Who opens these emails anyway? Is it worth the spammers' efforts? I've never wanted a better sex but perhaps some women do. Unhappy with their naughty bits, wanting to trade up to something a little more refined, more classy and upscale. A testicle or three. An extra nipple, more streamlined labia.
Or maybe men open them, baffled as to why the little woman is unhappy with what she's got and hoping to help in this trade-in for improvement.
One of the great conundrums of this IT world.
And, erm, no thanks, I'm really happy with my gender assignment.
After breakfast, I go to a little room I have designated as a sacred place for meditation, journalling and contemplation, a place to ease my sanity back into my head when I become too disturbed by the frightful machinations of the insane that we have put in power.
I then ease into emails, thankful for a spam-catcher that takes a full 98%, and counting, of all my incoming emails and deems them garbage. Fully 50% of these trash-emails have the heading "She wants a better sex?" and I wonder in what non-English speaking nation this email has originated and continued blissfully on sliding twenty five of this same old question daily into my ever thickening spam-folder for well-nigh five years now.
It's the 'a' that does it for me. *A* better sex. She would like to be a man? Is that a better sex? Or possibly androgynous or haemophrodite? Would that be a better sex for the lady (whoever she is)?
Who opens these emails anyway? Is it worth the spammers' efforts? I've never wanted a better sex but perhaps some women do. Unhappy with their naughty bits, wanting to trade up to something a little more refined, more classy and upscale. A testicle or three. An extra nipple, more streamlined labia.
Or maybe men open them, baffled as to why the little woman is unhappy with what she's got and hoping to help in this trade-in for improvement.
One of the great conundrums of this IT world.
And, erm, no thanks, I'm really happy with my gender assignment.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Living Life on the Halfbeat
5//Worldpress.org, US--PORTUGAL ANNOUNCES NEW WAVE ENERGY PROJECT (The viability of harnessing waves as a lucrative renewable energy source received a boost last week following the announcement that the world's first commercial wave energy project will begin delivering wave-generated energy to the north of Portugal later this month. The first stage of the European Union-funded program, the result of two decades of research at Lisbon's Superior Technical Institute, will bring the first 2.25 megawatts ashore at Aguçadoura, in northern Portugal, and will power 1,500 homes through the national state run electricity grid system according to an Inter Press Service [IPS] report. Funded by a consortium headed by leading Portuguese renewable energy company Enersis, the venture uses groundbreaking Pelamis wave devices manufactured by Edinburgh firm Ocean Power Delivery, considered the world's leading wave technology. "This project, begun in 2003, is now in the world vanguard," said Rui Barros, Enersis director of new projects, to IPS.)
_____________________________________________________________________________________
such good news from Portugal
_____________________________________________________________________________________
I often wonder why, when I look inside the windows of the local gyms, why all that energy isn't harnessed and used to heat and light the building and warm the water heaters for the showers? Has anyone ever done that? It would turn what I perceive to be a narcissistic self-absorbed energy burn into a reasonably positive and self-sustaining one. Just a thought.
And the half-beat is a good place to be. I'm on the miles and miles of boardwalk tonight by the lake and I encounter one runner and three too-young-for-a-driver's-licence cyclists out there. In a city of 3 million. And it was only 10.30 p.m. and it is staggeringly beautiful and the other nearly 3 million people, I see some of them in the apartments overlooking the boardwalk, TVs (mainly), computers, cleaning up, none that I saw just sitting and staring at their million dollar views. Not one.
And most of the time I feel like the wealthiest woman in the world when I nightwalk this city and breathe it all in.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
such good news from Portugal
_____________________________________________________________________________________
I often wonder why, when I look inside the windows of the local gyms, why all that energy isn't harnessed and used to heat and light the building and warm the water heaters for the showers? Has anyone ever done that? It would turn what I perceive to be a narcissistic self-absorbed energy burn into a reasonably positive and self-sustaining one. Just a thought.
And the half-beat is a good place to be. I'm on the miles and miles of boardwalk tonight by the lake and I encounter one runner and three too-young-for-a-driver's-licence cyclists out there. In a city of 3 million. And it was only 10.30 p.m. and it is staggeringly beautiful and the other nearly 3 million people, I see some of them in the apartments overlooking the boardwalk, TVs (mainly), computers, cleaning up, none that I saw just sitting and staring at their million dollar views. Not one.
And most of the time I feel like the wealthiest woman in the world when I nightwalk this city and breathe it all in.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Random Remarks
I walk past a billboard on the trail, something advertising James Woods in a TV something, a TV being something I rarely if ever watch. And I think, did James Woods ever imagine a day when one could see every crater on his face, every wrinkle around his eyes, every groove along his cheekbones, every sad, sorry, thinning hair like pencil lines on a pink notebook? We were not meant to see this utterly imbecilic magnification of ourselves. It is TMI as my granddaughter would say.
And I buy a red carriage lamp, yep, red glass to hold a fat white candle which looks red within and it casts a red glow around my sunny yellow kitchen and it cheers me up.
Oh glorious YouTube, I can watch Fred and Ginger dance and North Korea and Iran and the White House Moron seems ten thousand miles away and I'm grateful we're still breathing easy on this tiny little planet spinning so effortlessly in space, held by all our positive energies tonight.
And me and my red lantern pray to The Goddess for peace on earth and the goodwill and forgiveness of the Amish to shower us all. Amazing Grace indeed.
And I buy a red carriage lamp, yep, red glass to hold a fat white candle which looks red within and it casts a red glow around my sunny yellow kitchen and it cheers me up.
Oh glorious YouTube, I can watch Fred and Ginger dance and North Korea and Iran and the White House Moron seems ten thousand miles away and I'm grateful we're still breathing easy on this tiny little planet spinning so effortlessly in space, held by all our positive energies tonight.
And me and my red lantern pray to The Goddess for peace on earth and the goodwill and forgiveness of the Amish to shower us all. Amazing Grace indeed.
Monday, October 09, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/rights/42458
No surprises here for any of is monitoring the installations for the past year. All ready for AGINUS (as in you're either 4US or AGINUS)3 squares and a kip will be a bonus in the post-apolyptic world of the cabal.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See my response:
End of Days?
[Report this comment] Posted by: wisewebwoman on Oct 9, 2006 10:39 AM
In every sense of the word. Nowhere anywhere do I see that the existing Dems could be in the pockets of the Reps, we know the Diebold machines are and the Supremes are, why not the Dems. It would explain just about EVERYTHING going on at the moment. There is no valid opposition or debate to any preposterous and outlandish seizure and trashing of the Constitution this Vile and Evil Cabal imposes. All we know for sure is they have wealth beyond our wildest dreams and are using it, why not to buy dissident voices? Just a thought. And yes we've passed on info on these new prison camps for nearly a year and no one has believed us. And it's going to get far far worse. Suspension of all civil rights and electoral process. Look at the lining up of nuclear warheads in the Arabian Gulf even as I write. Is it time for another civil war yet?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elsewhere, in the world of Toronto and surrounds, warm, warm weather, trees turning colour, long walks on the trails. Canadian Thanksgiving unfolds as it should. A world on the edge brings the gratitudes into focus in crystal fashion. The ordinary is celebrated for another year.
That day has come with the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It provides the basis for the President to round-up both aliens and U.S. citizens he determines have given material support to terrorists. Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Cheney's Halliburton, is constructing a huge facility at an undisclosed location to hold tens of thousands of undesirables.
In his 1928 dissent in Olmstead v. United States, Justice Louis Brandeis cautioned, "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding." Seventy-three years later, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, speaking for a zealous President, warned Americans "they need to watch what they say, watch what they do."
No surprises here for any of is monitoring the installations for the past year. All ready for AGINUS (as in you're either 4US or AGINUS)3 squares and a kip will be a bonus in the post-apolyptic world of the cabal.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See my response:
End of Days?
[Report this comment] Posted by: wisewebwoman on Oct 9, 2006 10:39 AM
In every sense of the word. Nowhere anywhere do I see that the existing Dems could be in the pockets of the Reps, we know the Diebold machines are and the Supremes are, why not the Dems. It would explain just about EVERYTHING going on at the moment. There is no valid opposition or debate to any preposterous and outlandish seizure and trashing of the Constitution this Vile and Evil Cabal imposes. All we know for sure is they have wealth beyond our wildest dreams and are using it, why not to buy dissident voices? Just a thought. And yes we've passed on info on these new prison camps for nearly a year and no one has believed us. And it's going to get far far worse. Suspension of all civil rights and electoral process. Look at the lining up of nuclear warheads in the Arabian Gulf even as I write. Is it time for another civil war yet?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elsewhere, in the world of Toronto and surrounds, warm, warm weather, trees turning colour, long walks on the trails. Canadian Thanksgiving unfolds as it should. A world on the edge brings the gratitudes into focus in crystal fashion. The ordinary is celebrated for another year.
The Beauty of the City
Sparkling cornflowers pressed against the sumach
Brightest blue against outrageous red.
The trails in this city offer feasts for the eyes,
Birds, rabbits, feral cats, raccoons.
Signposts commemorating long gone railway stations.
Old stone seating placed hither and yon.
Dogs greet each other like old friends
Humans hesitate, frown in response to a smile.
Suspicion, slight alarm, armour of citification.
Newfoundland is a universe and beyond from here.
But beauty is everywhere, more resonant when shared.
I'll keep this secret to myself.
Brightest blue against outrageous red.
The trails in this city offer feasts for the eyes,
Birds, rabbits, feral cats, raccoons.
Signposts commemorating long gone railway stations.
Old stone seating placed hither and yon.
Dogs greet each other like old friends
Humans hesitate, frown in response to a smile.
Suspicion, slight alarm, armour of citification.
Newfoundland is a universe and beyond from here.
But beauty is everywhere, more resonant when shared.
I'll keep this secret to myself.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Screen Sucking
Sucking the moods of YouTube
Browsing the Well-Tended Bloggers
Feeling Shock and Awe
At the Blazing Lies of the Great Decider.
Seeing the navies arm up, ride high on innocent oceans
Shaking our fragile planet to extinction.
Hearing the pope say no limbo no more.
Counting the lone voice of Keith Olbermann
Telling it like it is.
Wondering if this is the time, is now the time
We should be gathering seeds and one shot pills
To end it all when death storm comes our way?
Browsing the Well-Tended Bloggers
Feeling Shock and Awe
At the Blazing Lies of the Great Decider.
Seeing the navies arm up, ride high on innocent oceans
Shaking our fragile planet to extinction.
Hearing the pope say no limbo no more.
Counting the lone voice of Keith Olbermann
Telling it like it is.
Wondering if this is the time, is now the time
We should be gathering seeds and one shot pills
To end it all when death storm comes our way?
Friday, October 06, 2006
Limbo
Vatican to review state of limbo
Catholic experts are expected to advise Pope Benedict XVI that teachings on the state of limbo - somewhere between heaven and hell - should be amended.
Some have suggested that the possible change is an attempt by the Vatican to prevent people in developing countries with high infant mortality rates turning to Islam - Muslims believe the souls of stillborn babies go straight to paradise.
Ah Limbo, where the pagan babies went, a frolicking happy place without oversight or supervision. Where babies (and good people without Christ in their lives) spent days tumbling around in the ether but sad because God never visited.
God must surely howl with laughter at the contortions of organized religion to fund their coffers with these rabid pronouncements!
Catholic experts are expected to advise Pope Benedict XVI that teachings on the state of limbo - somewhere between heaven and hell - should be amended.
Some have suggested that the possible change is an attempt by the Vatican to prevent people in developing countries with high infant mortality rates turning to Islam - Muslims believe the souls of stillborn babies go straight to paradise.
Ah Limbo, where the pagan babies went, a frolicking happy place without oversight or supervision. Where babies (and good people without Christ in their lives) spent days tumbling around in the ether but sad because God never visited.
God must surely howl with laughter at the contortions of organized religion to fund their coffers with these rabid pronouncements!
Thursday, October 05, 2006
A Mixed Bag
Random thoughts on plastic surgery.
How good is Youtube? Like Google but with sight and sound.
I checked on a few oldies like Dick Cavett and a new show came up and I was surprised as Dick Cavett traded in his perfectly good face for a strange shiny tight one. Sad. Why are we so afraid of aging? As if we can keep death at bay by eliminating our wrinkles and our well-earned greys. All that botox and plastic surgery removes our very characters. The twinkle in our eyes, the softness of the cheeks. We are left with a replica, I think of Lucille Ball and her rigid cheeks and the lips of a drug-addled ho. Joan Rivers in her death mask. Awful Regis Philbin's immobility. Expressionless Tussaud wax dummies.
And on manifesting what we become.
I think of former mayor of Toronto, Mel Lastman and how many, many years ago he named his chain of appliance stores "Bad Boy". And he actually was one. He fathered two children by his mistress, unbeknownest to his wife, and then refused to support them until they came after him years later and established paternity. Bad Boy. Indeed.
And the ongoing saga of US politics
How obfuscating is the Foley:Page Predator business to the real news of liars in power and Kissinger (Mr. Crimes against Humanity himself) actually puppeteering Cheney and this madness of war and greed and torture.
How perverted they all are, all criminals from the top down. Comedy Central but for the needless deaths and suffering they are causing.
How good is Youtube? Like Google but with sight and sound.
I checked on a few oldies like Dick Cavett and a new show came up and I was surprised as Dick Cavett traded in his perfectly good face for a strange shiny tight one. Sad. Why are we so afraid of aging? As if we can keep death at bay by eliminating our wrinkles and our well-earned greys. All that botox and plastic surgery removes our very characters. The twinkle in our eyes, the softness of the cheeks. We are left with a replica, I think of Lucille Ball and her rigid cheeks and the lips of a drug-addled ho. Joan Rivers in her death mask. Awful Regis Philbin's immobility. Expressionless Tussaud wax dummies.
And on manifesting what we become.
I think of former mayor of Toronto, Mel Lastman and how many, many years ago he named his chain of appliance stores "Bad Boy". And he actually was one. He fathered two children by his mistress, unbeknownest to his wife, and then refused to support them until they came after him years later and established paternity. Bad Boy. Indeed.
And the ongoing saga of US politics
How obfuscating is the Foley:Page Predator business to the real news of liars in power and Kissinger (Mr. Crimes against Humanity himself) actually puppeteering Cheney and this madness of war and greed and torture.
How perverted they all are, all criminals from the top down. Comedy Central but for the needless deaths and suffering they are causing.
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