Grinch?

There's a rumour flying around that Rob Ford is going to completely kill Transit City. Like tomorrow. Despite the fact that $137 million has already been spent investing in it. That's right, before we even look at the costs of breaking the contracts with Bombardier and the other companies, not to mention the wasted time and lost productivity to the city as a whole resulting from failure to build the promised lines (for me alone, using the classic time = money calculation, that will add up to more than I pay in municipal taxes a year), he wants to take the equivalent of $54 from the pocket of every man, woman and child in the city and just flush it down the toilet, producing nothing and hurting many Torontonians.

When thinking about money, I find it useful to think of it in terms of what it will buy. So when I started composing this blog post, I started thinking about what $54 would buy in terms that we can all identify with. And sitting here on the cusp of December, with all the lights on people's balconies and carols being played in stores and even my fricking Tim Hortons cup being decorated, what came to mind was xmas gifts. $54 each sounds about right for a present under the tree for everyone (plus one from Santa if you're a kid and you've been good), and a stocking full of candy and tchotchkes. Everyone gets something that's a little bit nice and a little bit useful and makes life a little bit more pleasant.

So picture this: you come downstairs all xmas morning, all anticipation, to see Santa came! There are presents under the tree, there are candy canes poking out the top of the stockings, and there's even a bite out of the cookies you left out for him! Then your dad grabs a green garbage bag, throws all the presents in it, and throws it away.

As you all scream some variation of OMG WTF, he announces "We don't want toys and candy and sweaters, we want a Mercedes!"

Except that not all of you want a Mercedes. And some of you do actually need the warm cozy mittens that were in your xmas presents. And throwing out the presents isn't going to get you any closer to having a Mercedes, because the money has already been spent on it. And the price of a Mercedes would take up that entire new contract Mum just got at work, except that much of it has already been earmarked for various other household expenses. And a Mercedes doesn't even have enough seats for everyone in your large family.

If this rumour about killing Transit City is true, that's exactly what Rob Ford will be doing tomorrow.

Prove us wrong, Mr. Ford.

Either I'm getting old or Kids Today are geniuses

Several times this past week, I've seen small children doing that thing where you only step on certain coloured tiles or otherwise have to follow certain patterns in tiles or sidewalk cracks, which sometimes involve jumping around or walking in a way that may appear erratic.

I know what these kids are trying to do. I did it myself as a kid (and still do it sometimes as an adult). I totally respect their game, and I understand that if they step on the wrong tiles the alligators will get them.

But here's the weird part: every time I've seen this, I've been unable to recognize the pattern they were following! This is relevant because I kept walking across their paths, causing them to step on the wrong tiles and get eaten by alligators, and perhaps get scolded by their parents for fooling around and getting in the nice lady's way.

I don't mean to ruin their game or get them scolded, but for some reason the patterns followed in this game have been impenetrable to me lately. I don't know what this means.

Teach me about sunrise times

Look at this chart of sunrise and sunset times in Toronto in December 2010.

The solstice is December 21, with 8h 55m 34s of daylight. Sunrise is at 7:48 AM and sunset is at 4:43 PM.

But then sunrise time keeps getting later. It's 7:49 on December 23, 7:50 on December 25, and 7:51 on December 29. In fact, it takes until January 17 for sunrise time to get back to being earlier than it was on the solstice.

And I just noticed the same goes for the sunset. It's 4:43 on the solstice, but it's earlier than that on the days leading up to the solstice, going as early as 4:40 between December 7 and 11.

Why is this?

Things They Should Invent: accept paper in the organic waste stream

Before I bought a paper shredder, I'd dispose of important documents by ripping them up by hand and then putting some (but not all) of the pieces in my kitchen garbage. On top of the fact that the document was a) ripped up and b) not all in the same garbage bag, I then had the additional layer of security of it being really gross to retrieve the pieces, because they were in with egg shells and coffee grinds and apples cores and rotten lettuce.

As an added service to the public, the City should let everyone put any important papers that need to be disposed of in with their organic waste. Paper does biodegrade so it shouldn't hurt anything, and it will make pilfering personal documents out of the garbage at least more unpleasant, if not more difficult.

Things They Should Invent: chose the healthiest cans possible for food bank donation packages

Metro has this thing where you give a small amount of money at the cash register to purchase a "food bank package" - a few cans and other nonperishable food items in a little bag, to go in the food bank donation box.

I noticed that all the items in the food bank package are store brand items, which has me wondering how healthy they are.

In the past few years, my body's been reacting negatively when my sodium intake is too high. Unfortunately, I still crave the taste of salt, so I've been looking for ways to cut back the amount of sodium I consume in foods that don't address my salt craving. So I started reading nutritional information on the non-salty processed foods that I do eat, and I noticed that cheaper brands systematically have more sodium. And the store brand is nearly always the cheapest one. For things like soup and tomato sauce, they'd often have 30%-40% of your recommended daily intake in just one serving! (And we know that the servings based on which nutritional information is calculated tend to be smaller than what one person would normally eat in one sitting.)

I haven't examined every single product in the food bank package, and I haven't done compared any nutritional information other than sodium content (although high sodium content is certainly a risk factor for heart disease in and of itself), but this makes me worried that we might be giving the unhealthiest food to food banks, when we could be making our food bank donations significantly less unhealthy by just going a couple of items over on the same shelf.

At this point, someone is likely to argue "But they shouldn't be eating processed foods anyway, they should be eating wholesome fresh foods!" I'll do you one better: we shouldn't need food banks at all - our social safety net should be strong enough that people should buy their own groceries. But the fact remains that there are people who are hungry, and they're hungry right this minute and can't wait until we revamp the whole infrastructure. The existing system for getting food to needy people is food banks, and the nature of existing food banks requires large-scale donations canned and other nonperishable (and therefore processed) foods. And human nature is such that you'll get more donations by asking people to pay a harmless amount for a preselected package of goods than by requiring them to take the initiative and choose items to donate on their own.

What we can do right now, without interrupting the flow of food to needy people, is get someone to read the labels, pick the healthiest items off the supermarket shelf, and put those in the food bank packages. Then people won't have to choose between increasing their risk of heart disease and going to bed hungry.

What I got from my bullies

Before I get into the substance of this post, I want to make one thing clear: my bullies did not make me stronger. There are a number of (rather loud) people who want my narrative to go that way. If I mention my bullying, if I point out that I was constantly told "just ignore them" and that didn't work at all (unless you count the fact that after years of ignoring them I ended up in a different physical location so they were never in the same room as me), the happy ending contingent says "But ultimately it made you a stronger person, right?"

No, it didn't. It seriously fucked me up. It made me (and I still am) skittish, paranoid, and defensive, entirely unable to predict how people would react and what was expected in real-life social situations. I'm about 10 years behind in my people skills and had to work hella hard to catch up that far. I still get cringey and hidey when I hear people whispering and giggling in a cube near mine, even though I know intellectually that it's just my co-workers talking about their weekends. I still look at the floor and avoid eye contact when I see cool teenagers.

But, that said, there have been a few odd positive outcomes:

1. I don't expect people to like or respect me. If someone doesn't want to be my friend or doesn't invite me to the thing, it doesn't hurt my feelings at all. That's to be expected. And if someone does want to be my friend or does invite me to the thing, that's a pleasant surprise. One of the things that really surprised me about cop behaviour at the G20 is that they were so sensitive to the most minor of slights, as though it actually hurt their feelings. That sort of thing would never bother me, because I consider it baseline. When people over whom I have authority (insofar as I have any authority) respect what authority I have, it's always a bit of a pleasant surprise. When stores that are cooler than me give me good customer service (which they always do), it makes my day. If they didn't, it would be an everyday annoyance, on par with missing the subway and having to wait another 4 minutes.

2. My self-concept is unattractive. When paint and spackle and engineering and technology can make me look attractive (which it often can), it always feels like a bit of an added bonus. When I look in the mirror and dislike what I see, that's SOP. I know a few people whose self-concept is attractive, and it's always a massive blow when they gain a few pounds or get hair sprouting where no hair should ever sprout. Such things will never cause me to lose self-esteem, because I'm used to being ugly.

3. I love being alone. All I ever wanted from my bullies was for them to leave me alone. And, in fact, one of the things I was bullied for was being alone at any given time, whether it was on the playground at recess or at home on a Friday night. So now that, as an adult, I can be alone on a daily basis and without social censure, I rejoice in it. It feels like a little victory. Some of the elders in my life find it difficult to leave the house and get depressed about being alone all day. I doubt I would ever get depressed in that sort of situation - on the contrary, I find it peaceful and very nearly liberating.

4. I don't fall for charming. We've all read Gift of Fear or otherwise heard about charming people who turn out to be scam artists or sociopaths. After years of seeing my peers turn up the charm for parents/teachers/cool kids and then turn around and bully me, I don't fall for that. Oh, I use it! I completely take advantage of other people's fake charming as a social lubricant. But I don't fall for it. I don't trust it, so it can't trick me.

Things They Should Study: what would it cost to make critical workers unbribable?

Apparently border guards might soon be authorized to strip search airport and port employees because they think these employees might be involved in smuggling illegal drugs.

This makes me wonder about the economics of the situation from the employees' point of view. How much money do they make? How much bribe money or whatever would they get for helping to smuggle drugs? How much bribe money can drug cartels afford to pay them? How much of a pay increase would it take to make this bribe money negligible to them? What if they offered the workers financial incentive greater than the bribe amounts for fingering known drug smuggling operations?

Has anyone done the numbers on this yet? If not, someone should.

More information please: why does the law care how many cars are in a driveway in the first place?

Recently in the news, someone got a ticket for parking in her own driveway. Apparently there's a by-law that if you have a single garage, you're only allowed to park one car in your driveway.

What I really want to know, but isn't mentioned anywhere in this article: how did such a thing come to be law in the first place?

The only hint in the article:

The restrictions are meant to reduce clutter in residential neighbourhoods, but city officials have said bylaw officers won’t actively seek out offenders.

So it sounds like someone thinks it's a problem when there are numerous cars in people's driveways. And because it's a law, it sounds like either enough people complained loudly enough about similar things or powerful enough people exerted enough influence to make this become a law. In any case, a critical mass of people seem to be looking at their neighbour's driveway and being bothered enough by the sight of multiple cars to take action.

I literally cannot imagine any circumstances under which I might care how many cars are parked in my neighbour's driveway. I cannot fathom any way that it might possibly affect me badly enough to want to get changes made to laws.

So how on earth did this all come about in the first place?

Things they Should Invent: opt-in window washing

Washing windows is hard, and if you're not good at it (like me), it isn't particularly effective because you leave streaks everywhere.

Every building I've lived in has hired professional window-washers to do the non-accessible windows, but has left the tenants to their own devices for windows on balconies (presumably because window-washing is expensive). But I've always had balconies (#FirstWorldProblems), so I've always been stuck making my windows streaky.

what landlords should do is give tenants the option to pay some money and have their balcony windows washed when the professional window washers are there. Then people who want their windows washed professionally can get it done, and people who'd rather do it themselves don't have to pay the money.

Spooky dream

Last night I dreamed that I was going to meet my mother and grandmother somewhere, but first had to pick something up at her house. As I looked through her kitchen for the macguffin, I accidentally hit something on her gas stove (IRL it's an ordinary, old-fashioned gas stove, but in the dream it was a multi-layered, wall-sized, pipe-organ-like affair). It started spurting flames and I couldn't figure out how to turn it off. Everything button I pressed and knob I turned just caused more flame to come out.

Then I noticed my grandfather standing behind me. He walked up to the stove and turned it off for me.

My grandfather has been dead for 10 years.

That was the first time in my life I have ever, to my knowledge, had a dead person turn up in a dream. I don't know what it means.

Why do we talk about health care spending as a percentage of the overall budget?

You often hear health care costs spoken of as a percentage of the provincial budget. The Globe & Mail has been doing a series on this recently, and a number of people have expressed concern that health care represents too high a percentage of the budget.

I have a simple solution to that problem: provide free university tuition for everyone, double all social assistance rates, reimburse housing costs for all households earning under the poverty line, and increase taxes accordingly.

That doesn't address health care at all, does it? The end result would be exactly the same health care we have now at exactly the same cost. But health care would be a smaller percentage of the budget, because the budget as a whole would be bigger.

Looking at health care as a percentage of the budget doesn't address the number of dollars being spent, whether people are getting care we need, whether the aspects of health care not covered by OHIP are affordable, or whether we're getting good value for our money. It is dependent on a wide range of factors that are completely unrelated to health care.

So why do people keep talking about it this way?

What's missing from Remembrance Day

Last week, I saw a young vet selling poppies. He was definitely under 40, might even have been younger than me. (I can't tell age well in men, his head was shaved, and he was wearing the blue jacketed vet uniform that I'm used to seeing on elderly men.)

What is missing from Remembrance Day is acknowledgment that this is not okay!

I'm certain the people who first created Remembrance Day would be devastated that, nearly 100 years later, a young man - possibly a great-grandson of a WWI vet - is a war veteran!

This is not nothing. We shouldn't be scanning over without noticing it. We need to be acknowledging, at the very very least, that this is suboptimal.

Media coverage of Remembrance Day often mentions, with a tinge of sadness, that WWI and WWII veterans are dying out. I don't think that tinge of sadness is appropriate. Not that I want all my elders to die, but rather that if all the living veterans eventually die out, it will mean that we've succeeded in creating the peace and freedom that they all thought they were fighting for. If we're making more veterans, then we have failed and their sacrifices were in vain.

Still trying to figure out the proper name for a hodd-d-d-d-d

If you don't know what I mean by a hodd-d-d-d-d, watch Eddie here, starting at about 4:30:



What is that thing actually called?


Update: The always-awesome @TravelMaus tells me that it's a carpet sweeper! I've been trying to figure that out for ages! (It's awfully hard to google when you don't know what it's called)

Things They Should Invent: make all political donations anonymous

Currently, political donations are a matter of public record in the name of transparency, and there are all kinds of limits on who can donate and how much they can donate to prevent people from buying influence.

Better idea: make it mandatory for all donations to be anonymous. Donations are paid into some central organization and then distributed to the party or individual for which they are earmarked. This is done electronically and double-blind whenever possible, so no one knows or can find out how much anyone donated to anyone. (Yes, they could tell each other, but people who want to influence politicians could also lie about donating to them.)

Maybe they could even aggregate the money and pay it out to the politicos at regular intervals, so the politicos don't know the individual amounts. Why might this be important? Suppose I was trying to influence a politician, so I tell them that I donated a large amount of money to them. To prove to them that I actually made that donation, I could make it a strange number (like $1,097) and then specifically tell them the number.

The remaining mystery of the Toronto municipal election

One of the councillor candidates in Ward 22 was one Elizabeth Cook. I couldn't find any information about her. Her profile on the City of Toronto election site didn't include a website or even a campaign office phone number. She received no media coverage that I could find (with some media outlets even saying they weren't able to get in touch with her), and was not present at any of the candidates' debates. I put quite a bit of effort into looking, but the only evidence I could find of her existence was the fact that her name was on the candidates' list.

But she somehow got 1,900 votes. And what's even weirder is that she came in third out of the four candidates! And the fourth-place finisher, William Molls, had a website and a platform and attended all the debates and was mentioned in the media a few times, and even talked to people on twitter!

So I'm still super curious about who is this Elizabeth Cook? Did she have an actual campaign that I didn't see and couldn't find (and media outlets couldn't find either)? Who voted for her and why?

"My truth": what it means and why I keep talking about it

I've been using the phrase "my truth" a lot on this blog recently. I've heard the phrase criticized in other contexts. "What do you mean your truth? The truth is the truth. You don't get your very own truth!"

I can best explain with an example:

Taxes don't hurt.

That is my truth. My taxes have never hurt. When I had very little money I was getting refunds on all the taxes I paid, when I had a little more money I was paying only a small amount of taxes that really didn't make a difference to anything, and my net income has always increased whenever my gross income has increased. My taxes don't hurt and they never have hurt. That is true.

However, it's not necessarily true for everyone. Given the number of people who complain about taxes, it's reasonable to assume that some people's taxes hurt, and that is their truth.

Their truth does not negate my truth, and vice versa. The fact that my taxes don't hurt doesn't mean other people's taxes don't hurt, and the fact that other people's taxes hurt doesn't make my taxes hurt.

I've been glomming onto this concept lately because of the recently Toronto election, and especially the media coverage thereof. I kept hearing candidates and media telling me that I want/need/prioritize things that I don't, and barely heard my truth represented at all.

I've always tried to speak and write and blog in a way that acknowledges that what's right for me isn't right for everyone, but I can't go around marginalizing myself just because the loudest people don't agree with me. So now I'm focusing a lot more on expressing my truth. It's probably going to make my blog (and me) a lot more egotistical than usual, but it looks like I have to do it because no one else is going to.

Cars and yelling

This post is further to this braindump.

I've noticed a correlation between driving and yelly/angry behaviour.

A friend of mine once worked for the City of Toronto in a number of different offices, and she said that by far the most anger she ever faced was in the parking office. People get way more disproportionately angry about parking tickets or not being allowed to park where they want or not being able to find a parking spot than anything else. That is consistent with my own observations of life in general.

For the purposes of constructing a sensible sentence, I'm going to deem the set of all the people who have ever been the driver of a car in which I was a passenger "my drivers". I'd say a good 80% of the anger I have witnessed from my drivers has occurred while they were driving, even though the vast majority of the time I have spent with these people has been outside of the car.

My yelly fast-food customers were nearly all drivers, and actually most of the yelly behaviour came through the drive-thru.

Rob Ford's angry demographic skews towards drivers. And again, I'm supporting and they're opposing policies that would make driving less necessary.

Is driving scary? I think so, but not everyone does. Is driving stressful? I think so, but not everyone does. Is driving disempowering? No. Driving increases empowerment and agency and resilience.

So why does it correlate with an increase in anger and yelling?

Analogy for why I'd rather have the social safety be too generous than too stingy

Suppose you're having a bunch of people over for dinner and you're not entirely sure how much food you'll need. If you buy too much, it will go to waste. If you don't buy enough, not everyone will get fed.

Isn't it better to buy too much, even if you do end up spending more money than strictly necessary, rather than having people at your dinner party hungry? It would be way assholic to have people sitting around hungry just because you were afraid of spending a few too many dollars. And if you do buy too much, it can still do some good - you can give some to your guests to take home or bring it into the office or give some to your friendly neighbourhood panhandlers if they're after food rather than money.

Things They Should Invent: pre-sliced frozen pizza

Frozen pizza isn't as good as fresh real pizza, but it certainly does the job and is significantly cheaper than having a pizza delivered and easier than going out. If you cook it in the oven and maybe sprinkle it with a bit of extra shredded cheese so it goes all melty and gooey, it totally satisfies the pizza craving.

The problem is that a whole frozen pizza is way too much for just one person (and even for two if you're watching your weight) and reheated pizza isn't nearly as good (and creates pressure for you to eat pizza again the next few days even if you just had the craving the one day, which, again, is problematic if you're watching your weight).

The solution: slice the frozen pizza into standard slices, maybe make them kind of perforated so the pizza is still a cohesive whole but parts of it can be broken off (I've seen this before with a sort of round frozen garlic bread intended to be broken into individual finger-sized slices). Then you can take, say, two slices of pizza and heat them up separately, leaving the rest in the freezer for later. You're still full of pizza, but there's no pressure to overeat.

(Yes, those little mini-pizzas are available frozen, but their crust to toppings ratio is suboptimal enough that they don't satisfy the gooey hot cheese craving.)