My New Kiva Loan

My Kiva credit just made it back up to $25. as one of my previous loans was paid off. I love it when I get to reloan. Kiva is one of the easiest ways I know to stretch one gift of $25. and use it over and over and over again to make a difference. Since the season for giving is fast approaching, you might want to consider giving someone on your list the gift of a Kiva credit so that they can enjoy giving and re-giving, too. I always look through the list of entrepreneurs for a single mother and make my loan. Let me introduce you to the woman to whom my new loan is going.


"Lucy is a single mother, 40 years old, blessed with two daughters, Margaret and Mary. She was introduced to Kiva partner Kadet through an existing Kadet client. She is applying for her first loan with Kadet. Lucy has been operating a charcoal selling business for the past three years. She also knits sweaters, which is her other source of income.
Lucy is going to use this loan to increase her stock of charcoal and knitting thread for sweaters. With the extra profits, Lucy hopes to purchase a motorcycle to use as a means of transport for her charcoal. Her dream is to expand her business and to stock highly demanded fuel sources such as firewood and timber as well as charcoal.
Lucy has been able to single-handedly educate her daughters through the proceeds from her business. She describes herself as a trustworthy lady, faithful and a very hardworking business person."

Stuffing Stockings with Atomic Number 79

Christmas is coming, the members of the family Anatidae are getting portly, and that poor guy is still out there importuning passers-by to drop a ha'penny in his chapeau.
Meanwhile, you're starting to sweat over the gifts you've got to come up with this Yuletide season. What to get? What to get?
Not to worry, Harrod's Department Store is coming through for you with the perfect gift to treasure - gold! That's right, Harrod's, known as Britain’s most prestigious department store, will be carrying gold bars for you to add to your purchases this festive season. The glittery gift comes in a range of sizes, from just over two pounds to 27.5 pounds. The thoughtful folks at the store will also offer a range of coins, from British sovereigns to South African Krugerrands.
At today’s market prices, 2.2 pounds of Harrods gold will cost you about $35,000, while their 27.5 pound bar will drain your coffers of $429,482. Obviously, this gift is not really going to do much more than serve as a stocking stuffer for those who can afford it, but hey! you gotta' start somewhere with that Christmas shopping!

A Blessing or a Beating?

Early in October of this year, I was honoured to be present as the Niagara Rite was performed by an Anglican priest to bless the civil marriage of a same-sex couple who "wish(ed) to receive the blessing of the church and to affirm their life commitment to each other before God in the community of the church." I watched the ceremony being performed and listened to the priest's exhortation to all those gathered to relate to each other in peace and harmony. I saw the two who were being blessed looking at each other with love in their eyes, and I saw, too, the obvious regard in which they are held by parish members, friends and family. As I witnessed all of this, I couldn't help thinking of the most homophobic place in the world, as Jamaica is known to human rights groups, worldwide. My thoughts were occasioned by having read a report in "The Economist" magazine not long before the ceremony, that detailed the September 2009 murder of John Terry, a British honorary consul in Jamaica. Beside the man's body was found a note calling him a "batty boy", homophobic Jamaican slang for a homosexual. I kept thinking of Terry's murder while I watched the beautiful ceremony being conducted in front of me. I thought of how peaceful an occasion it was, and how much these two men were surrounded by love and well-wishing on that day, in contrast to how dangerous a situation it would be for them to live in other places like Jamaica. I cried as the ceremony progressed, as much for those who live in constant fear in such places as Jamaica, as I did because the Bible readings chosen by the couple were so beautifully appropriate. I puzzled over why so many fear what is different so much that they are ready to kill those who embody the difference.
Today, I heard about Uganda's proposed anti-homosexuality law and I thought all over again of the loving ceremony that I witnessed. Every one who chooses such a life-style should be left in peace to live out their choice, but if the bill passes in Uganda, it will perhaps wrest Jamaica's "worst place" title from that homophobic country. Among other things, the bill would effectively criminalize the legitimate work of national and international activist organizations working for the defense and promotion of human rights in Uganda, and put major barriers in the path of HIV/AIDS prevention. The draft bill also includes a provision for imprisonment for up to three years of anyone, including heterosexuals, who fail to report the identities of those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered, as well as anyone who supports human rights for the aforementioned people, within 24 hours of learning who they are.
Kate Sheill, an Amnesty International expert on sexual rights declares the bill to be immoral. It will certainly fuel the fires of homophobia that already burn in Uganda, and be used as an excuse to attack and even kill anyone even suspected of being different. Proof would not be justification but neither will it be a requirement. Thugs and mobs never stop to enquire after such formalities. Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu are both widely regarded as great men, and both these men declare homophobia to be as bad as racism. Why can't the governments of Jamaica and Uganda step up to the plate and take action to stem the tide of hatred directed at their citizens who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered? Why can't every country in the world that condones such discriminatory behaviour see the truth in Mandela's and Tutu's words and understand that the difference these people represent is not a dangerous difference?
Why do so many fear what is different so much that they are ready to kill those who embody the difference? I don't understand.

Getting Fat or Climbing the Piano Stairs?

Dr. Brian McCrindle, a cardiologist at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, has just told told the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress of 2009 the results of a seven-year ongoing study examining over 20,000 Canadian grade 9 students. The results are "evidence of an accelerating decline in the heart health of Canada's teens" according to McCrindle, showing as they do that most of those teens already have at least one major risk factor for heart disease and stroke.
The study investigating the teens' heart health, between 2002 and 2008, involved 20,719 grade 9 students aged 14 and 15 years. It was found that the teens' rates of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and obesity were higher than they should ever be for that age group and that the rates were increasing over time.
Dr. Beth Abramson, Heart and Stroke Foundation spokesperson, says "An increase of this magnitude in this age group is astonishing." and she also says, "These children are in grave danger ... of developing long-term health effects such as premature heart disease and type 2 diabetes."
The healthy lifestyle that would address this issue is not one that is universal, by any means. Neither is it the easiest one to stick to, or the most "fun". The pressure to eat according to the big corporations profit margin needs rather than heart health needs is enormous. Think about all the ads you see for various fast foods, and how very often you see them. They are indeed omnipresent, from McDonald's "I'm Lovin' It" to KFC's "We Do Chicken Right", and the least healthy food choices, like some sugar-laden breakfast cereals are the ones most aggressively marketed directly to children as young as age two, according to a new study from Yale University in New Haven, Conn.
Lead researcher Jennifer L. Harris, director of marketing initiatives at Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, says "The total amount of breakfast cereal marketing to children on television and computer screens, and at their eye-level in stores, combined with the appalling nutrient profile of the cereals most frequently marketed is staggering." Check the list below, because if you feed any of these to your kids, you're helping them get a great head start on the road to obesity, poor heart health and diabetes. According to the Yale study, here are the sugar facts for five popular cereals:

Cocoa Puffs: 44 per cent sugar
Cap'n Crunch: 44 per cent sugar
Froot Loops: 41 per cent sugar
Lucky Charms: 41 per cent sugar
Cinnamon Toast Crunch: 32 per cent sugar

Again, according to the Yale study, "The average pre-schooler sees 642 cereal ads per year on television alone, almost all for cereals with the worst nutrition rankings." Combating such pressure takes the involvement of the whole family to start with and needs to move outward to the whole community. Of course, with profit margin on the line, getting the whole community onside, including the big corporations is probably going to take something damn near apocalyptic, so it falls back on the family above all to save the next generation from being the first to start succumbing to health problems normally associated with old age, like stroke, before their parents do.
There is simply nothing to beat the effectiveness of example. When the parent sits on the couch and orders the child to go exercise, it's much less effective then when the parent laces up their own Reeboks and leads the whole group out the door for an hour of physical exertion. I know all about the demands of today's busy life, but I'm not just indulging in facile advice-giving. I've talked the talk and walked the walk, myself. There is no easy, quick solution to the problem of childhood obesity, but there is one that you can make into family fun. The list of "fun" activities is just about endless, and all it takes is a little willingness from the parent(s). Stomping purposely through every puddle you can find on a rainy day, kicking your feet through the fallen leaves in the local park, staging a good old-fashioned snowball fight in the midst of a thick snowfall ... about the only limit to the list is your imagination. It really does work magic to make the onerous "fun" and if you need any proof of that or maybe a little start-up inspiration for your efforts to save the health of a kid you care about - not to mention your own health - try watching the video below. You'll find yourself viewing "The Piano Staircase" from the good folks at the fun theory site, who feel sure that "something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better." Fighting for your kids' health might have you feeling at times like you're bucking the whole world, but armed with a smile or two, you just might win the battle.

Off With His Head!

David Chen, owner of the Lucky Moose Market on Dundas Street here in Toronto's Chinatown, was in court yesterday waiting to face charges for the alleged assault and kidnapping of a shoplifter outside of his produce store. Mr. Chen was arrested in May and charged with the alleged assault and kidnapping of suspected shoplifter, Anthony Bennett. The word "suspected" is interesting in this case.
First of all, surveillance video from May 23, 2009, shows Mr. Bennett taking a tray of plants from outside the Lucky Moose Market, placing it on the back of his bicycle and then riding off with it. Clear footage of shoplifting, but still Bennett is just "suspected". Mr. Bennett is the proud owner of a criminal record that dates back to 1976 and he has admitted in his guilty plea to feeding a crack addiction by stealing from local businesses. Clear admission of guilt from the suspect himself, but still he is just "suspected". Obviously, Bennett needs his time in court just as he needs a judge and jury to change the adjective to "guilty". Mr. Chen, however, does not need the time he is being forced to spend in court. This is a time when Canada's legal system is showcasing its lamentable tendency too often to protect the supposed rights of the guilty at the cost of the innocent.
On that date back in May, Bennett returned an hour later to the Lucky Moose, quite possibly with the intent of helping himself to more merchandise. AT that point, Chen and two employees chased him and caught him. Perhaps if they had just stood with him out on the sidewalk, holding his hand and asking him nicely to stay there until the police arrived, there would have been no problem. I'm sure Bennett would have stayed calm and willingly remained with Chen if they had just appealed to his obvious sense of morals. Instead, Chen and the two employees bound Bennett's hands and held him in the back of a van until police arrived. Note that detail. It was only until the police arrived. It was not for weeks and months.
Because the citizen's arrest did not occur during the actual commission of an offence, Mr. Chen found himself charged with assault, kidnapping, forcible confinement and concealment of a weapon, to wit, the deadly box cutter he keeps on his belt. Mr. Bennett, on the other hand, was charged with two counts of shoplifting, one relating to a flower shop down on King Street. After agreeing to testify as a Crown witness against Mr. Chen, however, Bennett pleaded guilty and his sentence was significantly reduced. Now we have the upright contributor to society facing the wrath of the law while the long-time lawbreaker is being sheltered under its wigs and flowing robes. Bennett has been stealing for years from various shops in the area of the Lucky Moose. and is known to many there as an inveterate thief. According to one of the area shopkeepers, stealing plants from one location and then selling them further up the street is one of Bennett's special talents. All of this really begs the question; why has our justice system allowed this man to continue his light-fingered habits for so long? It also makes the arrest and charging of Mr. Chen into a very badly written joke. On the steps of the courthouse yesterday, Chen's lawyer, Peter Lindsay, said it well when he declared, "What today's events say about our justice system is that up is down and left is right and everything is perverse."
Can't you just picture the scene when/if this fiasco has its day in the courtroom? I imagine a judge of a clearly choleric disposition wearing a huge wig, all askew on his otherwise bald pate, looking very much like the Red Queen in Disney's production of "Alice in Wonderland". I see him bringing his gavel crashing down on his desk and screaming "Off with his head!", very much like the Red Queen does. I just can't quite see whether he's pointing his gavel at Chen or at Bennett.

Ambient Olfactory Stimulus Meets the Horizontal Mambo

This just in from Alan Hirsch, MD and Director, and his team from the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation. According to their recently completed study, any woman throwing around hard-earned cash in order to buy expensive perfumes meant to help her land Mr. Right can save her money.
Dr. Hirsch and his colleague Dr. Jason Gruss decided to implement a study investigating the impact of ambient olfactory stimuli (scents) upon sexual response in the human male.
Responding to requests for subjects made during classic rock radio broadcasts, 31men, aged 18 to 64 years, signed up for the study. Hirsch selected 24 different odorants for the study as well as six combinations of two odorants each. Click here and you can read details of just exactly how the study was conducted, and see the results, listed in order of their effectiveness in increasing penile blood flow. If you don't want to read the whole thing, let me recap for you.
You can spend big on big name perfumes, like the offerings from Dolce and Gabbana or Chanel, if you're a believer in wearing "sexy" perfumes. You can even pull out all the stops and drop $2,150 an ounce for Imperial Majesty, currently the world's most expensive perfume, if you think that might help in your search for the man of your dreams. On the other hand, you can pay attention to Hirsch and Gruss, spare your wallet and head out to the pumpkin patch instead. The winners at getting men the most ready for the horizontal mambo were the combined odor of lavender and pumpkin pie, increasing median penile blood flow by a whopping 40%. Next in line was the combination of black licorice and doughnut, which increased arousal by 31.5%. Obviously, if you're a Canuck, you just have to tell your date you want a Timmie's. A dozen doughnuts and romance, to go, please!

Idiot Alert Files Update

Membership goes out today to a couple who were in Ottawa this past weekend. I saw them there on Saturday afternoon, at the National War Memorial in Confederation Square. Specifically, they were in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier when they came to my attention. It was quite obvious that the Memorial and its meaning were lost on these two cretins, most especially the woman. They spent no particular time gazing upward at the twenty-two statues representing members of the main forces in uniform passing through a granite arch under the guidance of allegorical figures of Peace and Freedom. Instead, they approached the first person passing by and asked them to act as their photographer while they posed in front of the Memorial. Nothing too unusual there, you might say, except for what the feeble-minded woman did next. She dumped her purse and a bag on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, right beside the plaque that asks passers-by to treat the tomb with respect. Once the photo was taken and the camera returned, these two muttonheads walked away.
The Tomb is an actual grave. In May 2000, the remains of an unidentified Canadian Soldier who died in World War I were repatriated from France, to be buried there in front of the National War Memorial. The Tomb was created to honour the more than 116,000 Canadians who have sacrificed their lives to help secure the peace and freedom with which we here in Canada are blessed. It would be most interesting to see how this mentally deficient female and her consort would conduct themselves in a cemetery. Perhaps if the locale was more easily recognizable to her as a place of final repose, she might behave with a little more decorum. Of course, it is just as possible that the resting places of others mean nothing to her unless they are located in surroundings she considers worthy as a photographic backdrop for her posing and posturing. I wonder if this idiot would have felt the battlefield on which the Unknown Soldier fell to be a worthy photo-op, and just where she would have dumped her purse in order to get the best shot?

Parenting by Lying

Research on the phenomenon of "parenting by lying" is published in the current edition of The Journal of Moral Education. Supported by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Kang Lee, professor at the University of Toronto and director of the Institute of Child Study at OISE, and Gail Heyman, professor of psychology at UC San Diego and Diem Luu, a former UCSD student, conducted the research. They asked U.S. participants in two related studies about parents lying to their children; the one study surveying parents about their current parenting practices, and the other surveying college students about their recollections of their parents' lying. Both groups reported that the common practice is for parents to lie to their children at the same time as they are trying to teach them that lying is not acceptable under any circumstances.
Lee, in fact, states that their "findings showed that even the parents who most strongly promoted the importance of honesty with their children engaged in parenting by lying." Heyman makes the following point: "Children sometimes behave in ways that are disruptive or are likely to harm their long-term interests. It is common for parents to try out a range of strategies, including lying, to gain compliance."
Interestingly, the researchers compared parenting by lying along demographic lines, and found that Asian-American parents were more likely to report lying to their children for the purpose of influencing their behaviour than were European-American parents. One possible explanation posited by the researchers for this discrepancy is that, as compared to European-American parents, Asian-American parents tend to place a greater importance on teaching children to be respectfully obedient, and so they use strategies that include parenting by lying to meet this end.
Heyman and Lee are now preparing an international study to explore the subject further, as well as researching possible consequences of parenting by lying, such as it creating confusion in children about right and wrong.
While I agree, in general, with the idea of "parenting by truth", I also think there are times when parental stretching of the truth is okay. For instance, I wonder what Lee's and Heyman's studies make of Santa Claus and the countless variations on that theme? It's interesting that if you google synonyms for Santa Claus, you find "altruist, humanitarian, philanthropist" among the many regional variations. It would seem to me to be quite a valuable concept to be teaching to any child, and even if the teaching does start off with a carefully constructed lie, is it really doing any harm to introduce them to the red-suited gent? When my two were little, they knew there was a house nearby where mothers could take their children for safety from abusive husbands/fathers. They also knew that the whereabouts of the house were not made public so as to ensure the safety of those within. Each year at Christmas, my children took money from their piggy banks and used it to buy chocolates for the children in the house. I explained to them that Santa might not know their whereabouts because of how secret the house address was and so they gladly bought and delivered those goodies to share their good fortune with those less fortunate children at Christmas. It was their first experience of philanthropic giving and it was based on the "lie" that is Santa. It did them no harm at all. In fact, as young adults now, they still purchase and deliver candies and chocolates to that house.
It would be intriguing, indeed, to know Lee and Heyman's opinion of Santa.

The Two-Faced Catholic Church

The mighty Catholic Church, guardian of moral rectitude and good conscience that it is, has stepped in shit again.
On the one side of the country, we have Bishop Raymond Lahey facing charges of possessing child pornography after having brokered a $15-million settlement for victims of sexual abuse by priests of the diocese of Antigonish in Nova Scotia. On the other side of the country is the Greater St. Albert Catholic School Board and the Archbishop of the Edmonton Diocese consulting with each other to determine that the right thing to do was to dismiss substitute teacher Jan Buterman because his gender change from woman to man is not aligned with the teachings of the Catholic church or its values. Buterman is charging that his rights have been violated and demanding reinstatement. Steve Bayus, deputy superintendent of the Catholic schools, says “In discussions with the Archbishop of the Edmonton Diocese, the teaching of the Catholic church is that persons cannot change their gender. One’s gender is considered what God created it to be.”
One wonders. Does the God of the Catholic church also create the perverts who fill so many of its clerical positions? Does this God likewise decree that the church should scurry about to cover up for these perps when their misdeeds are exposed, as it most often does? Why would this God, so good at turning a blind eye to the failings of its pedophile-clerics, have any problem with a transgendered teacher?
Buterman isn't trying to hide the medical condition over which he has no control. Lahey, on the other hand, was carefully concealing his pedophiliac propensities until his cover was blown at the Ottawa airport.
A really poorly written comedy script has the people of the Nova Scotia parish helping the monsters-in-cleric's-clothing paying their debt to those they abused, because the faithful tithe as their religion directs them to, even if the clerics in question do not follow the religion's dictates. Who will there be to take up the financial slack for Buterman, now that the mighty Catholic church, defender of the people's morals, has denounced him?