Late Delivery
It was more than fifty years ago but I remember it as if it happened yesterday. I was a delivery boy in India, delivering Times of India in my neighbourhood. The paper had to be on the doorstep by six otherwise the customer did not have to pay. I started at five and was back in bed by six. The money I made paid for the school fees. Life couldn’t be better.
Then a problem arose. One of my best customers was a tall Sikh gentleman of a princely bearing who was always dressed in spotless white and crisply ironed clothes, baggy cotton pants and the long shirt down to his knees. He wore a black turban with his beard held close to his face by bright black netting. He was respectfully addressed as Sardarji by all who knew him. He lived in one of the two adjacent bungalows on Subhash Road, his was elegant with freshly painted walls and clear glass windows with flowery curtains and the other was rather dilapidated with peeling paint and broken glass in the windows with no curtains. While collecting one evening, Sardarji, after giving me an extra rupee as usual, casually asked why his paper had not been arriving till seven. His query perplexed me. I had no answer and I don’t believe Sardarji expected any. However, I decided to make a note of the time of delivery every morning to present him the list at the next collection. I did not need to do it though; the problem was resolved in the most unexpected way.
A couple of days later I was running a little late, breakdown of old delivery truck or something like that, I don’t quite remember why. I carefully placed the paper at Sardarji’s door, walked back to the road and stopped to make note of the time. When I looked up Ramesh, a boy I knew vaguely, was closing the front door of the other bungalow, the paper I had just delivered tucked under his arm. I went back that evening and reported the incident. Sardarji called Ramesh who was playing cricket on the street with his playmates. He confirmed my findings, head bent and tears in his eyes.
Imagine my surprise when Sardarji did not scold the culprit. Instead, he said looking at me, “From tomorrow you deliver the paper at the door of Ramesh.” He then turned to the penitent, “Ramesh, the paper will be delivered to you as long as you make sure that it is at my door by six thirty. Now run up, your team is waiting for you.”
A few years later Sardarji was elected mayor of the town and when he died twenty years after the event I have related, thousands of people attended his funeral. Ramesh went on to attend the best medical college in the country on a full scholarship and his name is revered far and wide, not only for providing excellent medical care but also for helping the poor in many more ways.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Do we have to grow and die?
“Either we grow or we die” screamed the headline on Globe and Mail’s Report on Business section on September 11. The irony of the date notwithstanding, companies die even when they are growing. It happens for many reasons, most frequent being the debt they take on in the process of growth, sometimes they are growing in an industry which is becoming outdated as they all do sooner or later. Looking at it another way, uninterrupted growth for ever is not consistent with limited resources of the planet. At some point something has to give and if the current economic doctrines have their way it will be the life systems on the planet. We will all stop growing and therefore die.
It has been clear to many thinkers, even before the meltdown of 2008, that the economic model is faulty. One important fault is that the system requires vast majority of workers to do repetitive mind numbing work. The human race needs to cope with the stress they are under without going mad and without daily dose of drugs. It is only possible if they derive satisfaction from what they do in the process of making a living. In a system where most workers obtain satisfaction, emphasis would not be on more and more growth for more and more profit but on more and more enjoyment by more and more workers.
The industry needs capital to establish plants where widgets can be manufactured in large quantities. Capital justifiably demands its share of income from the production. An entrepreneur is needed to build the plant and he needs to make a profit from the production. If he needs to coax employees to do routine work in a joyless environment so be it. Mahatma Gandhi realized that conflict in employee employer interests sixty years ago when he advised Nehru that long term sustainable growth in India is only possible through cottage industry in every hut in every village. Nehru chose instead the path of industrialization. Sixty years after independence, the country has great economic growth which benefits top ten percent of the population while the majority suffers increasing destitution. Of course every one suffers from impure water and breathing air without even realizing it. Heavens forbid the global warming bringing a dry summer season: the country of more than a billion mostly underfed people will suffer famine on a scale never seen before.
Is it too late for us to change into a society where every individual is a craftsperson; where every adult produces what he/she enjoys making and therefore is good at and trades it for things he/she needs from people who can make it. Of course no one will make car or TV but then no one will spend a significant amount of time driving to work. One can’t watch the favourite program squeezed in between infernal ads for things one shouldn’t need but one can enjoy family and friends performing for their enjoyment. Of course, this is reverting to life as it used to be a few centuries ago when many people died young and most illnesses had no cure. But this assumes that our transformation will make us forget what we have learnt over the centuries. Perhaps the sophisticated medical care of today will not be available, but people will not forget the rules of hygiene and many drugs will still be available. No doubt life will be simple; it will also be less stressed and generally more enjoyable.
My primary concern is that seven billion and growing population of the planet can not consume at the rate a few million of us do and the rest want to. The gluttonous among us must consume less, much less, for an average human on the Earth to live in reasonable comfort. If we do so, the industry, instead of continuously growing, must shrink to a sustainable size which will, of course, be different for different communities. A less dense population like Canada could have some industrial production although on a much smaller scale than now and densely populated countries of Asia would have small scale cottage industries. This model sustained humans for millennia before industrialization began in eighteenth century. On the other hand, ever accelerating economic growth has brought us close to annihilation in less than three hundred years. Fortunately, we have a few decades to adjust to new/old reality. But to achieve this, our leaders will have to first appreciate and then promote the drastic changes required in our thinking process. This work will have to start soon; there is no time for dithering.
If humans don’t change the way they live, nature will do it for them. History has shown that Nature’s ways are cruel and drastic and it behooves us to take charge for the sake of our future generations.
“Either we grow or we die” screamed the headline on Globe and Mail’s Report on Business section on September 11. The irony of the date notwithstanding, companies die even when they are growing. It happens for many reasons, most frequent being the debt they take on in the process of growth, sometimes they are growing in an industry which is becoming outdated as they all do sooner or later. Looking at it another way, uninterrupted growth for ever is not consistent with limited resources of the planet. At some point something has to give and if the current economic doctrines have their way it will be the life systems on the planet. We will all stop growing and therefore die.
It has been clear to many thinkers, even before the meltdown of 2008, that the economic model is faulty. One important fault is that the system requires vast majority of workers to do repetitive mind numbing work. The human race needs to cope with the stress they are under without going mad and without daily dose of drugs. It is only possible if they derive satisfaction from what they do in the process of making a living. In a system where most workers obtain satisfaction, emphasis would not be on more and more growth for more and more profit but on more and more enjoyment by more and more workers.
The industry needs capital to establish plants where widgets can be manufactured in large quantities. Capital justifiably demands its share of income from the production. An entrepreneur is needed to build the plant and he needs to make a profit from the production. If he needs to coax employees to do routine work in a joyless environment so be it. Mahatma Gandhi realized that conflict in employee employer interests sixty years ago when he advised Nehru that long term sustainable growth in India is only possible through cottage industry in every hut in every village. Nehru chose instead the path of industrialization. Sixty years after independence, the country has great economic growth which benefits top ten percent of the population while the majority suffers increasing destitution. Of course every one suffers from impure water and breathing air without even realizing it. Heavens forbid the global warming bringing a dry summer season: the country of more than a billion mostly underfed people will suffer famine on a scale never seen before.
Is it too late for us to change into a society where every individual is a craftsperson; where every adult produces what he/she enjoys making and therefore is good at and trades it for things he/she needs from people who can make it. Of course no one will make car or TV but then no one will spend a significant amount of time driving to work. One can’t watch the favourite program squeezed in between infernal ads for things one shouldn’t need but one can enjoy family and friends performing for their enjoyment. Of course, this is reverting to life as it used to be a few centuries ago when many people died young and most illnesses had no cure. But this assumes that our transformation will make us forget what we have learnt over the centuries. Perhaps the sophisticated medical care of today will not be available, but people will not forget the rules of hygiene and many drugs will still be available. No doubt life will be simple; it will also be less stressed and generally more enjoyable.
My primary concern is that seven billion and growing population of the planet can not consume at the rate a few million of us do and the rest want to. The gluttonous among us must consume less, much less, for an average human on the Earth to live in reasonable comfort. If we do so, the industry, instead of continuously growing, must shrink to a sustainable size which will, of course, be different for different communities. A less dense population like Canada could have some industrial production although on a much smaller scale than now and densely populated countries of Asia would have small scale cottage industries. This model sustained humans for millennia before industrialization began in eighteenth century. On the other hand, ever accelerating economic growth has brought us close to annihilation in less than three hundred years. Fortunately, we have a few decades to adjust to new/old reality. But to achieve this, our leaders will have to first appreciate and then promote the drastic changes required in our thinking process. This work will have to start soon; there is no time for dithering.
If humans don’t change the way they live, nature will do it for them. History has shown that Nature’s ways are cruel and drastic and it behooves us to take charge for the sake of our future generations.
Friday, September 11, 2009
An Atheist’s Prayer
Some people are addicted to drugs, some to caffein and a few to an artist, often obscure. The last variety travel all over the world, spend their last cent to see her work in an art gallery or the performance in a theatre or the opera house. Thanks to my lucky stars, I have no such addiction. Even if I had it, wife and the teenage children would have cured me of it. Dear reader, if I have given the impression that I am a strange bird with no addiction of any kind, I am sorry I misled you. I did not intend to and I will clear the false impression straight away. I have an addiction which is of a very rare kind. So rare in fact that no one has studied its causes, leave alone finding a cure. If you google it you may not find any entry for it.
Believe me; I am not making things up. Being an addict is nothing to be proud of and I am duly ashamed. But now that I have raised the ugly subject, I have to come clean about it. But please, do not tell any one about it. I do not want my family to find out any more than you would if you were so afflicted. My addiction is writing letters to the Editor of newspapers. I love to vent my opinions, rather than keep them to myself. What better way to have them out there than in a newspaper. I admit that not many people read the Letters to the Editor column, not unless they are addicts themselves, so the opinions do not get the exposure they deserve. Still, more people are likely to read it than a blog, at least mine. Moreover, seeing my opinion in print is such a thrill. It makes my day. I spend the day humming Bach and Purcell and not much gets done.
Caffeine addict has a problem: there are only so many Starbucks in town and you can go blocks without finding one. I have a similar dilemma. There are a dozen or so newspapers in Canada and some of them restrict letters from out-of-town contributors. As if that were not enough to send me in a coma, others limit the publication to a maximum of one in any period of thirty days. So if a letter was accepted on August 15, computer will send the following letters to delete bin till September 14. Neither quality nor the subject matters. I am free to spend an hour or two to write the letter, but sending it is an unnecessary work for the fingers. To minimize this effort, I keep a log of dates and place of letters which have made into print. The log tells me when the editor of a particular paper will accept my fulmination and I make sure she is not disappointed.
The reader will perhaps appreciate, though she may not sympathise, that the problems arise often. Most difficult to get over is the one when a letter by some ignoramus or a controversial piece by an ideologue columnist demands an answer and I have just the right one itching to get out of my head, on to my fingers and then to the computer screen. But the pesky editor just published my letter last week and the filter on his inbox is on. What do I do?
Not much, to be honest. Once in a while I put it down on the screen and then delete it. Some other times I keep it on file for future use. But most frequently I find some item in another newspaper to distract me. That was till yesterday. A column on the economic recovery, a subject close to my heart, riled me. The words, all two thousand of them, would have agitated any one who had been impoverished by the recent upheaval. I was furious. I sat down on the computer and the words poured out of my one neuron. Not two thousands, not two hundred even; just fifty. But I am not verbose. I can express complex thoughts in a few succinct words. That is why the editors welcome my letters when they arrive precisely thirty days after the last one. These fifty words did what I intended. They proved the writer wrong and pointed to the true state of affairs. I loved what was on the screen. I moved the cursor to SEND and a mere nanosecond before the click my neuron thudded back to Earth. It was too soon and the letter in its current form was destined for the delete bin no matter how good and timely it may be.
The neuron started circling in the space and generating ideas: expand the letter into a proper response which can be a column on its own; stop being an egotist and forget about it, save it for later use, send it to some other paper and then – Eureka: Change the name of sender. If I imaginatively changed the address and other details and sent it from the daughter’s post, editor will never know. No sooner thought than done. As the sages said - one who hesitates is lost. In a few seconds the letters was on its way with a fictitious writer, address and phone number. Then I got a shock. I discovered that one who hurries can be lost too. Out of curiosity, I looked to see what the sent file looked like. On the top was my daughter’s name and email address, on the bottom a different name with a strange address. Now the neuron was really working. Will the editor notice the difference and start checking? The name and address together with the style of writing could lead a suspicious person to me. Worse, he could publish the letter with daughter’s name. That will make her furious. She is an economist with her own opinions which are quite different than mine. I could visualise her in the form of goddess Kali with the hood of vicious cobras devouring a devil who pretended to be her father. If an atheist could pray, I would have, “Please Almighty, make the letter disappear – if not from editor’s screen then from the newspaper – and if not even that, at least from the copy delivered to my beloved daughter.” But being true to my lifelong belief I could not have the consolation of prayer. Therefore, I had nightmares all night. Goddess Kali appeared in different forms – tiger one time, lion the other, finally as an eagle with a beak one foot long and devoured me with relish. It is a compliment to my innate courage that I did not scream. It helped that the dear wife was really tired after a long hike in the mountains and in no shape to notice any sound coming from me.
I was up at dawn to check whether the newspaper had been delivered. It had not been. I sat just inside the door and waited. I must have dozed off because the thud of a missile landing on the door step felt like a rock had hit my head. I rushed out, tore two pages while pulling out the rubber band and turned to the Opinion Page. I looked from top to bottom, looked again, once more for the third time to be totally certain. Then I breathed. The atheist’s God had felt His devotee’s silent prayers. The letter had vanished at some stage between my computer and printed page. I didn’t really care where.
Some people are addicted to drugs, some to caffein and a few to an artist, often obscure. The last variety travel all over the world, spend their last cent to see her work in an art gallery or the performance in a theatre or the opera house. Thanks to my lucky stars, I have no such addiction. Even if I had it, wife and the teenage children would have cured me of it. Dear reader, if I have given the impression that I am a strange bird with no addiction of any kind, I am sorry I misled you. I did not intend to and I will clear the false impression straight away. I have an addiction which is of a very rare kind. So rare in fact that no one has studied its causes, leave alone finding a cure. If you google it you may not find any entry for it.
Believe me; I am not making things up. Being an addict is nothing to be proud of and I am duly ashamed. But now that I have raised the ugly subject, I have to come clean about it. But please, do not tell any one about it. I do not want my family to find out any more than you would if you were so afflicted. My addiction is writing letters to the Editor of newspapers. I love to vent my opinions, rather than keep them to myself. What better way to have them out there than in a newspaper. I admit that not many people read the Letters to the Editor column, not unless they are addicts themselves, so the opinions do not get the exposure they deserve. Still, more people are likely to read it than a blog, at least mine. Moreover, seeing my opinion in print is such a thrill. It makes my day. I spend the day humming Bach and Purcell and not much gets done.
Caffeine addict has a problem: there are only so many Starbucks in town and you can go blocks without finding one. I have a similar dilemma. There are a dozen or so newspapers in Canada and some of them restrict letters from out-of-town contributors. As if that were not enough to send me in a coma, others limit the publication to a maximum of one in any period of thirty days. So if a letter was accepted on August 15, computer will send the following letters to delete bin till September 14. Neither quality nor the subject matters. I am free to spend an hour or two to write the letter, but sending it is an unnecessary work for the fingers. To minimize this effort, I keep a log of dates and place of letters which have made into print. The log tells me when the editor of a particular paper will accept my fulmination and I make sure she is not disappointed.
The reader will perhaps appreciate, though she may not sympathise, that the problems arise often. Most difficult to get over is the one when a letter by some ignoramus or a controversial piece by an ideologue columnist demands an answer and I have just the right one itching to get out of my head, on to my fingers and then to the computer screen. But the pesky editor just published my letter last week and the filter on his inbox is on. What do I do?
Not much, to be honest. Once in a while I put it down on the screen and then delete it. Some other times I keep it on file for future use. But most frequently I find some item in another newspaper to distract me. That was till yesterday. A column on the economic recovery, a subject close to my heart, riled me. The words, all two thousand of them, would have agitated any one who had been impoverished by the recent upheaval. I was furious. I sat down on the computer and the words poured out of my one neuron. Not two thousands, not two hundred even; just fifty. But I am not verbose. I can express complex thoughts in a few succinct words. That is why the editors welcome my letters when they arrive precisely thirty days after the last one. These fifty words did what I intended. They proved the writer wrong and pointed to the true state of affairs. I loved what was on the screen. I moved the cursor to SEND and a mere nanosecond before the click my neuron thudded back to Earth. It was too soon and the letter in its current form was destined for the delete bin no matter how good and timely it may be.
The neuron started circling in the space and generating ideas: expand the letter into a proper response which can be a column on its own; stop being an egotist and forget about it, save it for later use, send it to some other paper and then – Eureka: Change the name of sender. If I imaginatively changed the address and other details and sent it from the daughter’s post, editor will never know. No sooner thought than done. As the sages said - one who hesitates is lost. In a few seconds the letters was on its way with a fictitious writer, address and phone number. Then I got a shock. I discovered that one who hurries can be lost too. Out of curiosity, I looked to see what the sent file looked like. On the top was my daughter’s name and email address, on the bottom a different name with a strange address. Now the neuron was really working. Will the editor notice the difference and start checking? The name and address together with the style of writing could lead a suspicious person to me. Worse, he could publish the letter with daughter’s name. That will make her furious. She is an economist with her own opinions which are quite different than mine. I could visualise her in the form of goddess Kali with the hood of vicious cobras devouring a devil who pretended to be her father. If an atheist could pray, I would have, “Please Almighty, make the letter disappear – if not from editor’s screen then from the newspaper – and if not even that, at least from the copy delivered to my beloved daughter.” But being true to my lifelong belief I could not have the consolation of prayer. Therefore, I had nightmares all night. Goddess Kali appeared in different forms – tiger one time, lion the other, finally as an eagle with a beak one foot long and devoured me with relish. It is a compliment to my innate courage that I did not scream. It helped that the dear wife was really tired after a long hike in the mountains and in no shape to notice any sound coming from me.
I was up at dawn to check whether the newspaper had been delivered. It had not been. I sat just inside the door and waited. I must have dozed off because the thud of a missile landing on the door step felt like a rock had hit my head. I rushed out, tore two pages while pulling out the rubber band and turned to the Opinion Page. I looked from top to bottom, looked again, once more for the third time to be totally certain. Then I breathed. The atheist’s God had felt His devotee’s silent prayers. The letter had vanished at some stage between my computer and printed page. I didn’t really care where.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Return of the Native.
I had a hard time when I immigrated from India. Driving on the wrong side of the road was a simple matter compared to coping with freezing weather and all that goes with it. But I was young and hot-blooded, fell in love and married Monika, a wonderful local girl. Before I knew it, she was training me. I learnt to enjoy the fine points of bland Western food and to honour her wishes unlike in India where a wife anticipates her husband’s whims and fulfills them before they are expressed. Our holidays were to exotic places on this continent and rarely did I go ‘home’ to see my family.
Last time Monika and I were in India was five years ago. It was past midnight when we arrived at my brother’s home and after a drink of hot creamy milk we hit the comfortable bed under the canopy of a mosquito net. Sleep was not in the cards though. Noise of continuous traffic in which blowing the horn every ten seconds is de rigueur, recorded prayers blaring on a microphone in the nearby temple, call of a muezzin, again on the microphone, in a mosque across the main road are not conducive to a restful slumber. Fortunately we got used to it in a couple of days.
A tropical travel specialist in Calgary had prescribed a number of pills to be taken daily and some others as required. The need arose two days after arrival. Monika was attacked by Delhi Belly – diarrhea by its Western name. When pills did not help she started the course of antibiotics. After two days she could keep the delicious food in again and we breathed sighs of relief. A little too soon, as it turned out. At the breakfast table the next morning, I coughed gently with a handkerchief on my mouth. Every one noticed it and a barrage of questions were let loose.
“Do you have phlegm?” asked brother Vijay.
“Did you cough in the night?” asked sister-in-law Nirusha.
“Were you cold in the night?” asked niece Kamala.
Nephew’s wife Manju shot the final arrow, “Did you sit under the A.C. vent on the airplane?”
Monika, a real doctor and most concerned with the health of her only husband, tried to interject but no one let her. They did not listen to my replies either. Vijay rushed to a cabinet and returned with a musty old bottle and shoved in my mouth a tea spoon full of green syrup spilling some on my sparkling white new kurta (long shirt). He did not notice the spill and confidently assured every one “His cough will be gone in ten minutes.” Nirusha went to the kitchen and brought an Ayurvedic powder wrapped in a brown paper and a bowl of tomato soup with a liberal sprinkling of black pepper. “Take these” she commanded and assured all who would listen, “The cough will be gone in ten minutes.” Kamala produced a yellow tablet from her handbag and handed it to me, “I took this last week and my cough was gone in ten minutes.” Manju watched me consume all this medication and thankfully did not produce any herself. But she did offer this bit of advice, “Stay in bed and drink a lot of sweet chai with cardamom. The cold will be gone by the evening.” Her prescription seemed to me the most attractive because duration of her treatment was a shade less unrealistic than that of the others.
Monika watched in consternation as I consumed all the offerings and prepared to stretch on the sofa with a cup of prescribed chai. The doctor was the only one who thought that the much ballyhooed cough was merely a sneeze and was nothing to worry about.
I later discovered that the duration of every event in Delhi is ten minutes whether it is a two hour drive to visit the relatives at the other end of the city or an hour wait for a visitor who announced his imminent arrival on the ‘mobile’. As for my illness, every one turned out to be wrong though no one admitted it. It was indeed the cough but it took much longer than ten minutes to go away. In spite of gaining several inches around my waistline due to the consumption of syrups, pills, powders, gels, soups, teas and miscellaneous brews, the cough persisted during the whole stay in Delhi and left only when the dusty grimy air of India’s bustling capital city was a memory.
I had a hard time when I immigrated from India. Driving on the wrong side of the road was a simple matter compared to coping with freezing weather and all that goes with it. But I was young and hot-blooded, fell in love and married Monika, a wonderful local girl. Before I knew it, she was training me. I learnt to enjoy the fine points of bland Western food and to honour her wishes unlike in India where a wife anticipates her husband’s whims and fulfills them before they are expressed. Our holidays were to exotic places on this continent and rarely did I go ‘home’ to see my family.
Last time Monika and I were in India was five years ago. It was past midnight when we arrived at my brother’s home and after a drink of hot creamy milk we hit the comfortable bed under the canopy of a mosquito net. Sleep was not in the cards though. Noise of continuous traffic in which blowing the horn every ten seconds is de rigueur, recorded prayers blaring on a microphone in the nearby temple, call of a muezzin, again on the microphone, in a mosque across the main road are not conducive to a restful slumber. Fortunately we got used to it in a couple of days.
A tropical travel specialist in Calgary had prescribed a number of pills to be taken daily and some others as required. The need arose two days after arrival. Monika was attacked by Delhi Belly – diarrhea by its Western name. When pills did not help she started the course of antibiotics. After two days she could keep the delicious food in again and we breathed sighs of relief. A little too soon, as it turned out. At the breakfast table the next morning, I coughed gently with a handkerchief on my mouth. Every one noticed it and a barrage of questions were let loose.
“Do you have phlegm?” asked brother Vijay.
“Did you cough in the night?” asked sister-in-law Nirusha.
“Were you cold in the night?” asked niece Kamala.
Nephew’s wife Manju shot the final arrow, “Did you sit under the A.C. vent on the airplane?”
Monika, a real doctor and most concerned with the health of her only husband, tried to interject but no one let her. They did not listen to my replies either. Vijay rushed to a cabinet and returned with a musty old bottle and shoved in my mouth a tea spoon full of green syrup spilling some on my sparkling white new kurta (long shirt). He did not notice the spill and confidently assured every one “His cough will be gone in ten minutes.” Nirusha went to the kitchen and brought an Ayurvedic powder wrapped in a brown paper and a bowl of tomato soup with a liberal sprinkling of black pepper. “Take these” she commanded and assured all who would listen, “The cough will be gone in ten minutes.” Kamala produced a yellow tablet from her handbag and handed it to me, “I took this last week and my cough was gone in ten minutes.” Manju watched me consume all this medication and thankfully did not produce any herself. But she did offer this bit of advice, “Stay in bed and drink a lot of sweet chai with cardamom. The cold will be gone by the evening.” Her prescription seemed to me the most attractive because duration of her treatment was a shade less unrealistic than that of the others.
Monika watched in consternation as I consumed all the offerings and prepared to stretch on the sofa with a cup of prescribed chai. The doctor was the only one who thought that the much ballyhooed cough was merely a sneeze and was nothing to worry about.
I later discovered that the duration of every event in Delhi is ten minutes whether it is a two hour drive to visit the relatives at the other end of the city or an hour wait for a visitor who announced his imminent arrival on the ‘mobile’. As for my illness, every one turned out to be wrong though no one admitted it. It was indeed the cough but it took much longer than ten minutes to go away. In spite of gaining several inches around my waistline due to the consumption of syrups, pills, powders, gels, soups, teas and miscellaneous brews, the cough persisted during the whole stay in Delhi and left only when the dusty grimy air of India’s bustling capital city was a memory.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Seven Letters
Hunt adults
Sign on a forestry trail: No hunting children.
(Globe and Mail, 18/08/09)
***
Farms before oil
Re: "Alberta drought worst since 1930s," The Journal, Aug. 9.
It may or may not be global warming-- after all, it was not thought to be global in the Dirty Thirties.
But overall indications are that the current warming is global, and carbon-dioxide emissions are behind it.
Then why does our government not pay more attention to the problems we are facing now?Is the extraction of oil for American markets more profitable than the farm products?
The farms will produce forever if allowed to, but the oil will run out some day.
Humans need to eat, and they can't eat oil.
(Edmonton Journal. 11/08/090
***
Changing courses
Why are college students like old rivers?
Because they are always changing courses.
(Globe and Mail, 07/08/09)
***
MEMORIAL DRIVE HEADACHE
Although Rick Bell (City urged to go with the flow, Aug. 1) has a point, the problem here is Memorial Drive has become a major artery rather than the pleasant drive along the river it once was. The cyclists need room over weekends, residents need rest from week's traffic noise and drivers need to get from Crowchild Trail to Deerfoot Trail or the zoo or the their homes in the East Calgary. There is no solution other than convincing people to take public transit. But it costs money to have a decent transit system which we can't afford. Rick is right -- such inconveniences will grow until the city stops growing. For many of us it can't be too soon.
(Calgary Sun, 06/08/09)
Is United Church Antisemitic?
I suggest that if rest of the world let Israelis and Palestinians sort their problems out by themselves, they will reach a solution before too long. It is the interference of the well-wishers abroad: Islamic countries in the Middle East for Palestinians and the Western governments and Jewish sympathizers for Israel who prolong the conflict. If the United Church and other do-gooders minded their own business and let others mind theirs, the conflicts will be resolved by the parties themselves and wars, if any, will be short-lived and less destructive. (As submitted)
(National Post, 06/08/09)
Two-way street
Re: “cyclists dial up dread when motorists use cellphones.” Letter, July 31.
There have been occasions when I was not considerate enough for cyclists while driving, but there have been occasions too when cyclists were riding without warning gear in dark clothes on dark streets, sometimes in double file. The cyclists have to realize their vulnerability and take precautions with their equipment as well as in their riding habits. This does not remove primary responsibility from the motorists, but dear cyclists, if you help them see you, it might save you from injury some day.
(Calgary Herald, 04/08/09)
***
Celtic dilemma
Economist Glen Hodgson (A Celtic tiger stumbles and falls – July 31) unwittingly shows the dilemma that Western economies face. On the one side is to retain lower taxes, one of “the underlying reasons for the 20-year foreign investment boom’ in Ireland and the need to deal with “the huge stack of non-performing mortgages.” On the other is the need to bring government’s budget under control by reducing spending and increasing taxes.
There is no quick prescription for reconciling the two sides of the equation, and that is why the western economies will sputter for a while longer.
(Globe and Mail, 01.08.09)
Hunt adults
Sign on a forestry trail: No hunting children.
(Globe and Mail, 18/08/09)
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Farms before oil
Re: "Alberta drought worst since 1930s," The Journal, Aug. 9.
It may or may not be global warming-- after all, it was not thought to be global in the Dirty Thirties.
But overall indications are that the current warming is global, and carbon-dioxide emissions are behind it.
Then why does our government not pay more attention to the problems we are facing now?Is the extraction of oil for American markets more profitable than the farm products?
The farms will produce forever if allowed to, but the oil will run out some day.
Humans need to eat, and they can't eat oil.
(Edmonton Journal. 11/08/090
***
Changing courses
Why are college students like old rivers?
Because they are always changing courses.
(Globe and Mail, 07/08/09)
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MEMORIAL DRIVE HEADACHE
Although Rick Bell (City urged to go with the flow, Aug. 1) has a point, the problem here is Memorial Drive has become a major artery rather than the pleasant drive along the river it once was. The cyclists need room over weekends, residents need rest from week's traffic noise and drivers need to get from Crowchild Trail to Deerfoot Trail or the zoo or the their homes in the East Calgary. There is no solution other than convincing people to take public transit. But it costs money to have a decent transit system which we can't afford. Rick is right -- such inconveniences will grow until the city stops growing. For many of us it can't be too soon.
(Calgary Sun, 06/08/09)
Is United Church Antisemitic?
I suggest that if rest of the world let Israelis and Palestinians sort their problems out by themselves, they will reach a solution before too long. It is the interference of the well-wishers abroad: Islamic countries in the Middle East for Palestinians and the Western governments and Jewish sympathizers for Israel who prolong the conflict. If the United Church and other do-gooders minded their own business and let others mind theirs, the conflicts will be resolved by the parties themselves and wars, if any, will be short-lived and less destructive. (As submitted)
(National Post, 06/08/09)
Two-way street
Re: “cyclists dial up dread when motorists use cellphones.” Letter, July 31.
There have been occasions when I was not considerate enough for cyclists while driving, but there have been occasions too when cyclists were riding without warning gear in dark clothes on dark streets, sometimes in double file. The cyclists have to realize their vulnerability and take precautions with their equipment as well as in their riding habits. This does not remove primary responsibility from the motorists, but dear cyclists, if you help them see you, it might save you from injury some day.
(Calgary Herald, 04/08/09)
***
Celtic dilemma
Economist Glen Hodgson (A Celtic tiger stumbles and falls – July 31) unwittingly shows the dilemma that Western economies face. On the one side is to retain lower taxes, one of “the underlying reasons for the 20-year foreign investment boom’ in Ireland and the need to deal with “the huge stack of non-performing mortgages.” On the other is the need to bring government’s budget under control by reducing spending and increasing taxes.
There is no quick prescription for reconciling the two sides of the equation, and that is why the western economies will sputter for a while longer.
(Globe and Mail, 01.08.09)
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