OPPOSITES ATTRACT!

Graduation and worries Wouldn’t you think the people with the highest graduation rate are the happiest? No, quite the opposite. They worry more about the future than those with lower graduation rates (Globe, 26 June). Here is how researchers explain the phenomenon: the achievers are more stressed out because they lack emotional intelligence.  I think I’ll go with Bertrand Russell’s explanation: “The stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”

Boring is beautiful, according to a headline in the Globe, 26 June. Montrealers have had enough excitement, what with two mayors felled by corruption scandals. They like their new (interim) mayor, Laurent Blanchard. He is colourless and boring, and he promises integrity and stability, adding “I don’t think Montrealers want more than that for four months.” Huh? After four months they want bunga-bunga, or what? Oh, I see: the interim mayor will only stay on until the elections in November, and as another francophone famously said, Apres moi le deluge. That’s 18^th century French for What,me worry?

Give and take. In the case of a Toronto charity called Opportunities for the Disabled, it’s more take than give: 500 Million in yearly revenues versus 2 documented recipients in Toronto (67 in British Columbia).  Executive director Sean Stone has now moved his operation to the East Coast but, according to Metro, 16 June, he “couldn’t provide proof of any good works” there. Will his next move be to Ecuador? I hear it’s a great country for asylum seekers.

Surveillance and sousveillance (no, not a typo). You’ve read about the US surveillance scandal? My advice: equip yourself with augmediated vision (no, not a typo either -- another word brought to you by the amazing IT wordsmiths). Augmediated vision will allow you to get even and surveil the surveillers right back.

Mankind/Machinekind.On the other hand the time will come when we must fear our gadgets. We may be able to master them a few years longer before they surpass us in intelligence. And that will be the end of their subservience. The Solution: a merger. We’ll all become cyborgs. After all, opposites attract. We’ll have cyborg wedding planners, Cyborg Pride Parades, and of course international beauty pageants for cyborgs. Check out this sexy pic of Steve Mann with EyeTap. I think he is a strong candidate for Miss Cyborg 2020.

In the meantime, let me ask (with Steve Polyak): “Before we work on artificial intelligence, why don’t we work on natural stupidity?”

SURPRISE, SURPRISE ! Or maybe not.

Some actions have unexpected consequences, like giving a basket of fancy foods as a wedding present. Presumably the giver expected a thank-you note from the newlyweds. Surprise! The bride texted him that this was a cheap and embarrassing gift and asked to see the receipt (Hamilton Spectator, 19 June).

Other surprises:

• Funky restaurants and bars turn a once seedy strip of Toronto’s Queen Street into a trendy neighbourhood. Expected: rejoicing. Surprise! The city decides to restrict new restaurants in the area (Metro, 19 June)
• A taxidermist botches her first assignment. Expected: Stuffed animal is stuffed into garbage can. Surprise! It is auctioned off for $ 500 and goes on to YouTube fame as The Stoned Fox (Globe, 20 June).
• Bob Rae resigns his seat in parliament. This is the guy who abandoned the NDP for the Liberal Party.  Expected: Scorn for a deserter. Surprise!  He was elected interim leader by the Liberals. Not bad for the ex-premier of Ontario, who was turfed by voters after a disastrous four years of government.
• Menchie’s, an American firm, sells frozen yogurt in Quebec. It comes with a plastic spoon labeled “Sweet Moosic”. Expected: the sweet music of ching-chinging cash registers. Surprise! Menchie’s receives a letter from Quebec’s language watchdog warning them that the name “Sweet Moosic” isn’t French and thus violates the French Language Charter (Globe, 22 June).
• Students enter high School. Expected: Their knowledge increases over the next four years. Surprise? Their health declines, according to a study undertaken at Waterloo University. A comparison between grade 9s and12s showed that smoking went up 170 percent and binge drinking jumped 167 percent.
• Obesity is declared a disease. Expected: increase in treatment benefiting the obese. Surprise? According to the Globe, 20 June, the result will be an increase in research funding, benefiting researchers and pharmaceutical companies. No doubt, the funded studies will show (Surprise?) that fighting obesity requires expensive medication developed by pharmaceutical companies.
• I started blogging a year ago.  Expected: going viral. Surprise? Only 5,399 page views to date, which means that I rank 3, 475 263^rd in the USA. More surprise! According to urlmetrics, that translates into a monetary worth of $ 617.34.  Excuse me, gentlemen, I’m worth at least $ 100,000. You forgot to add in the cost of my university education and the work I had done on my teeth. -- Oh, you don’t count the cost of personal improvement? You go strictly by clicks?

 

POLITICIANS GIVING BACK. A variety of approaches.

First, let me clarify: I’m not talking about giving back to your community by working as a volunteer, and I’m not talking about the forced giving back called tax return. I’m talking about the special kind of giving back practiced by politicians. For example,

Conservative Senators Duffy and Wallin who paid back the living expenses they mistakenly claimed -- unlike that ingrate, Liberal Senator Harb, who plans on paying back the investigating committee by suing them.  Maybe that’s the difference between Conservatives and Liberals. No, wait:

Liberal ex-premier Dalton McGuinty did pay back his constituents in Brampton when he cancelled the gas plants they didn’t want. No, wait. That wasn’t paying back. That was paying in advance, for their votes. And actually it wasn’t McGuinty who paid the 600 Million it cost to break the contract – the tax payers will pick up that bill.

Maybe Liberal leader Justin Trudeau is a better example of a politician paying back. He voluntarily returned the $ 20,000 speaker’s fee he charged the Grace Foundation. Mind you it took him four months to come around to the idea that it isn’t nice to rip off a charity. Also, it isn’t nice when you are in politics and the media start dumping on you. So maybe this story doesn’t come under the heading of “paying back” and I should keep it for another post on “damage control”. In any case, I’m thoroughly confused by the whole affair. I thought politicians feed at that particular trough -- the speaker circuit-- only after ending their parliamentary career, or am I thinking of another trough -- lobbying, which is legal, although smoking weed and other stuff still isn’t.

That’s why I expected Toronto Mayor Rob Ford to give back to his city, I mean, restore its former reputation as Toronto the Good and Stodgy, but all he was prepared to give his constituents was the middle finger (TheStar.com 25 July 2011). It’s a substantial finger – nice and pudgy like the Mayor himself, but I don’t think it’s a winner in the paying-back category.

Montreal mayor Michael Applebaum at least promised to restore public confidence. But after he was arrested on corruption charges, his speech writers ran out of steam and hot air. The best they could come up with was that he had put Montreal “back on the right track”. The laugh track?

Gilles Vaillancourt did better, I’d say.  The ex-mayor of Laval, arrested on charges of gangsterism, used young people as mules to move kick-back cash to Swiss banks – So at least he made a personal effort to reduce youth unemployment

Way to go, Gilles!

STUCK ON THE HIGHWAY WITH NOWHERE TO GO.

In 1992, Queen Elizabeth lived through an annus horribilis, a whole year of horror. So I’m not complaining. I had only one really bad day -- last week when my car stalled in the centre lane of a busy highway. A crowd of angry commuters maneuvered around me, trying not to hit my car. Some of them looked like they wanted to ram it. Fear of skyrocketing insurance rates was all that stood between me and their bumper.

Of course I called the CAA. That’s the “AAA” for my American friends. Der Autoabschleppdienst for my German readers. The break-down service for Queen Elizabeth, if she had to worry about stalled cars.

The CAA promised to send a tow truck within 30 minutes. Meanwhile a police cruiser pulled up behind me. To serve and protect, as the slogan said on the side of his car. Meaning to put on those flashing lights and protect me from would-be rearenders? No, stupid. Meaning that I was in the wrong place.

You can’t stay here, he said.

Yes, officer, but my clutch won’t clutch!

So he called the CAA. The dispatcher was unimpressed. The gist of her answer was: they didn’t have tow-helicopters, and so it was still a 30-minute wait unless cops could work miracles.

As it turns out, they can. A cheerful man with a tow truck showed up within 2 minutes and charged me the special police rate of 270 Dollars/10 kilometers.

I meant that ironically, but a brief search on the net showed me that I did in fact get a bargain. It’s not infrequent for people to be charged $ 800-1400, according to Seattletimes.com.

And worse things can happen:

According to Yellowbullet.com, a couple went off on a month’ holiday, came back, and found that their car had not only been towed but auctioned off.

Another man, whose car had been towed to a pound, signed over the ownership because the vehicle wasn’t worth the $ 900 they wanted to charge him. The car was auctioned off for $25, and the ex-owner is still being hounded for the difference, according to Forum. miata.net.

But that’s still not the worst. On Dbzf.co.uk, Daniel San reported his mother’s white Jeep was mistaken for that of his neighbor and towed by a repo company. They did return it the next day, a little worse for wear.

Well that’s better than a roofing company tearing off your shingles by mistake, right?

Or Senators Duffy and Wallin living in the wrong house by mistake. They submitted expense claims for staying in Ottawa, thinking their primary residence was elsewhere.

Or Mayor Ford being caught on video smoking the wrong pipe, thinking I don’t know what.

And some Torontonians may think they are in the wrong city when they see this sign (thanks, Julius!):

 

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED. THE RIGHT TRIP FOR YOU.

Here are some travel suggestions:

For the aging extreme sport athlete (quoting The Globe & Mail, 10 June): After a grueling overland drive, relax in your luxury tent and enjoy a gourmet meal kept fresh in your battery-powered mini fridge. Wow! And I didn’t even know that you could use luxury in the same sentence as tent!

For the nomad: Retrace Jeanette Walls’ childhood trek with her alcoholic father and bohemian mother, moving from Arizona to California, Nevada, West Virginia, and finally the tenements of New York. Sorry, no luxury tent. Sleep on car seats, under the desert sky, in cardboard boxes, and three to a bed. No gourmet food either. Root through garbage bin. Sounds a bit harsh? Not if you listen to Walls. According to the Vancouver Sun (12 April), it made her the luckiest person in the world.

For the liberal arts student & job seeker: Enroll at the University of the Fraser Valley, where history students explore and map abandoned mining shafts on nearby Sumas Mountain. According to university officials, those activities convinced employers of the usefulness of an undergraduate education in liberal arts (Globe, June 10). Oh wait, this isn’t an article. It’s an Information Feature -- the stuff that used to be called advertisement.

Discover your inner duck: Sprout webbed arms and legs with a specially paneled nylon suit, jump over a cliff and surf the wind. It’s called wingsuit-flying and is guaranteed to make onlookers exclaim: It’s a duck…It’s a flying squirrel…It’s Superman!

For the autonomous driver: Get a car enhanced with Mobileye. It’s capable of driving at freeway speeds, but can’t make lane changes. And I thought only old codgers did that –  crawling along, preferably on the outermost lane at or slightly below the speed limit. With Mobileye you too can block the road and save your fellow drivers from speeding tickets. The traffic jam assist feature will get you through stop and go situations, but will require drivers to keep their hands on the steering wheel (NY Time, 9 June). Bummer. And I had planned on rolling down the window and shouting: Look, Ma, no hands.

Nothing here that tempts you? You are a couch potato? Okay, then just watch comedian Patton Oswalt on YouTube. He doesn’t get off the couch during his performance. Perfect match, perfect trip, no?