Pope vs Islam

Faith does not factor in to my equation. Whether you are muslim, jewish or a christian really is not that relevant to me. I do get frustrated when it pushes my envelope, the one I establish for what I believe.

But that is not what this blog is about. What I have recently found interesting is what happened when the Pope made references to comments about the Muslim faith. He was quoting from a text, and why he had chosen to do this I cannot say. It seemed out of place, unless he was making a point about something.
In any case, what I find alarming was the reaction from many people. All people have to accept criticism, we have to be able to hear it, note it and if relevant maybe consider it. Does not mean we have to do anything about it, but we should be able to hear it. What happened was curious though, he was quoting a text which discussed the fact that many within the faith would declare holy war to justify a violence. What happened in response to that was exactly what was stated.
I find it hilarious that in their condemnation of his statements, they acted in exactly that fashion and I believe a catholic nun was killed as the result.

Has this world gone out of control? How can we justify these actions and at the same time claim to be a positive influence on people and the world.

Naramata

Every year, during the summer I have been bringing the kids to Naramata Center. It was founded by the United and Anglican churches of Canada, but it is not a religious camp.

The setup is that you go for a week. During the week you attend a course in the mornings, 9am through noon. The afternoons are your own, but the centre itself is situated on Okanagan lake and has its own beach and dock. So, you can imagine what most of the afternoons are spent doing.
During a regular week, the courses are specific and involve a number of different areas. I have taken courses in photography, a course which explores the differences between men and women and a course in power.
Kids also have their own specific courses, tailored for their age.

A couple of times a year they also offer what is called Intergenerational Arts week. During this week, kids who are 8yrs and up attend the 'adult' courses. The past two years my son and I have gone and taken a course in biking. Around Naramata is the remnants of the Kettle Valley Railway. The tracks have been removed and the railbed is an awesome place to ride.
It has been really good for my son. He was 9 when we first did this and his riding (skills) have improved dramatically during the course, and afterwards. His confidence in his riding ability has also increased as he now knows what he can accomplish.

After doing this for two years running, we will change our tack for next year, hopefully returning to a regular week.

Disneyland, update

Well, we did go. Having my son with me made things a little simpler, but I still had to get my daughter.

I tried, and continued to try to get a letter signed for US Immigration. This continued to early February when I approached a lawyer and had him send a warning salvo. This did not seem to help either. I was about 15min away from releasing him to file a motion to appear when I received word that the letters were going to be signed. I received the letters 7 days before we went to Disneyland.

What a load of rubbish. All of this so that I could take my kids to somewhere special. The trip itself was pretty good. Unfortunately, between my daughter and then my son they were both under the weather at various times during the trip. We still managed to do everything we wanted to do, we just kept our days in check and did not go crazy.
Now, they are asking to go again.....well, that indicates that being sick did not dampen their enthusiasm.....it will take me a few years to get there again, financially...hopefully we can go then.

My Son

My son has come to live with me. This has to be one of the more dramatic changes in my life in probably the past 4 years. In February, the 3rd to be precise; I received an email which detailed the incredible difficulty with which my ex-wife was having with our son.
A little history may be in order. In August she had re-aquainted with her ex-fiance, long before our marriage. What happened in August was that he moved in. My two kids have never met the man, suddenly he was there.
This was very dramatic, and created tremendous stress within the household as the kids were expected to respect him as a 'father' figure, but had never met him...nor were they given the chance to get to know him.

In any case, this reached a critical point in January and in early February it was decided that he should come and live with me. I was not involved in the decision, not that I would ever say 'no', but it was a significant shock for me and I had to dramatically re-work my life. We got him registered in school and setup here...and things have worked out quite well. He is back with me again this year and I am quite pleased.

I have noted a significant improvement in him over the past year, his school work has improved, he has lost some weight and things are just better. I (try and) lead a fairly stress-free and non-chaotic life and I think that this environment has really helped him as well. We have him registered in extracirricular activities and we are pretty (darn) active...so that has helped as well.

More on that later.

Oh My

Oh My. It has been 10months since I posted. Well, I will have to write a few BLOG entries to try and detail some of the events of the past year. They have been dramatic, unexpected and in some cases positive.

But, first...I am back and will try and be a little more faithful to posting blog entries in future.

Disneyland

I went to Disneyland when I was 10 years old. I wanted to do the same for my kids, so I have booked a Spring Break Disneyland adventure. Looking forward to it, and my oldest, who is more aware of these things, is also looking forward to it.

Disneyland has changed a great deal since I was last there, when I was 26 (16years ago). California Adventure is part of the mix, with these park-hopper passes. So, I originally was planning on 3 days there, have extended it to 4 in recognition of this. I have also booked a one-day trip to San Diego, and the San Diego Zoo. That should break up the trip a little.

The only thing I have to do now is to get a letter from my ex-wife stating that she was aware of, and concurs that I can take the kids over the border. I am sure she will be difficult about this, which is really too bad, takes a lot of the fun out of things.

October blading

Been a tough month for blading. It has been quite wet, and with the change to fall, so comes my other (winter) activity, curling. So, my time is greatly reduced. Of course, injuring myself earlier in the month did not help.

I was left 27km short of my second goal 2,000km. I managed one blade, bringing it down to 12km...but there I stuck. Last night, I finally managed that milestone. Would have liked to finish this in September, but I will take what I can.

In 2003 I managed 200km (or so) in October. This year I will be lucky to get 60km. I guess it depends on the weather, my schedule and other factors. I generally measure anything before May and after September as one month as my kms drop quite significantly.

But, I reached 2,000km (in 98 blades) and I have one more blade to reach 100. What this indicates to me is that with my schedule, activities and the weather I should plan around 100 blades in a year. To increase my kms, therefore, I would need to focus on my kms per blade, not increasing the number. I was over 20km average this year, and that would be my goal again next year. I will probably set 1,800km as my main goal, 2,000km being my second goal.
The date will be what I am trying to reach. In 2004 I reached 1,200km on August 27th. This year I reached 1,500km on the same day. My goal would be to reach 1,800km by that date.

Teachers

We have a teachers strike on at the moment. This is a tough one to judge. I am not in favour of teachers having the right to deny their services to children just as I don't believe doctors, nurses, policemen or firefighters should have that right either.
They are an essential service. However, if you take away that right from a person you need to replace it with a mechanism which allows them to be treated fairly.

The first thing I would like is a separation from the financial issue of salaries and the classroom conditions. Just as a private company does not allow their employees to dictate to them the conditions within the company, the teachers should not be allowed to dictate those terms. I do believe that they have a voice in that though. There should be an independent panel with representatives from both sides who decide on those factors.
It is hard for me to consider a 15% wage increase (over 3 years) when I myself have had nothing for 4 years now, and probably none again this year. Part of this money is considered 'catch up'. This is the part I don't understand. The teacher's union states that other teachers, in other provinces are getting more money than they are. So, they want to play catch-up. Why? Software Engineers in Toronto make more money than I do, I pay for the priviledge of living here. If I approached my employer and said 'give me the same money as a Torontonian' they would tell me to move to Toronto.
If teachers feel that Alberta gets more money, then move to Alberta...you have a right to move your services to whichever place suites you, and your financial desires. However, if you want to live in Lotus-Land, then you are going to have to accept the wages offered.
As far as a wage increase, that is different. I think all people deserve to have a fair and equitable wage increase. Costs are going up, things are expensive and we need to keep up with that.

I should note that a wage increase which matches inflation, drives inflation.

I am hoping that this will be settled soon, and fairly....but I think you can bargain better when you are working than when you are not.

Terrifying Times

With all of the talk about terror, the war on terror you have to be concerned with the world that we live in. But among all of that, what scares me most is the people who claim to be protecting us from these threats.

The US scares me. The polarization of the conservative and liberal agendas and the intolerance that the current government shows towards people who do not share their point of view is not a positive development in our world. Worse in a country which describes itself as the 'home of the free'. How can one cherish freedom, free-speech and at the same time condem those that make it.

The scariest part of this is that I do not see it changing. For 20 of 28 years we have had successively more conservative, Republican adminstrations in the US. Each time it has become worse, starting with Reagan and now with Bush jr, who is by far the worst. Is it the rise in the power of the evangelical churches which is to blame? Is it their influence over the President which is causing this issue. Why is the church the least tolerant of other people when their very teaches were for tolerance. Christianity teaches tolerance, yet they are not?

Evolution vs Intelligent Design

I have been reading, with increasing alarm, that more and more schools in the US are proposing to teach Intelligent Design alongside Evolution. Their attitude is that this is a contrary theory as to how we became who we are, and the world was formed.

It is scary how the religious element in the US can dominate and affect policies and using that influence, corrupt the system. The US system separates church and state. However, by cloaking Creationism in a scientific veil, by calling it Intelligent Design; they have attempted to work around that and introduce Creationism into the classrooms....worse, into biology classes.

Intelligent Design teaches that the world is too complex to be created by chance, someone, or something had to coordinate it. How is this different than Creationism. I have to review their scientific evidence, but I am having a hard time seeing how there could be much, if any. It has been a long 'scientific' fact that chaos is a part of nature. In mathematics, we have the Mandenblot pictures which are in fact, order resulting from chaos. Why would the evolution of life be any different.
Yes, something had to spark this event and this is probably where Intelligent Design gets its foot in the door. It is obvious that we are never going to know exactly what initiated the events which led to life on earth. The building blocks of the first forms of 'life' were here, but what caused them to evolve into beings is going to be difficult to determine.
However, to take that and leap to the conclusion that 'someone' was the catalyst is pretty darn far-fetched.

My position on all of this is that these teachings, which are based on religous principles, should be taught within a church. People who wish to subscribe to this then have a choice. I think it is absolute nonsense to teach this in a biology classroom.
Evolution, which has as its basis genetic mutations and adaptive change; is more scientific fact than a theory. The reason that it remains a theory is that it is not possible to prove that this led to 'us'. Not sure that this will ever change however, but does this lessen its reality and what we can indeed prove or demonstrate.

Goodbye, Gone

Recently there has been an immigration trial where a person, convicted of vehicular manslaughter was scheduled to be deported back to his home country. He was fighting this.
Remembering that he was not a resident or citizen of this country I welcome this policy. However, I would suggest a minor change:

Deport immediately upon conviction of a major crime.

Any person, so deported would have the opportunity to re-apply to enter this country, but switch the tables around. Instead of us having to justify and argue for their deportation, they would have to argue for their return.
These are not citizens of this country and not being a citizen we do not want him here.

We should protect our citizens through the process' of law, but these same rights do not apply to people who are visitors in this country.

Goodbye, good riddance....have a good life.