When Times Were Tough

This photo was taken in 1939 or 1940 in Germany. This is my father’s family. That’s him front and center – the only one of his siblings to carry the darker, Spanish genes of his mother.

His mother waited until she was in her early 30s to get married and start a family. She had a career. But then she fell in love with this lummox in the Luftwaffe uniform, or he fell in love with her — or maybe they  fell in love with each other. Anyway, they got married.

Shortly after this photo was taken, the little girl, Marlis, my auntie, died of diphtheria.  This is the only photo I’ve ever seen of Marlis and I only just got this a couple of weeks ago from my uncle. (The babe in arms).

While the family was still grieving the loss of poor little Marlis, the lummox in the uniform went and got himself killed in some war-related incident.

So then my grandmother was alone with 3 young boys to raise in the middle of a war. No one has been able to tell me exactly how she managed it. Her career had been as a designer in a fashion house, so I can’t imagine there was much call for that at the time, but I would think probably her sewing skills kept her earning something.

She did end up having to send the 2 older boys away to  Kinderlandverschickung (KLV) camps in rural areas of East Prussia, which were designed ostensibly to protect children from the ravages of war in urban areas. (The link also includes a heart-warming KLV propaganda film)

My dad never talked much about those times much. I understand he spent time at at least one wonderful place and at least one horrible place. And from what I’ve read, some of those places were pretty Lord-of-the-Flies by the end of the war, in that all the adults had been called into service, leaving the camps to be run and managed by teenagers.

My dad did somehow come away from those years with a love of farming. After the war, he went through the motions of training for a career in the city, but as soon as he could, he ditched it, immigrated to Canada and became a farmer.

Except for the baby, all the people in this photo are now dead.

Skippedy-do

We spent our whole, entire day today at one of those workplace Town Hall sessions. I know you’re feeling sorry for me already. Thanks. It was pretty painful.

The managers were all trying to act like fun people. The executives talked about “visions of the future” (like so many sugar-plums) and re-evaluating our “core competencies” and briefed us on “strategic positioning”. (I don’t know what any of that means anymore, if I ever did)  There were a few group exercises. And the requisite motivational speaker who told us all how to be more effective leaders and better team-players.

Then because the Head Cheeses are always obligated to have some time for questions and answers, we had a few minutes for questions and answers — just before lunch … to discourage lingering. A handful of employees who didn’t know any better, asked some questions to which they got the party-line answers. Then we had lunch. Then we did more stuff in the afternoon which I barely remember because the room was extra hot and stuffy and smelly after lunch and I was nodding off.

For me, the whole day reinforced how very much I do not ever want to be a boss. If it was painful for me and my fellow employees, I can only imagine how it must be for those in charge trying desperately, in one day, to undo years of lethargy, apathy, antipathy, suspicion, cynicism and hostility.

It was sad.

So anyway, I have to be very careful at this point in my career to avoid any further success. One more rung on the ladder and I’ll be obligated to have staff. I hate staff.

I’ve had staff during assignments. Staff make your life a living hell. You have to make sure they have enough work to do, but not too much or they’ll freak out and have nervous collapses or go crying to the union or something.

 Then you have to make sure they’re doing the work they’re supposed to be doing and not spending their day updating their resumes. And you have to be responsible for all the work they do produce; all the work they fail to produce and all the work they totally mess up.

Staff are always whining about something. They’re always getting into “conflicts” with other staff that you have to resolve. They have personal problems and expect you to do something about them.

And no matter how nice you are or how accommodating and pleasant you try to be, your staff will hate you just because you’re the boss of them.

You really have to walk on eggshells when you have staff. I’m terrible at walking on eggshells. The whole analogy is terrible because walking on eggshells results in a lot of crunching and grinding and pulverizing of eggshells. How is that even supposed to mean something like “being really, really careful”? No matter how careful you are; if you walk on eggshells, you’re going to make a mess.

Just like being a boss. It’s a lose-lose proposition. You can be as careful as all get out about absolutely everything you say and do and think because it can all be taken the wrong way so easily by staff who really want to take things the wrong way. And they always do.

 You have to look like you’re working much harder than any of your staff or they’ll stop working altogether. You have to get in before them in the morning and stay until the last one is gone. And when you finally go home you can’t relax because your mind is full of your aggravating staff.

Okay, maybe it’s not always like that. Maybe some bosses have only great staff just like some people have only great bosses just like some people ride unicorns to work.

I just think the whole “manager-staff” set-up is a bad idea. I don’t think anyone really likes being a boss and for sure, no one really likes being staff. Being staff is still better than being a boss — except for that whole money thing and that whole being bossed around thing. The whole thing, however, sucks.

But, as Red Forman once said, “That’s why they call it work. Work is not about fun; it’s about work! If it wasn’t work, they’d call it ‘Super wonderful crazy fun time,’ or ‘Skippedy-do!”

Stuff We Can Never Have

One of my favourite TV shows these days is Dragon’s Den (also called Shark Tank in the US and originally called Manê no Tora -Money Tigers – in Japan where the original series began). 

If you’ve never seen it, the show stars four really rich people. Then a bunch of ordinary people come on and show off some stuff they’ve invented. If one or more of the rich people like the invention and think they could make a lot of money off it, they give the inventor some money in exchange for a percentage of the inventor’s company. 

The best part is seeing all the stuff people invent. The worst part is sitting through the same long introductions of the four really rich people. 

Anyway, I think something about that show speaks to the intrepid spirit of the human being. Here we are in the 21st century thinking we’re the cat’s ass with all the stuff we have, and along come these schmoes with completely new stuff that no one has ever thought of before. A lot of the stuff is just goofy, of course, but some of it’s really cool and has made its way into the market (with or without the help of the “dragons”). 

But that’s not what this post is about. If you want to see Dragon’s Den inventions, you’ll have to watch the show. Today, I wanted to laugh (and pine) a little at inventions from the olden days that never quite made it off the ground. 

 

Like the jet-pack, gosh-darnit! How many times have we all said – right here on this blog – “WHERE IS MY FRIGGIN’ JET PACK?”  This is an actual photo of an actual soldier wearing an actual Rocket Belt invention and saluting John F. Kennedy. They invented this thing in 1961 – why, oh why, are they still not available to the general public? 

 

So, okay maybe there were some design flaws in the jet-pack. What about this Flying Platform, invented in 1956? Look! It’s actually off the ground. And it’s big enough for the whole family and groceries. 

 

Or maybe even this is a Motorized Surfboard, invented in 1948 for people who might not want to fly. (Surfer dudes were pretty formal back then, eh?) 

 

Years later (1962) some guy improved on the motorized surfboard (Hard to believe, isn’t it?) and invented these Sea Shoes for when you wanted to walk to work, but wanted to avoid those pesky bridges. Wouldn’t it be funny if a speedboat came by right about now? Whoa! 

 

Who is this creepy guy? If you guessed L. Ron Hubbard, you’re right! Not only did he invent Scientology, but also this Hubbard E-Meter (electro-psychometer) that could do everything from measure pain in fruits and vegetables to help cure people of stuff like asthma, colitis, manic depression and homosexuality. They actually used this thing, in real life, for ages! 

 

This is a Finnish Portable Sauna invented in 1962. I always thought the Marx Brothers invented these. Didn’t they have one of these in every movie? First a fat society lady would be in it and then Groucho barges into the room and the fat society lady gasps and says something like “Whell! I never!” and then Groucho says something funny and waggles his eyebrows and then some more funny stuff happens and then in the end Groucho is in the portable sauna smoking a cigar. Good times! 

 

The Cup Bra, circa 1949. Yes! Bras without straps — of any sort! How do they support the girls, you ask? They don’t! That’s why even the inventor and his wife are looking really skeptical about the idea. 

 

Who comes up with this stuff? A Curved Barrel Machine Gun, so you can spray a whole room with a hail of bullets without ever having to see who you’ve killed. Is that cool or what? 

 

And speaking of cool, daddy-o, what’s cooler on a date than holding hands with your sweetie and sucking on the same cigarette? (Cigarette Holder Built for Two, 1955) 

 

And finally, my personal favourite, The Baby Cage – 1937. This was designed for  families who lived in crummy little apartments with no balconies in the middle of the city and found themselves saddled with a baby. Too lazy to take your kid to the park? Strap this cage into any convenient window and suspend the baby 12 stories in the air so he can jump and play. 

 

Here’s a view from outside. Doesn’t this kid look happy? Wait! I think that might be little John Wayne Gacy. Cute.

Six Attics

Well, it’s no surprise that Tiger Woods is now in re-hab for “sex addiction.” It seems to be a very popular affliction among celebrities – especially male celebs. Some experts don’t believe sex addiction is real. They reckon it’s just an excuse people who like to screw around use to absolve themselves of responsibility for their actions. They reckon these celebrity guys have so many women throwing themselves at them they just can’t say “no”. But then again, not being able to say “no” to stuff is a sign of addiction, isn’t it?

Celebrities like Charlie Sheen, Jack Nicholson and Julio Iglesias all claim to have had sex with a couple thousand women. But they’re rank amateurs next to guys like Mick Jagger-Keith Richards (They’re hyphenated because they “do each other’s bitches”) or Gene Simmons who’ve had four to five thousand each or Wilt Chamberlain who claims, in his biography, to have bedded close to 20,000 women.

For women there is actually a competition to determine The World’s Biggest Slut. It used to be held in the US, but Americans lost interest in the event around 2001, so it’s now held in Warsaw, Poland. The event is whimsically called World Gangbang Competition  and some porn star called Lisa Sparxxx won it last year by doing 919 men in 12 hours, beating the previous year’s winner by 160.

Every year, guys apply (in droves) to participate in this competition. They have to pay their own way to the event; pay for their own accommodation and other expenses. They get nothing in return except ”bragging rights”. They get carefully screened for stuff like STD’s and maybe loserdom or something, I don’t know. Then they hang around eagerly awaiting their turn up to bat. They get prepped by one of the helper-sluts to make sure they’re ready to go when it’s their turn. Then they get to spend at least 30 seconds, but no more than 60 seconds genitally connected to the would-be Queen Slut. Each sexual contact is carefully watched, rated and counted by referees and 6 cameras are used to record the event.

Probably all of these people have some problems we ordinary non-celebrity, non-porn stars can’t possibly comprehend. By the time we’re in our late 40s, us regular people only have about 8.6 sexual partners if we’re women or 31.9 sexual partners if we’re men.

What’s that you say? You’re way over those numbers and fear you might be a celebrity-caliber sex-addict? Fortunately, there’s this handy checklist so you can see if you need help:

1. Have you had more than 20,000 sex partners in your life or more than 919 in one day?
2. Have you quit your job so you can spend both your days and nights cruising Internet porn sites, sex shops, x-rated movie theatres, strip clubs and hookers?
3. Are you one of the 19% of guys polled who said they would have sex with Brad Pitt if it meant they could have Angelina Jolie afterwards?
4. Are you one of the 90% of women polled who said they would have sex with Angelina Jolie and not bother with Brad Pitt?
5. Have you replaced your bed with a conveyor belt?
6. Have you ever been arrested, convicted and jailed for illegal sexual activity for the express purpose of experiencing the high of prison sex?
7. Do you feel kind of crappy about how your life is going?
8. Do you need to use a pumice stone every day to keep those stubborn genital calluses under control?
9. Are you engaged in some sort of sexual activity right now?

If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, you may have a problem. If you’re  feeling a little grubby and would really like a long, hot shower right about now, you’re perfectly normal.

Anti-Protest Protest

This isn’t going to be a popular post, but so many people have written triumphant posts about the anti-prorogation rally on the weekend, that I thought I’d talk about why I didn’t go.

 I have many of the same issues with protests as I do with strikes. And before I go on, I want to be clear that I’m just speaking from the viewpoint of someone in 21^st century Canada. I know there are long lists of causes in other countries and in our own country, in other times, that were moved forward through public demonstration.

When people have very little legal recourse or when there is a severe and direct threat to individual freedoms;  demonstrations (peaceful or even violent) are the only way to go. None of the conditions that would legitimize or necessitate public demonstrations exist in Canada today. Protest is a tool that blunts with misuse and overuse.

What was the intended outcome of this protest on Saturday?  To change public opinion?   To force the Prime Minister to change his mind? To send the Prime Minister a message that “Canadians” aren’t as apathetic as he thinks they are?  Has any of this been achieved?

If we hope to persuade anyone of anything in a civilized society we need to use reasoned discussion and a well-crafted argument. Clever signs, witty songs and general outrage are not persuasive. They might be fun and they definitely generate excitement among the demonstrators and in the media, but they don’t persuade anyone of anything.

The people at whom this type of protest is aimed do not care about these things. They can not. Stephen Harper has protesters on his doorstep every day of the week in lesser or greater numbers. He doesn’t formulate policies or decisions based on what the mob-of-the-day is demanding. Yes, he’s slipped a bit in the polls because of media attention the protests and the Facebook group have generated;  but he also soared in the polls after he played the piano and sang a song in public. The general populace has a very short memory. And, when it comes time to vote, Harper is betting Canadians are not going to use this little break from Parliament against him.

While it looks great that thousands of people across the country came out to demonstrate on Saturday, it doesn’t necessarily translate into anything significant come election time.

Strength in numbers, in a case like this, isn’t real strength. Just because something is popular today doesn’t mean it’s right or good in the long run.  Eleanor Roosevelt said: what is popular is not always right, and what is right is not always popular.

Demonstrations continue all over America in opposition to same sex marriage.  Pro-life groups protest outside of abortion clinics all the time. Every time someone commits a particularly heinous crime, protesters gather and call for the reinstatement of capital punishment. It would be very wrong of our leaders to make decisions based on the size or volume of groups of protesters. If 3500 pro-lifers showed up on Parliament Hill next weekend, you would be upset if the Prime Minister were to second-guess abortion legislation over their protest. 

I’m not saying that Harper was right to prorogue parliament – though I am a bit curious as to why this particular issue is causing so much outrage when he’s done so many more outrageous things both before and since his re-election.  I am saying that just because a lot of people turned out for Saturday’s demonstrations doesn’t automatically make Harper wrong. Nor does it convince him, or anyone else, that he is wrong.

In fact, it may do just the opposite. Middle-of-the-road people tend to stereotype political protesters as “crackpot activists” (see PETA). So, a viewpoint taken up by these so-called “crackpot activists” might convince middle-of-the-road Canadians to take up the opposing viewpoint in order to disassociate themselves from the “crackpot” element. (And no, I’m not personally calling anyone who attended a demonstration on Saturday a crack-pot)

In 21^st century Canada there are so many more effective ways to express outrage and so many better ways to attempt to promote change. We can, for instance,  use television, the Internet, newspapers, magazines, the legal system and/or letter writing to get our point across. All of these are more effective than standing in the cold with cardboard effigies.

As an example, writing letters to your politicians – rational, reasoned letters asking specific questions – guarantees that those letters will be read and responded to. Every letter that comes in with specific questions will be read by someone. If there are one or more specific questions in that letter, it will get passed on to the correspondence unit, who will then have to craft a response. The response and the original letter will get passed up the line for review, edits, input and a series of signatures, including sign-off by the person to whom you wrote the initial question.

All this costs politicians time, money and human resources. These things force them to pay attention. If they get enough letters about the same topic they can’t ignore that topic. They can ignore a protest rally. And they do.

There are many countries in the world where protests are the only recourse to injustice; where protests are a necessary medium for the voice of the people. Canada isn’t one of them.

Though there was a lot of talk about the undermining of “democracy” at the rally on Saturday, Canada, in fact, has a well-established democracy. Even Stephen Harper with all his games cannot threaten it. And we, the people of Canada, have many mechanisms for input into that democratic system and should make full use of them.

Though I’m quite sure that many of the people at Saturday’s protest were sincere and well-meaning people, their actions are seen as easily shrugged-off theatrics by those being protested against. Leaders cannot rule by angry mob. And, protests can have the opposite of their intended effect on the population at large.

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PS: For the record, I have never voted Conservative and never will. To me, right now, the most effective way to get Harper out of power is to support and work toward offering a strong and viable alternative at the next election. Because as long as there are no really good options…guess what…

Things You Shouldn’t Do Naked

One of my neighbours popped by on Saturday to ask my advice on something – because I’m so wise…or maybe because I was the only one home. But anyway, she said I could blog about it even though she never reads blogs and maybe doesn’t really understand what a blog I, although I did my very best to explain it to her.

Saturday morning — let’s call her Molly, although that’s not her real name  — got up bright and early and sent her husband and youngest son off to the boy’s hockey practice or hockey game or whatever it is hockey kids do at 5:00 am on a Saturday. Since she was up and since her other son, a teenager, was dead to the world in his room, Molly decided to get some housework done and then enjoy a leisurely breakfast.

After Molly finished cleaning, she even whipped up a batch of her famous breakfast buns[1] before hopping in the shower. The day is off to a spectacular start! It’s not even 9:00 o’clock and she has most of her Saturday chores done already.

 And then it all goes horribly wrong.

Molly gets out of the shower and realizes that there are no towels in the bathroom since she’s put them all in the wash. There’s a linen cupboard in the hall outside the bathroom door with more towels, but Molly suddenly gets a bright idea. She decides it would really help her enjoy her decadent morning breakfast if she could wrap up in a hot towel out of the dryer and then put on some hot-out-of-the-dryer clothes.

So out of the bathroom she scurries and heads down to the basement to fetch her warm, cuddly togs.

Except she’s still wet from the shower.

And so slips halfway down to the basement and bounces on her ass the rest of the way down the stairs.

She’s completely winded and in shock and spread-eagle on the basement floor, buck naked, when her teenaged son pops his head around the basement door.

Was he awakened by the noise of her fall or the delightful aroma of Molly’s breakfast buns? Who knows? All she remembers is his rumpled, half-awake appearance and the horrified look in his eyes as if he’s found himself in the middle of his worst nightmare.

“Holy shit” was all he said.

Molly, being winded, could only respond with some belaboured grunts, “Uhnnn, uhnnn, uhnn.”

The boy, getting his priorities straight, grabbed a blanket off the sofa and went down to throw it on his mom before asking her if she was all right.

Molly is all right — physically. She has a bruised and very sore coccyx and one of her elbows hurts, but otherwise she’s okay.  Her son, however,  hasn’t been able to look her in the eye since that morning and scurries out of the room whenever she’s around. Molly reckons if only she hadn’t been in quite such a splayed posture it wouldn’t be so bad. He’s probably seen glimpses of her butt or boobs during the course of 16 years of everyday life, but he’s never seen his mom looking like a poorly-staged Hustler centerfold. She thinks their relationship will never be the same again.

(The breakfast buns, by the way, were saved in the nick of time.)

She doesn’t know if she should say anything. She doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to see her as a mom again. She doesn’t know what the hell he was doing up so early. And in the middle of this angstful monologue, Molly says, “Well, there’s another thing I can add to my list of things never to do when I’m naked.” At which point I stopped listening to her and started wondering if she actually has a list like that and what might be on it.

So I interrupt her moaning about her parental woes and asked her.

“Oh, you know, the usual,” she said, looking surprised at the question. “Frying bacon, bathing the cat, sliding down a banister. Then we laughed and started thinking of other things you shouldn’t do in the nude. And then we started making a list of careers you should avoid if you want to be naked all the time.

It’s interesting really how many jobs you could do without danger, legalities aside,  if you were naked. There are a few though that would probably create too many problems to be worth the unfettered freedom. For instance:

• Hot dog vendor
• Accordion player
• Beekeeper
• Welder
• Firefighter
• Lumberjack
• Prison guard
• Vet
• Dentist 
• Rodeo cowboy
• Hockey player
• Tap dancer on Sesame Street
  

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[1] These things are amazing. They’re like cinnamon buns but denser made with lots of eggs and nuts and raisins and other stuff and no sugar – just a bit of a maple glaze on top. A half one of these is a complete breakfast.

Ottawa: The City That Fun Forgot

Ottawa is the only city I know that has designated tobogganing hills. They come with a list of rules and important warnings. The National Capital Commission decides when it is safe to open them for the season. At various times during the winter months they are closed because it’s not safe!

 They even have scary signs.

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To ensure even less winter fun the National Capital Commission has also decided not to have the outdoor concert series during Winterlude this year because heating the stage will “cause damage to the environment”. They’re aiming for a carbon-neutral/fun-neutral Winterlude this year. 

Isn’t that awesomely responsible of them?

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The kids at D. Roy Kennedy Elementary School in Ottawa are no longer allowed to play with balls during recess – except in warm weather months…. when they’re not at school.

Balls in cold weather are too dangerous. A kid got hit in the eye with a ball the other day. Now kids have to stand around at recess and chat.  I’m sure it won’t be long before all the other schools in Ottawa ban balls as well.  They won’t want to continue putting our children’s lives in jeopardy.

I can’t believe it’s taken this long for adults to fully realize the danger of kids playing.

Extreme Sleeping

One of the many things I’ve never been very good at is sleeping. Usually when I suck at something, I just stop doing it after a while, but never sleeping again isn’t an option, apparently. It certainly would free up a lot of time, though.

Anyway, in 1959 there was a radio DJ in New York who decided to see how long he could go without sleeping. He set himself up in a glass booth in the middle of Times Square from where he broadcast his show live around the clock.

After only a few days he started hallucinating and got extremely paranoid. He finally passed out after 201 hours – just over 8 days.

The interesting thing is that his personality changed dramatically and permanently after that experiment. He became short-tempered, irritable, had difficulty with personal relationships, was prone to depression, had trouble focusing on stuff and making decisions, got into legal trouble and just became all-around weird. He eventually died of a stroke.

So, I’m thinking that if only I could learn to sleep properly I could become as sweet, lovable and charming as Mary Poppins.  Maybe I could also summon up some of Mary’s magical powers while I’m at it! That “spit-spot” instant housecleaning thing would really come in handy, for instance.

As it is, I usually wake up feeling more tired than when I went to sleep. That can’t be good, right?  I do everything they tell me promotes a good night’s sleep — including a regular schedule of going to bed at a reasonable hour, getting 7-8 hours of sleep and gettin up early. But, by mid-afternoon, I might as well go home because my brain and most of the rest of me stops functioning.

Probably most of you are the same way because, in 1999 scientists discovered that humans’ natural circadian rhythms dictate a natural sleep cycle from midnight to 6:00 am and from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm. Seriously! How perfect would that be? You get a nice long evening. You still get to get up nice and early. And, you have a little snooze in the middle of the day when you’re not up for much else anyway.

If I’m spending 1/3 of my life doing something and I have to keep doing it, I think it’s about time I started figuring out how to do it efficiently. Otherwise what’s the point? Otherwise all that time I spend lying around is just a waste of time, right? So I’m on a mission to maximize my sleeping hours.

My physiotherapist recently recommended I get myself a couple of Mediflow pillows.  So I did. They have little pockets on one side that you fill with water – the more water, the firmer the pillow. Except for the fact that they weigh a ton and you can only sleep on one side of them, they feel just like the most luxurious down pillows.

The other thing I’ve been reading about that may revolutionize my sleep is “inclined beds”.  It seems we’re not meant to sleep flat and that sleeping that way is a relatively new thing.

If you’ve ever seen old timey beds and wondered why they look so short, it’s not because people were only 3 feet tall back then, but because they used to sleep more or less sitting up. They reckoned lying down flat was only for dead people and they didn’t want to tempt fate. And lord knows fate was easily tempted back then.

Most mammals also sleep with their heads elevated. Do they and the old timey people know something we don’t?

Well, I guess we just forgot or didn’t remember again until recently that we’re probably better off not sleeping flat.

“New” research is showing that sleeping on an incline can resolve an almost endless list of pains and ailments — topping the list is, of course, sleep disorders. Even raising the head of your bed by 2 inches can stop sleep apnea, snoring and breathing problems. There is also some evidence that sleeping on an incline can help with: 

• Spinal cord issues
• Dermatological problems
• MS, Parkinson’s Hashimoto’s and arthritis
• Lymphatic drainage (detoxification)
• More youthful facial looks
• Maintaining body’s metabolic rate, to assist with maintaining healthy weight
• Stabilizing blood pressure
• Normalizing of blood glucose levels for type II diabetics
• Eliminating oedema problems
• Minimizing tachycardia on rising
• Reducing chances of migraine headaches
• And a whole bunch of other fascinating stuff you can read about here

Lying flat causes a build up blood in the head without the resistance of gravity pumping it around. And that’s why you feel all groggy and puffy and even headachy in the morning – and the longer you sleep the worse it is. Plus there are a lot of other things that happens to the brain when we’re lying flat for long periods of time – not good things either.

I don’t know. I’m going to give it a try. If there’s a chance I could still become a productive member of society, it would be so wrong of me not to do whatever I can to make that happen, wouldn’t it?

Meanwhile, I welcome anything else that you may do or use that guarantees a perfect night’s sleep. Because I’m tired of being tired. I’m actually half asleep at this very moment. And that’s just not right.

No Hover Cars for You

The other day we talked about living in the past, so now I thought we’d talk a bit about living in the future.  Do you spend much time thinking about how our lifestyles will change in the future? I’m not talking about 100 years from now — I mean within our own lifetimes?

Back in the 1950s and 1960s we couldn’t get enough of thinking and talking about the future. The movies, the TV programmes all predicted an exciting world of hover cars, jet-packs, shiny silver jumpsuits and automated everything.

Now we rarely talk about the future or think about the future except in apocalyptic terms.

Like a whole bunch of other people, XUP Jr. is convinced the world is going to end in 2012, especially since she saw the movie.  It gives her a good excuse not to worry about her school marks, I think.

The Canadian documentary, The End of Suburbia,  aired the other night on TVO. It features my eco-crush, James Howard Kunstler, so I’ve seen it a few times. Though his vision of the future, and the message of the documentary overall, is bleak, I think it’s also accurate.

“Suburbia is the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world” – James Howard Kunstler

If we accept that the world oil peak[1] has happened or is about to happen within the next 10 years, then it’s also high time we did some serious planning for a world with less available fossil fuels.

So, what Kunstler, et al[2] are telling us is that we are running out of not only oil, but natural gas and the resources to produce electricity. And, that there are no reasonable alternatives. This means that the energy resources we now depend on will become increasingly expensive as they become increasingly scarce.

And yes, we’ve been hearing about the “energy crisis” since the 1970s when the price of fuel got jacked up for a while and we all bought small cars. Then they told us  everything was okay again and prices went down and we all bought  SUVs. And there are still people – scientists even – who say Kunstler and his cronies are all nuts and that the earth has unlimited resources. They say technology will save us and that someone will invent something, some time and everything will be okay.  

But ifn case they’re not nuts, here is some of the stuff we can expect in the future:

• Price of gasoline will become prohibitively expensive
• People will not be able to afford to buy, maintain or run a car
• Suburbanites will have difficulty commuting to work, shopping, schools
• Suburbanites and others living in McMansions will not be able to afford to heat their homes
• Like the Victorian mansions of days gone by, McMansions will be chopped up into several apartments housing more than one family
• Kunstler believes the suburbs will become slums; others think with a little vision and foresight we can convert them into self-sufficient villages
• Since North America does almost no manufacturing of its own anymore, we will have difficulty getting goods from China:
  • First, because of the high cost of shipping
  • Second, because we will be competing with China for energy resources and they will cease to be a friendly trading partner
• We will not longer be able to afford to import or transport food thousands of miles
• Agriculture in North America is heavily dependant on petroleum products since our soil is pretty much completely depleted and crops can be raised only because of extensive use of petroleum-based chemicals, (fertilizers, pesticides, etc.)
• Growing food therefore will become more labour intensive necessitating more human labour and less machinery
• Anyone who has land will have to start growing crops to help feed their families and/or sell in their communities.
• Centralized energy plants will cease to exist and we may have to go to energy co-operatives using windmills to provide energy locally. (Toronto Renewable Energy Co-operative  is an example of this)
• A whole host of businesses, industries and professions will no longer be sustainable
• The trucking industry, for instance, will need to be replaced with an efficient rail system. (Third World countries apparently have a much better people -and-goods rail systems than we do in North America)

So, I guess the question is — do you choose to believe the visions and warnings of all of the experts predicting a future without unlimited energy resources? Or do you choose to believe that science and technology will find a way to sustain us? What’s your vision of the future?

“There are a huge range of solutions out there, but a lack of leadership. There is nothing wrong with apocalyptic insinuations, as long as it gets people thinking. It’s okay to be scared and depressed because that’s how change happens.” – Evan Solomon

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[1] Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. The concept is based on the observed production rates of individual oil wells, and the combined production rate of a field of related oil wells. The aggregate production rate from an oil field over time usually grows exponentially until the rate peaks and then declines—sometimes rapidly—until the field is depleted.

[2] Et al includes a range of experts who contributed to this documentary, (Including Matthew Simmons – CEO of the world’s largest energy investment bank, Peter Calthorpe – urban designer, Julian Darley – environmental philosopher, Kenneth Deffeyes – petroleum geologist) , a group of world experts who form the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas

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PS: My computer at home has been killed by the IS2010 virus. If you get pop-ups telling you that Internet Security 2010 has found a virus in your computer, it’s true — except the virus IS Internet Security 2010. There are lots of suggestions on the internet on how to get rid of this virus, but most of them don’t work. Just make sure you’ve saved everything important somewhere other than your hard drive, just in case.

Dreams of an Everyday Housewife

Does anyone remember the song of the same title as this post? Here’s an excerpt: 

She picks up her apron in little girl-fashion as something comes into her mind
Slowly starts dancing rememb’ring her girlhood
And all of the boys she had waiting in line
Oh, such are the dreams of the everyday housewife
You see ev’rywhere any time of the day
An everyday housewife who gave up the good life for me

Glen Campbell recorded it. I always thought Glen Campbell was a tool, but he, and this song in particular, rocked my dad’s socks back in the day. He (my dad, not Glen Campbell)  used to love to sing this song to my mum. My parents had a very traditional marriage with clearly defined wifely and husbandly roles. Dad went to work, mum stayed home.

As I kid, I used to think, “Thank god I’m not a boy. Boys have to grow up to be men who have to go to work every day.” I hated the idea of trudging off to work every day.

On the other hand, I also hated it that my mother had to ask my dad for money for every little thing she or the kids needed or wanted. And he’d never just trust her and hand it over. No, there always had to be a big discussion about it and most of the time my mother wouldn’t get the money she asked for.

My mother was also not allowed to make any decisions about anything except Christmas, which he didn’t care about as long as she stuck to the “Christmas budget”. She was also allowed to decide what to cook for supper – though that one was based on what my dad liked.

So, after weighing the pros and cons, I’d pretty much decided by the time I was 8 that I was never getting married.

Of course marriage isn’t like that anymore. Is it?

Maybe not for most folks, but there’s a new woman’s movement (fad) afoot where women are giving up often lucrative careers to become “retro housewives”. Yes, it’s actually called the Retro Housewife Movement. There’s even an official Retro Housewife website.

A whole passel of recent how-to be a retro housewife type books have flooded  the market: decorating guides, homecare manuals; there’s Happy Housewives by Darla Shine (she also has a website), How to be the Perfect Housewife by Anthea Turner, The Housewives Handbook by Rachel Simhon, and Caitlin Flanagan’s controversial  To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife.[1]

Flanagan accuses early feminists for dismantling family values, and says that not all housewives of the ‘50s and ‘60s were as bored or miserable as Betty Friedan wanted us to believe. She points to our ongoing fascination with Martha Stewart, who built “an empire on the notion that ironing and polishing silver and sweeping a kitchen floor might offer an almost sacred communion with what is most essentially and attractively feminine.” 

Canadian writer, Carolyn Mctighe, spent 2009 living as a 1950’s housewife as discussed in her blog Vacuuming in Pearls  (I’m not sure how the blogging part fits in with the 1950s housewife thing) But anyway, she mostly seemed to like the experience. She’s writing a book about it also called Vacuuming in Pearls. Stay tuned for that one.

The Retro Housewife Movement seems to be particularly popular in the UK. The Daily Mail did a feature a while back on several women who are completely living the lives of 1950s, 1940s or even 1930s housewives called Time Warp Wives. It’s…. umm…. interesting.  

So, how crazy is all this? Well, I think a lot of women are fed up with having to do too much. They won the right to go to work, but no one ever really replaced them in the home, so they bear the lion’s share of that responsibility, too.

Then there’s this whole economic crisis thingy which has led some people to discover, oddly enough, that they can’t afford to have both spouses working anymore. They can’t afford daycare or nannies. They can’t afford to eat in restaurants or order take-out every day anymore. They can’t afford cleaners. They can’t afford their big house or two cars anymore.

And, a lot of people are just plain fed up with the way things are going and want to simplify their lives. Living in the past seems to be the answer for some of them. Sure, some of it’s a little creepy, especially when couples take the whole thing to extremes. But perhaps if people can find a way to incorporate the good stuff from the past into their current lives?

 While there’s lots of ways I couldn’t imagine living in the 1950s, there are a few things that would be nice, such as:

• Not having to go out to work
• Spending more time with my family
• Having time to prepare good meals and cook more
• Better TV and movies – each show and movie was an event not just one of a million others just like it
• Not having gadgets – much as I love my gadgets I’d love to live in a world without DVDs, computers, cell phones, iPods, etc.
• No malls
• No sprawls
• Less cars
• Real communities
• Teenagers went to sock hops and got pinned instead of going to raves and getting high

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[1] Flanagan’s book is controversial because while she espouses living like a 1950s type housewife, her version of that is giving up her career, but hiring nannies and housekeepers to do all the drudge work at home.