"When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained." Twain / "I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of these contradictions out for myself." Montaigne / "I write because I have found no other means of getting rid of my thoughts." Nietzsche / "Writing is an integral part of the process of understanding." Arendt / "Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers." Asimov.
Literally years ago, as a trustee around February of 2023, I noticed that the CO2 monitor testing proposal that was ratified had a sneaky line about not beginning the test until after we're back to pre-Covid ventilation levels (i.e. no longer bringing in more fresh air), which might never happen. I was the one to push the issue, but I was told that I shouldn't be the one to put the motion forward because I had just proposed encouraging people to mask, so I was the seconder on that motion to re-write that motion.
The motion was just to try out having CO2 monitors in three schools as a test case. The monitors wouldn't be visible to people, but hidden in the vents, remotely monitored by board staff, and that's a line they wouldn't budge on. If they were visible, then teachers could use them to decide if windows should be opened for a bit to air out the room or the HEPA filter actually plugged in! Maybe they were worried about it causing a panic. Who knows! Before I left, which was before that motion was going to be argued about and voted on, I pleaded with the chair to try to add in a line that the reporting of the monitors must report per classroom or at least a range, not just give an average per school. She didn't seem to think it was important.
It's so clearly important. The school average could show 700 ppm, which is pretty good, and miss that some rooms are at 500, and others at 2,000. As a teacher with my own monitor, I was in a classroom that regularly hit over 2,000 - every day - while other rooms were much better. My room also barely got any heat in the winter. It was an ongoing problem for decades that never really got fully addressed.
Catherine Fife and Debbie Chapman speaking to protesters.
It feels like we turned a dark corner in Ontario. In my hometown in particular.
Doug Ford came to K-W to be greeted by tons of protesters including overt representation from ETFO, OSSTF, OECTA, CUPE, OBSCU, Liberals, Greens, and, of course, the NDP, which is very strong in the region. Faculty from UW, Laurier, and Conestoga College were all there, along with tons of educators. The Ontario Health Coalition the Waterloo Region Labour Council and the Environmental Defence all played a part in organizing it or advertising it. Tons of healthcare professionals were there and environmental groups and housing groups and ODSP advocates.
Ford: I look at all the supporters in here. I don't worry about people being bussed in all over the place to demonstrate. [as if his opposition doesn't come from the region]
Abdi: All Ontarians too.
Ford: Absolutely, and I'll take care of them. [vaguely threatening?]
Abdi: You should do a better job of taking care of Ontarians.
Ford: We're doing a good job
Abdi: You're not doing a good job, my friend. Our schools are underfunded. Our hospitals are underfunded. You need to do a better job.
Ford: Guess what, we do, my friend.
Abdi: I understand you think you're trying to do your best, but I know there are people in Ontario who are suffering. There are students in Ontario who are suffering.
Ford: There are people that need homes, and that's what I'm going to do. I'm building homes.
...and we can't act as if they were ranked after the fact!
I believe that WRDSB has a committee formed to determine the process to appoint two new trustees. I've been actively avoiding following the news on all this, but I do want to respond to the suggesting floating around that an appointment is undemocratic.
Voting is typically the most democratic method, but a byelection is costly (about half a mill!!), and a July election for just two trustees (or three trustees including one for the WCDSB) will likely be poorly attended. The municipal election last October just provoked about 25% of the voters to the polls. We'd be lucky if we got even half that number for just a trustee election and in the summer. Does 10% of the populace in attendance make for a solid democratic decision?? Is it really much of a democratic system anymore if nobody cares to vote despite being offered the chance?
The other option the trustees voted down, to just choose the next candidate on the voters list from last fall, doesn't seem remotely democratic to me because it wasn't originally set up as a ranked ballot where people explicitly chose their fourth option (after the three elected).
To illustrate the problem with taking the next person on the list, let's assume people just voted for one person for simplicity's sake. If 70% of people pick person A, and 5% each choose person B, C, D, E, and then 5.1% choose person F, it's clear that person F isn't really the democratically elected second choice despite getting the second highest percentage of votes. Right? It's one reason why at least all municipal elections should be by ranked ballot.
Last December, I wrote a few times (here, here, here, and here) about strep becoming more invasive and deadly if it follows a Covid case--even if it's mild or asymptomatic Covid--after 15 kids across the UK died within a few weeks. Covid does a number on the immune system's ability to fight off other diseases; it kills off the cells that kids' bodies need to fight off infection so they can't fight Strep A.
In Waterloo Region, children are dying of strep and it's barely mentioned in the news. I just got word of it yesterday after a mom came forward to make her grief public after doing everything possible for her daughter, Quin, who succumbed 12 hours after being admitted to hospital:
"In the region, there have been 21 infections between January and the end of April; there were 25 infections in all of 2022. Five of the 21 people diagnosed with invasive Group A strep in 2023 died. . . . For the 2022/2023 flu season, there have been about 900 cases--a spike of 63%."
So when was public health going to tell us??
The article assures us that "there are certain characteristics that trained health-care providers are aware of and can help them to think about a potential bacterial infection with Group A streptococcal disease," but in this particular case--as happened in England as well--"No one seemed to pick up on the fact her daughter's symptoms might be something more than a bad cold."
Doctors were told about the increase in cases and death, but not the general public. No warning until now, after we find ourselves with a disease with almost a 25% fatality rate, now we'll let people know and maybe they'll WEAR A MASK, which wasn't even mentioned in the article despite it being, "passed from person to person through breathing, coughing or sneezing." Instead, Dr. Jeffrey Pernica at McMaster Children's Hospital suggests to go to the hospital for difficulty breathing like always. He said, "I am confident that parents in our region are going to continue to do the same good job they've always done."
What does that even mean??? It sounds like it's all on the parents, but Quin's mom made all the right phone calls and asked all the right questions and was told it's just a cold until it was too late.
Strep is more dangerous for young kids and people over 65, but even if it won't cause much harm to you, you can still transmit it to someone else, even before you know you have it, if you don't wear a mask in public places!! We have a cheap and easy solution to prevent illness and death to the young and old and immunocompromised. What will it take for people to actually give a shit? And what will it take for that reporter to just add one more sentence: Wear a mask to reduce your chances of getting or spreading Strep.
Starting next Friday, secondary students in my board will be forced to be in a room with about 15 other students they might not know, many of whom will take off their masks for a 45 minute mid-morning snack deemed necessary to get them through to lunchtime dismissal. They're not exactly forced, since they can choose, instead, to be exclusively distance learning, but that comes with a risk of losing their electives and possibly a more difficult time with complex instructions. So that's not much of a choice. And once they choose to be with a teacher in a classroom, then they're not permitted to leave that room while others unmask.
It's like telling kids they can either get a ride to Toronto for a concert or watch it on TV, but if they take that ride, then they have to take off their seatbelts while they're on the 401. The car's not going to pull over to let you out if you change your mind! So, what's it going to be? Sure, it's a choice, but many kids will make the riskier choice, such as kids are. And, sure, they might all be totally fine. But they might not be. And then it will be our fault. It's ultimately Ford's and Public Health for approving this plan, but the board has to take some responsibility too since neighbouring boards don't have a secondary nutrition break. And teachers, on the front lines, also bare responsibility.
I stayed in the small town I was born in, and it got big around me. Like parents of young kids, who fall into the trap of continuing to see them as they were so many years ago, I still think of K-W as a really safe, little city. But now we have bigger buildings, and faster transportation, and violence. Gun violence even!
The latest stats show that police reported hate crimes here have decreased a bit since last year, down to 6.7 per capita, on par with London, Toronto and Montréal, a bit more than Calgary, a bit less than Guelph, Thunder Bay, and Ottawa, but WAY less than Hamilton at 17.1. But it's possible that people are just on it more in Hamilton, reporting every little thing in order to keep the city safe. It's hard to say. Regardless, it feels worse now than it used to. It doesn't feel safe to be out on certain streets at certain times.
Yesterday there was a rally held to protest the "bullying" of an anti-LGBTQ protester who was charged with assault with a weapon after beating people with a helmet a month ago.
This recent article in my local paper tells us that our region is lowest in the province for graduation rates.
ON FIFTH YEAR RATES
They worry that "Students who did graduate also took longer to do so than almost anywhere else." The graphic shows 68% finish after 4 years, and 81% after a fifth year (so, 13% stay for a victory lap). I share their concern that almost 20% aren't graduating, but not their concern about taking a fifth year. I commented there that I don't support that particular focus:
"I encouraged all my kids to do a fifth year of school - it's the last chance for a free education, and it gives them more time to take electives. I've always seen the drive to have kids finish in four years as just a cost-savings method at the expense of a well-rounded education. What's the educational benefit of pushing kids to finish faster?"
They claim,
"The board is reluctant to more strongly dissuade Grade 9 students from choosing academic studies over applied studies, even as students who start high school with unrealistic expectations fail to keep up and must later switch streams."
They say that like it's a bad thing. Sure, it can be a challenge to work with students on material far outside their capabilities, but a public education is there for everyone to find, not just their talents, but also their limitations. Every student should have a right to try to stretch themselves to do work that's difficult because some actually make it after a few attempts at the higher levels. Nothing should dissuade them from trying all their options at this point in life.
An Agenda discussion on sugar use is timely for me. I typically let students eat something small and healthy in class to tide them over until lunch, but, in one class this semester, I ended up having to police their choices. A few shovelled candy into their mouths before I'd tell them to put it away on a daily basis. I'd sometimes comment on their nutritional decisions even though it's not a health class, and then I'd immediately wonder if that's crossing a line. Sometimes my mom hat slips on when I should be in teacher mode. Or is that possibly a teacher's prerogative?
Gary Taubes provides a compelling argument for refined sugar being the primary cause of obesity not because it provides empty calories, or calories at all, but because it "creates a hormonal milieu that favours fat accumulation." This isn't entirely a new idea, except he goes a bit further with it, insisting that sugar has probably killed more people than tobacco. See the documentary Sugar Coated (currently on Netflix) for more thorough arguments.
The next world wars won't be about land or oil. They'll be about water. And Canada could be the next Iraq, invaded and decimated for the abundance of our natural resources. We have to stop corporate control over our most necessary resource now before it all slips out of our hands.
I watched Maude Barlow speak Thursday night in Guelph, and it was fitting it was in a church. I was in turns choking back tears and roused from my seat to applaud more than any preacher could compel me. She's a fascinating mix of intellectual brilliance and folksy warmth. She can rattle off an analysis of facts and figures at lightening speed, but as she signed my copy of her book and listened to me rave like a teenager about having her picture and words on my classroom wall, she put her hand on mine and looked into my eyes to thank me for being part of the fight. I saw Maude speak before, decades ago, and despite spreading the word far and wide since then, educated people in my midst still buy bottled water. "But I like the taste." Drinking water from the tap is a small price to pay (actually you'll save a fortune) for public control over waterways.
The evening was hosted by the Wellington Water Watchers, a small group of dedicated people with a huge fight on their hands. Our hands. Spokesperson Arlene Slocombe referred to Nestle as a multinational predator in our midst. They've been drawing water from Aberfoyle (near Guelph) and Hillsburgh (near Erin) for years, and now they've gotten hold of Middlebrook (near Elora). Studies have found that the quantity water in Middlebrook was needed for the citizens. The township offered to buy the land, but Nestle outbid them with full knowledge of the effect it will have on the people in the area. Profits over people all the way.
When Nestle's permit expired in July 2016, the provincial government passed a law that allowed Nestle an unlimited extension without any transparency. Wynne thinks the solution is to raise the fees for corporate water extraction, but that will have a negligible effect on the outcome. Nestle will profit from climate change, which is the foundation of Klein's concerns around disaster capitalism. We must put the public's right for water first, and overwhelming public support and political pressure is necessary to stop the renewal of permits. Aberfoyle is up for renewal now, and Hillsberg is coming up next summer. Nestle pays fees and taxes to the municipality it's situated in (for Aberfoyle, money goes to Puslinch, but the water draw also affects Guelph), so sometimes poorer municipalities prioritize immediate cash over the future livability of the area.
WHAT CAN WE POSSIBLY DO? (Barlow's words are further down, below the selfie. This is the important bit.)
Personally:
Check out all that Nestle owns (brands are all listed here and in this graphic or get the buycott app for your phone), and boycott Nestle products. Then take another step to tell them about it. Socially:
Tell your friends and family about the issue. Tell everyone on social media. Start a petition. Tweet it to celebrities and TV producers en masse. Nothing changes a society's behaviour as quickly as regular-type sit-com characters changing their behaviour. Remember when Rachel changed her hair? Boom! If the cast of Brooklyn Nine-Nine carried re-usable water bottles and were shown filling them from the tap instead of carrying bottled water and hanging around the water dispenser, it could change people's mindless behaviours. Locally:
Call, e-mail, and/or visit your Mayor to insist we ban single-use water bottles in our city like Montreal's trying to do or, at the very least, ban them in all municipal events and buildings. The Blue Community Project can help it happen in your area. So far 18 municipalities in Canada have succeeded in this ban. They're early adopters of this new mentality. At times the speakers seemed to suggest that a Nestle boycott would be enough to save the day: "Just close your wallet!", but Chomsky says personal boycotts have the same effect as committing suicide. I signed the pledge card, but I'd argue that they're useful mainly for our own sense of integrity. To really fix things, we need to legislate Nestle out of business by petitioning municipalities (and provinces and the whole flippin' world) to ban bottled water everywhere. Provincially:
Call, e-mail, and/or make an appointment to see your MPP. Tell them Wynne has to get tougher with Nestle. It's not enough to just raise the fees. She has to stop them from selling the water that our municipalities need to flourish. Federally:
Call, e-mail, and/or make an appointment to see your MP. Tell them that Trudeau has to reinstate the acts decimated by Harper: the Fisheries Act, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, and the Navigable Water Protection Act. (See below for more info on this one.) Tell them that if he doesn't, then we may as well be living under Harper's rule. No shirtless photo op will make you forget that he allowed Harper's mess to continue unabated. (Maybe don't tell them that last bit.) Still PUMPED about it? Then get involved with... The Council of Canadians, the Ontario Greenbelt Alliance, and/or the Wellington Water Watchers. If you're local, then show up to Guelph council this Monday, Sept. 26. There's a rally at 5:00 and you can try to follow Councillor James Gordon in at 6:30 (if they'll let everyone in). He plans to introduce a motion asking council to send a letter to the province opposing Nestle's application.
WHY DO WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING?
Here's what Maude told us (highly paraphrased - she spoke a mile a minute - and organized so I can make sense of it all, but linked. Note that some links go to corporate sites to illustrate the types of profit-driven arguments being made on the other side of the issue.):
We Don't Have as Much as We Think:
The world is in crisis, and Guelph is a microcosm of these world issues. We're in a place where we've been conned by a myth of abundance. Most of Canada's fresh water is in the north. The available water in the south is decreasing yearly. Canadian lakes are warming more than anywhere else, and there's no protection for groundwater. It hasn't even been mapped yet, so we don't really know how much we actually have.
We dump toxins and sewage in our water making it largely undrinkable. Europe has much higher standards around polluting water. CETA (the new TTIP) will make this whole situation much worse. If CETA is passed (there are some constitutional challenges from Germany right now), and Nestle is denied rights to water, Nestle will be able to sue us. Right now Coke and Pepsi can sue (with an ISDS) because they're American companies. But Nestle's European. CETA is not yet signed, so they can't sue yet. There's not enough public understanding of how CETA works and how damaging it will be.
Legislation has been Dismantled:
The National Water Act of 1970 handed power to the provinces, so most activist work needs to be done at the provincial level. Federally, Environment Canada's water budget is starved. There's a loophole in the Fisheries Act that allows the government to essentially designate lakes in order to allow dumping in them. About four years ago, under Harper, bill C-38 gutted the Fisheries Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, and bill C-45 removed protection for 95% of our lakes and rivers originally protected under the Navigable Water Protection Act (which was originally drafted in 1881!). These moves were on a directive from the Energy Industry.
Our Jobs Shouldn't Destroy our Lives and our Future:
Our manufacturing used to be 26% of GDP, and now it's 11% because our jobs have moved overseas. We're turning to our natural resources for jobs, but it's having a disastrous effect. 11 million litres of toxic waste are leeching into water every day around the Alberta tar sands. Alberta will be first water-insecure province. The Energy East Pipeline would cross 3,000 waterways and put the drinking water of 5 million Canadians at risk. For the past 30 years, pipelines in Canada have averaged three breaks per day. It's not a matter of if they'll break, but when. BC and Alberta are fracking and mining due to a move to public-private partnerships (PPPs). Suez and Veolia, water 'servicing' corporations profiting off human need, argue that once we're in a PPP agreement, then they must be compensate if any municipality breaks their contract with them. There's also serious issues with allowing water trading (already started in Alberta), water pollution trading (euphemistically called 'water quality trading'), and water exporting. We already export bottled water, all in plastic, to the tune of close to 465 billion litres of bottles a year.
Politicians are Acting Cowardly:
This is a global fight. Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, CEO of Nestle, thinks the human right to water is ridiculous. He's also the advisor to the World Bank Water Resources Agenda 30/30 that delivers water to poorer people worldwide. This is a conflict of interest, and an abominable abuse of power. It's also a local fight (that's being watched across the pond). Nestle pays less than $15 per day for the water they take in Aberfoyle. 11,000 people of the Six Nations have no access to running water. Two-thirds of First Nations have been under drinking water advisories here in the past few years. It's a travesty that's largely being ignored.
Provincial politicians "clearly don't know what they're doing." They just want to raise the fees attached to taking the water, which will have a negligible effect on a huge corporation like Nestle. This is our water, and Nestle needs to leave this community.
Federally, Trudeau had some positives in his budget. He added a lot to water and waste water services in First Nations communities and into the fisheries an oceans, but he didn't increase allotments to Environment Canada. If they don't undo the damage by reinstated the gutted bills, it'll be as if Harper is still in office. Trudeau launched consultations on those acts instead of reinstating them because the oil and water industries are pushing back. We must tell MPs that they have to fight for this for us.
This is all Possible!!:
"Boiling Point is a cry from my heart to yours." We have to abandon the erroneous belief that Canada has lots of water. We need a federal plan to protect our groundwater. We need to ban pipelines, fracking, and bottled water. We need justice for First Nations. We need a new water ethic that overrides all policies involving water use or that has an impact on water (agriculture, trade deals, etc.). Water is a public trust. It must not be allowed to be taken piece by piece.
Oscar Olivera was leader of first fight in the water wars in Bolivia. Bechtel privatized water and tripled the price and fined anyone capturing rainwater. People fought back and got Bechtel to leave. He explained his dedication with this line: "I would rather die of a bullet than thirst." This is similar to Mike Mercredi's struggle right here. He lives with the tar sands, and when children swim in lakes nearby, they get covered in sores and cysts. He says, "It would be kinder to come in with guns and kill them quickly."
At Site 41, near Barrie, people fought a dump being scheduled on top of an aquifer of exceptionally clean water. In the spring of 2011, Mayors were ready to go ahead with it for the tax money. Equipment was moved in, but First Nations women set up a peace camp and held prayers on the road in front of traffic. They were able to stall the equipment all summer until the frost made the work impossible. Their arrest was ordered, and the community was split three ways on the issue. Pro-dump, pro-water, and undecided. Then one of the leaders of the pro-dump group was presented, by his grandchildren, with the opposition's sign. They pleaded with him, and he announced his job description had changed to being a steward of the water.
THE LAST STRAW (my two cents on activism):
This event was covered by Guelph Today news, and the Council of Canadians site, where both report a 'packed hall' or a 'big crowd'. The thing is, it wasn't all that packed. I was worried about getting a seat, but there were many to choose from. Papers like to suggest that this is important news because everyone who's anyone was there, but in reality this is really important news because so few were there. So few people, particularly younger people (I felt like I was younger than most there), are concerned or "woke" enough to come to a talk or rally or write their MPP or try to fix this vital and life-threatening problem in any concrete way. Writing about small numbers won't sell papers, but it's an important part of reporting the problem. Hopefully it was truly packed in Toronto last night.
When I talk to students about what effective activism looks like, they often focus on people who became famous. Martin Luther King Jr. is a name they hold up as the model of an activist that changed the world. But then activism becomes something far too difficult for an ordinary person to do. How do we possibly get thousands of people to follow us? How do we write and deliver all those speeches? It's not in the skill set of the best of us.
I tell them to keep in mind that MLK didn't start the civil rights movement. He was there at a high-point in the movement, when things dramatically turned a corner. But, and he's said as much, the movement started decades earlier with thousands of people whose names you've never heard and wouldn't recognize. He happened to be the last straw that broke the backs of a racist system. He didn't make it happen. The people who paved the way before him, each one of them were absolutely necessary for the country to galvanize around him. And we never know when we'll hit that corner, when we could be that last straw.
We have to add ourselves to the numbers. We can't do this for fame or fortune; we can't expect that we will be the ones to save the world. We have to work on these issues knowing we likely won't be known or remembered for our work, but it's simply the right thing to do. That people are suffering, literally dying of thirst, so a corporation can increase its profits by duping the public is a travesty. Barlow said the fight is on our doorstep, but I say it's right in our home. This world is where we live, and Nestle needs to get the fuck out.
It seems like every year we have cycling deaths in our community. In the past, the local paper reporting has held a subtle anti-cycling stance, but this summer, some tragic accidents have been clearly cyclist error. People are calling for greater education for cyclists, which is important, and I'll get to it in a minute (scroll down if that's more your interest), but it's only part of the problem. Our city has too many areas that aren't set up well for cycling, particularly around bike paths (ironically), and the rules aren't entirely clear to enough people. There's often heated debate about what cyclists should be doing. As I've said before, statistically, it's no more dangerous to bike than to drive here, but things could certainly be made a whole lot safer.
A FEW EXAMPLES OF QUESTIONABLE BIKE PATH PLANNING (a bit of a rant, so maybe scroll down to the next heading):
"Sometimes it's necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly" (Jerry, The Zoo Story.) - Well, in K-W it is because you often have to turn right in order to go left if you actually want to follow the rules.
According to a recent Record article, "Riding into a crosswalk off the sidewalk is one of the most common scenarios for cyclist-vehicle collisions....Cyclists are not supposed to ride on sidewalks or in crosswalks." The region and city have been adding bike paths and are working on more bike lanes, which is really wonderful, but there are areas in town that have bike paths that end at crosswalks or that encourage cyclists to ride on the sidewalk. People won't risk their lives to follow the rules, and people won't go a long way out of their way to get where they're going, so sometimes the rules are broken.
King and Weber: The bike path from Conestoga Mall ends at the crosswalk on Weber. If I want to continue on the other side of Weber, it's significantly safer for me to cross in the crosswalk (from the circled X to the arrow) than for me to join busy Weber Street traffic to go half-way across King, then join King street traffic to make a left-hand turn on to Weber. But I'm not supposed to bike in the crosswalk. If I were a car, I'd be doing a U-turn, but I'm not really sure how to do that on a bike (or in a car) without travelling straight until the next driveway or side street to turn around. That can be far to travel on a bike just to turn in the opposite direction. I could dismount and walk the crosswalk, but it's hard to convince a cyclists to walk beside a perfectly good bicycle.
Victoria Street and Iron Horse Trail: The bike path hits Victoria at a sign that instructs cyclists to cross at the lights a block away rather than travel directly across the street. Cyclists have to choose between biking the wrong way on the street or biking on the sidewalk, and both are illegal (or ignoring the sign and zipping across the street). To stay mounted means riding to the right until it's possible to turn around. Well, they could also walk their bikes on the sidewalk, but that's unlikely to happen, and, practically speaking, there would be less room for pedestrians to get by, not that there are many pedestrians on that sidewalk anyway. I regularly break the law there by biking on the sidewalk.
Waterloo Park Trail and Father David Bauer Drive (Why are our street names so flippin' long?): As you leave the park from the trail, you'll hit a median. I can't imagine why the median doesn't have a break in it for cyclists to cross the street there. But it doesn't. So we ride on the sidewalk to get to the open crossing at Avondale Ave. I'm not going to ride in the opposite direction on the street to get to a break in the median, then turn around to go where I had originally intended. Imagine asking motorists to do that - turn right and then turn around in order to turn left!
Homer Watson bike paths: To get from one path to another, you have to travel a little bit on Homer Watson. It's a busy four-lane road, but it's got a wide, paved shoulder, so it feels very safe. But if you're travelling west, you need to take the shoulder against traffic (which is illegal) or else cross four lanes of traffic twice, which would be illegal and insane, or you could join traffic to the lights then cross (at the crosswalk, which is illegal, or make a scary U-turn) then ride down Homer Watson to the next set of lights, then ride back up to get to the bike path again. That's not going to happen. Taking the shoulder the wrong way for a few meters is typically the safest choice, except...
there's sometimes a freakin' truck parked on the shoulder. The grassy part is a narrow strip at the top of a steep hill, so travelling against traffic on the road actually seems the safest bet, which should never be the case. A little more bike path connecting the two away from the road would be pretty cool.
Homer Watson and Stirling: The bike path ends at a crosswalk with a walk signal that EVERY SINGLE CAR ignores. On the way there, I waited at the lights to cross Stirling, sitting on my bike at the ready, but cars continued to turn left from Homer Watson to Stirling in front of me until the light changed from a walk signal to a red light. At my next turn, I got off my bike to see if being a pedestrian would help - I got a chance to cross at the "1" of the light countdown, so boarded my bike to cross before the light turned red. I wouldn't have made it across in time on foot. On the return trip, I tried to film the number of cars crossing the crosswalk against a walk signal, but I was trying to cross with my phone in hand, so it was mainly just sky. In this direction, I can understand cars turning left on the walk signal because a pedestrian is almost completely blocked from view by traffic posts. I thought my bike would help visibility, but I ended up crossing at the "0". AND there was a police van waiting at the opposite light, watching the cars turn left as I tried to cross. Nobody was stopped and ticketed even though the MTO's Driver's Handbook clearly states,
"At any intersection where you want to turn left or right, you must yield the right-of-way. If you are turning left, you must wait for approaching traffic to pass or turn and for pedestrians in or approaching your path to cross."
Where's the local paper's report on that?? Until car drivers follow the rules of the road, we're all in danger. MPP Eleanor McMahon's is calling for stiffer penalties for careless drivers since her husband died when he was clipped by a truck while out biking, but what we need is simple enforcement of the laws. I don't think it matters if motorists face a $100 fine or a $1,000 fine if police never stop them. That being said, I also don't get ticketed when I ride through crosswalks or on the sidewalk.
So wait a minute. What's the difference between motorists wanting to get home faster and therefore driving through the crosswalk illegally, and cyclists wanting to cross faster so biking instead of walking through the crosswalk? Potential for harm. When I bike through a crosswalk, I'm out of everyone's way faster and I don't pose a threat to anyone because I'm on the outside edge of the crosswalk. Motorists who ignore the walk signal and turn left in front of pedestrians and cyclists trying to cross, have a greater potential to hit people in the crosswalk.
We have to figure this whole thing out better.
THE RULES ARE CONFUSING:
I'll be so arrogant as to say 'the rules are confusing' rather than say 'I'm an idiot' even though the latter may very well be the case. After all, I don't know how to properly make a U-turn on a bike.
What's an intersection and what's a crosswalk and what's a crossover? The distinctions aren't always clear. I'm also not sure what's a regional road, a township road, and a city road.
A crossover has the XX markers and lights overhead or the walking signs and a striped crosswalk. It's the only place (except where there's a crossing guard) that drivers must wait until the pedestrian completely crosses the road before continuing. I'd love it if that rule could be extended to all crosswalks.
A crosswalk "is a crossing location usually found at intersections with traffic signals, pedestrian signals or stop signs. A crosswalk can be:
the portion of a roadway that connects sidewalks on opposite sides of the roadway into a continuous path; or,
the portion of a roadway that is indicated for pedestrian crossing by signs, lines or other markings on the surface of the roadway at any location, including an intersection." According the MTO "it is illegal to ride across a crosswalk," but I assume we can ride beside one, where cars drive.
Ride a meter from the curb according to the Region's booklet, but the Ministry of Transportation says, "You must stay as close to the right edge of the road whenever possible." Another MTO site says, "it is legal to take the whole lane by riding in the centre of it." It makes sense to be a bit from the road so you're not swerving around garbage and storm drains, and it's wise to stay away from parked cars for fear of being doored, but I'm not ballsy enough to take the lane. There's a fine of only $365 for causing death or disability by opening a door into a cyclist.
In our region, riding on the sidewalk, is okay for kids, even though, in the same pamphlet, it says it's "a contributing factor in 86% of all bike collisions." A City of Waterloo bylaw says it's all about wheel size with diameters less than 50 centimetres acceptable on sidewalks regardless the age of the rider. They also say skateboards aren't allowed on sidewalks, but we all pretty much ignore that one. I still use the sidewalk in areas that feel too risky to use the road. I'd rather pay a ticket than die. Nothing will change that rule-breaking behaviour except making the roads safer.
Cars must give cyclists a metre of space according to the MTO: "All drivers of motor vehicles are required to maintain a minimum distance of one metre, where practical, when passing cyclists on highways," but that 'where practical' bit can allow for a lot of exceptions. But further down it says, "A motorist may, if done safely, and in compliance with the rules of the road, cross the centre line of a roadway in order to pass a cyclist. If this cannot be done, he or she must wait behind the cyclist until it is safe to pass." There's a fine of $110 for motorists who violate this even though clipping a cyclist just a bit can kill them.
Ride single file, according to MTO, and keep at least one metre apart form other cyclists. Large groups should break up into smaller groups of 4-6 which stay a km apart. But in Waterloo Region, it's now legal to ride two abreast on regional roads, but not on city or township roads. I have no idea where the dividing lines are there. Good thing I typically ride solo.
EDUCATE THE MASSES:
As the father of a recent victim said, "Telling them what to do and (them) doing it is two different things." In many cases, accidents aren't so much a matter of missing knowledge but of simple negligence either because the cyclists feel safe enough to allow themselves to zone out, or they choose to ignore the rules for their own perceived safety.
Regardless, there's no harm in schools taking part of a class every spring to re-teach road safety facts. Some people suggest that this will be an arduous undertaking because the training will have to be by volunteers and will take tons of people in order to get to every kid. Here's an alternative suggestion: Get some professionals to take four hours of their time on one PD day every couple years to train all elementary teachers in the region. Give them curriculum to take home or access online that's grade-appropriate in order to help them plan lessons. The Ministry of Education should enforce maybe two or three hours of mandatory road safety in each grade in April or May of every single year and ensure kids are tested and re-tested until they're able to pass the knowledge necessary at each grade. We can't wait for kids to take driver's training; it has to be part of the regular schooling. Then we'll all know the rules. Here are some key ideas to impart beyond basic rules of the road:
Be seen: Have lights and reflectors everywhere. Wear clothes that contrast with the background. Have kids bring in their helmets so they can decorate them with reflective tape stickers. Fun!
Be aware: When I took driver's training, my instructor would periodically cover the rear-view mirror and ask me what's behind me. That was good training to develop an awareness of what all the cars are doing around me. Cyclists need to learn to develop this kind of awareness of everything around them. That's key to their survival. It's not safe to get lost in your own world when you're on the road. The other way driver's ed changed my driving practice was watching terrifying films of accidents. Kids need to be scared into cycling more carefully. They tend towards illusions of immortality, and they need to be reminded of their potential demise if they don't pay attention for a minute.
Signal intention: Everyone should be able to tell what everyone else on the road plans to do next.
Learn how to turn: How to turn left in traffic safely and legally (many still move from one crosswalk to the next) and how to do a U-turn without using the crosswalks. I need to sit in for this one. OR allow cyclists to use the crosswalks when it would be more dangerous to do otherwise.
The elementary schools in our board have decided to boycott the local paper because one columnist has been known to take a decidedly negative view of teachers. So a local MPP, Michael Harris, petitioned Sandals, the Education Minister, to... I'm not really sure what he wants her to do. But he wrote her a letter telling on the teachers.
First of all, I'm not in favour of the boycott. I think there are many forms of media, even other local papers, to be use in the classroom, and the kids won't suffer from the boycott. That's not the problem. I don't agree with refusing to listen to dissenting opinions, poorly argued or otherwise, nor do I agree with modelling that behaviour to students. I've exchanged words with this columnist before, and it was certainly in bad taste for her to call teachers "boneheads" who were "using kids as human shields" when we stopped running extra-curriculars to protest a government-imposed contract with clauses that allowed alterations to be made without further negotiations - basically dismantling workers' rights entirely. And it didn't help her cause when that "human shields" line was still hanging in the air a few weeks later during the Sandy Hook shooting. But I'll still read her column - even if only to get my blood pumping in the morning.
If we're going to collectively boycott something in our schools, we should make it something that causes longterm harm to our kids, like cigarettes or bottled water or the mountains of Tim's cups in the trash or single-sided handouts from the board office.
Secondly, what the hell? Is Harris hoping Sandals will tell teachers what they're allowed to read in the classroom? The boycott isn't going to prevent students from learning about local issues. There are few news stories in The Record that can't be found in The Star a day earlier, and kids can read about LRT-induced road closures online. But I'm curious what legislation he's hoping could be imposed to prevent acts from offending him in future.
What's really bugging me, however, is Harris's suggestion that it was inappropriate for the "union to direct its members" thusly. The union doesn't dictate what members do; the union is made up of the members. Decisions are a matter of majority rule after significant discussion among representatives from each school. OSSTF decided against supporting the boycott after a lengthy discussion and a vote by representatives from each school in the region. The union runs in a similar manner to parliament except that union reps have no reason to ignore their constituents in favour of party politics. Reps don't get extra pay to attend meetings, nor are we basking in glory for our efforts. We're voted in but often by acclamation such are the perks.
Suggesting that the union directs members to strike or work-to-rule or boycott is similar to suggesting that our government dictatorially directs the people towards actions beyond their will, but even less the case. For serious issues, like strike votes, members are offered as much information as they can manage, their questions answered in as much depth as possible, and then they vote without any effort to sway them to one side or another. It's an automatic referendum. For smaller issues, the reps vote as a typical MP might vote in the House. If we don't like the decisions the government makes, we can vote them out. And if a member doesn't like the way the union votes on a decision, change is as simple as offering to replace one of your school's reps. Come on down!
Finally, a word on bias. One letter to the editor suggests, "we are all biased in what we think." I've seen bias used in this context increasingly, but there's a difference between an opinion and a biased opinion. A biased opinion is conceived before or outside of facts; it's a prejudiced idea. It presents an argument that leaves out important information, skews details, uses loaded terms, and/or misrepresents idea. We can have a strong opinion for or against something without being biased, without being led by emotionally-driven appeals instead of facts and data. Bias isn't necessarily the case as long as we keep thinking.
There are dueling petitions out to continue and to stop statues of all 22 prime ministers being planted on the grounds of Wilfrid Laurier University, my old school that I loved all to bits. I wrote about this statue project on its inception two years ago. The statues were originally to be set up at Victoria Park, but a survey of our citizens showed 79% rejected the idea. This debate has made news at The Star, The National Post, and The Globe and Mail, where one professor noted,
"Parliament wants to encourage the participation of diverse groups for the 150th celebrations. No one here was asked what they wanted,” said Nelson Joannette, a history professor at the university. . . . "Imagine any other marginalized group walking around campus and seeing those 22 monuments celebrating great white leaders. What kind of message does that communicate? It flies in the face of what contemporary universities are about."
I talked to my grade 10 students about this issue. They were in full support of the project, but their arguments are telling. They more vocal respondents fell along two lines:
1. "If it's free, then it's good. If someone wants to give you something for free, you'd be crazy not to take it."
The fact that it's privately funded takes away some of the concern of taxpayers, but it raises a different issue. Should wealthy benefactors be allowed to dictate the art that permanently represents our city? As Joannette suggests, if we want to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Canada, our voices should all be heard with respect to what type of display is warranted. Our voices were heard once in this city, and now the majority that protested the statues is being ignored.
2. "I don't see a problem with the First Nation issue. It was so long ago, who really cares about that anymore?"
Yikes! And, exactly. People don't get the connections and the long strings of history that sit behind the current occupation of land, and they don't understand problems with some of the policies of the past that have left a lasting negative impact on our nation. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and the disproportional number of Indigenous people in jails are just skimming the surface of the number of problems created by colonization.
I recognize that we have to understand people's lives within a historical context, much as I praise some of Plato's work even though he was cool with slavery. We can't attack their entire body of work because of one piece. But some PMs don't have much of a piece to praise, certainly not compared to other Canadians focused more on social reform than personal status.
Some American cities have been takingdownconfederatememorials. It's curious we'd want to put up something that could be seen as glorifying a dark history, just as our neighbours are becoming more enlightened.
And our own Luisa D'Amato tried to explain the problems with the opposition to the statue project:
It will be one of the ways that visitors, students and employees get information, both critical and supportive, about the behaviour and legacy of that prime minister. Perhaps a conversation or two will happen. "We're not trying so much to celebrate as we've tried to document," said one of the proponents of this privately funded project, Jim Rodger.
They want to display the PMs with warts and all to elicit further discussion about our history. The problem with Rodger's argument is that he wants to change the meaning of erecting a statue, but we can't arbitrarily change the symbolic vernacular of a culture. We don't look at statues and think, "This group of people obviously wanted to discuss this person further." Culturally, we understand statues to be a commemoration. We can't just change that definition as it suits us.
We should celebrate people who have sacrificed and fought in order to help our nation flourish. Terry Fox, the Famous Five, and Shannen Koostachin are good examples. Being a politician that gets to the top through trickery, dumb luck, or honourable means shouldn't be enough to warrant a bronze legacy. Some politicians fight for the top position for power and prestige, not necessarily to make Canada a better nation. Title alone doesn't make one laudable.
If the statues are about learning about history, then a smaller version of the statues could sit in a display travelling through museums and galleries across Canada. As a temporary display, people will come to see the statues when they're near where they can remark on the trajectory through one PM to another and look for the hidden iconography of the pieces. Maybe they can end up housed in the foyer of Kitchener's The Museum. In a museum, they are clearly an educational tool. As public art, they are celebrations of former Canadians. There's no getting around that.
D'Amato closes with these words: "When people at a university start instantly dismissing something because it makes them uncomfortable, that makes me uncomfortable."
Professors openly discussing and debating an issue in the news is not the same as "instantly dismissing" them. They're presenting their views for larger consideration, and the debate will continue.
But what's really interesting to me about this issue, is how passionately I feel about it. Beyond all the rational discourse, it should be noted that I am shaking with rage at the very idea that a statue commemorating Stephen Harper could go up in MY city. After all he has done to destroy what made Canada great, if he is to be celebrated here, then I WILL MOVE!
This is a post about cycling further than ever before, but first, a bit about boredom:
"Boredom may lead you to anything. After all, boredom even sets one to sticking gold pins into people...one may choose what is contrary to one's own interest...one's own fancy, however wild it may be...desire what is injurious to himself, what is stupid, very stupid - simply in order to have the right to desire for himself even what is very stupid and not to be bound by an obligation to desire only what is rational...this caprice of ours....preserves for us what is most precious and most important - that is, our personality...the whole work of man seems really to consist in nothing but proving to himself continually that he is a man and not an organ stop." - Dostoevsky
"We are less bored than our ancestors were, but we are more afraid of boredom...A generation that cannot endure boredom will be a generation of little men, of men unduly divorced from the slow processes of nature, of men in whom every vial impulse slowly withers, as though they were cut flowers in a vase." - Bertrand Russell
Some people assert their own will by choosing naturopathy over doctors to treat their cancer, or by quitting their satisfactory marriages and careers to seek out a new mid-life adventure. I hope to make slightly more reasonable choices or certainly less self-destructive ones. According to Dostoevsky, I'm sucked into the western ideals of individuality over community, of standing out, which can make us foolish. Melting into the crowd isn't an easy option. Being one with the universe is a task for later when I've figured out how to sit still. And for Russell, who hit puberty in Wales as the Russian was drawing his lasts breaths, being able to endure boredom is essential for happiness. Seeking out excitement to avoid boredom just makes our pleasures less easily felt. He warns,
"pleasures which are exciting and at the same time involve no physical exertion, such, for example, as the theatre, should occur very rarely...certain good things are not possible except where there is a certain degree of monotony."
In art, we'd call that degree of monotony an area of restraint necessary for the eye to relax. It's why some beautiful gardens have an expanse of grass. But mine doesn't. I lean towards chaos.
I get antsy when I don't have a project. The house can be a mess while I deliberate what new task to take on next. My backyard took over for a couple years, and I have ideas of an off-grid home a few years off, but then what now? For better or worse, I'm obsessed with doing, finishing, accomplishing.
So I set as a project to find the limits of my cycling abilities - or, more specifically, the limits of my lungs and heart and other organs and muscles in a body as old and untrained as mine. I'll tell you from the get-go that I failed. But I'll get to that.
Before an annual camping trip with neighbours, I considered having my packed rental car, complete with youngest child, driven by a fellow camper so I could cycle the 137 km to the site. The longest I had ever biked before was 60 km, and I wanted to see how far I could actually go in one trip. I didn't train or prepare in any useful way - that would take the challenge out of it. But having a driver coming up my rear helped because I could bail at any time. It was about seeing how far I could get, not about getting to the end. That was key to the entire adventure. That, and a cell phone to call for help if needed.
This was a decision fraught with a ridiculous amount of anxiety. I tried to keep Epicurus in mind as I was deluged with worries: If pain is not occurring right now, then it’s not bringing pain except for tumults created by imagination, right? I am bringing myself pain, which is ridiculous! So stop worrying about flat tires, swerving trucks, strong wind gusts tossing me into traffic, some crazy guy attacking a lone female, heat stroke, complete organ failure, random loss of appendages, the list goes on. And there's always the old standby concern that, if I leave the house for any significant duration it will burst into flames. From time to time I was struck with absolute terror at the though of being killed in traffic and picturing my children coping with my death. I'd have to actively "X" out the thought and replace it with a vision of biking without incident. Thanks CBT. The fact that many worries are unfounded doesn't seem to lessen their intensity. At all. I actively ignored the looming date, and second-guessed my choice of directions - later to be intensified by many geographical advisors after-the-fact "Why didn't you go this obviously better way?" serving to prove my instincts for direction weak.
So I said nothing to anyone about my hopes to attempt the journey until the last minute; I knew I would be easily swayed to give up before I started. I waited until two days before to ask a neighbour to drive and was almost deterred by her husband's concern about wind, and the night before, I told my kids and then immediately become openly worrisome and neurotic. It's like talking about it tapped the keg of concerns. And it was going to be a windy ride: 20 km/h headwinds until the final 30 k.
It's curious, in areas of insecurity, how much other people's attitudes can affect us. The support of that one comrade, and my son's insistence that, "of course you can do it" were paramount to my leaving the house that morning. I have lots of people in my life - I'm sure we all do - who tell me why I can't possibly do this or that. I ignore the lot of them most of the time, but physical exertion is a weak spot for me, so their voices loomed louder than usual and took some effort to drown out. Some told me I couldn't join a women's ride group because I'm too slow, and others refused admittance to a guy's casual riding group because I don't have the necessary equipment provided by mother nature. I'm not recognized as a cyclist. Even the physiotherapist helping with my aging knees questioned me about my regular trips to Bamburg, a local marker of a hilly 40 k loop from our city:
"Oh so you drive there and then bike around."
"No, I don't have a car."
"Oh, so you live near there."
"No, I live a block from here."
Awkward silence. I just don't look like someone who moves quickly.
So I bike alone.
Armed with a banana, some nuts and raisons, water, my phone and wallet, brand new lights on my bike, and quality bike shorts, I kissed my kids good-bye and set off before dawn hoping to beat the heat of the day. I played music in my head to keep me pumped - possibly a skill developed in only those raised in the pre-walkman era. This one kept my cadence up:
Some think it's nutty not to train formally before a big ride - as if we'll fall to pieces if we don't work towards our goals gradually, but there are too many times the fear of being unprepared stops us from action. We think we can't do this or that because we're not quite ready. Then we dilly dally about doing prep work forever and never actually getting to the thing we actually want to do. I channelled Laura Secord who didn't train for her marathon bushwacking experience. She just got out there and started running through fields and forests.
I didn't wear any fancy duds or pimp out my ride either. I did get a pair of good bike shorts because, since about 40, my butt fat has all gravitated around the corner to my belly - and, just my luck, just in time for a big booty to be in style too. Extra padding was necessary there, but then I just threw on a t-shirt and sandals and my stand-by helmet. And I thought of Marathon Man, and Dustin Hoffman copying Abebe Bikila's run without shoes. But Secord and Hoffman's character were running for their lives. I was creating a situation as if it were a necessity knowing full well it was a luxury. I had to convince myself of an importance for it in order to develop any motivation to go.
For me, the point of cycling is to go places. It's not to work out and live longer because we could die any minute. And it's not to work out to match the current beauty standard because we could be hated anyway regardless our quest for physical perfection. For me, it's all about getting off our fossil fuel addiction. If a middle age woman without any know-how can do over 130 k in a t-shirt and sandals, with a crappy bike, then maybe you can bike to work. Amiright?!
I was once told by a colleague that I could never be a department head because I don’t have a car, but people don't understand that we can get almost anywhere without a car. And we can bike dressed in our everyday clothes. Granted I still used a car to transport my camping gear and daughter, but with more of us cycling, we could definitely use fewer cars. We need to move under our own steam whenever we can.
The trip was also about finding my boundaries, but part of it was about getting over my fear of biking further from home alone – the fear of having an accident, but more a fear of boogie men out to attack me. People are mainly nice and helpful. There are some odd ducks, but the odds are in my favour. And, with the exception of a brief trek on a major highway, everyone moved over a lane to give me space. I was completely safe.
Part of the journey was because I turned 50. I'm in a hurry to do stuff because it gets a little clearer that any day could be my last. I'm still stuck on having a leave-behind, a legacy, even though I'm pretty convinced there won't be generations to come to remember any of this. With climate change, there’ll be no leave-behinds. Having kids or writing a book or erecting a statue will have no impact on future generations if there ARE no future generations because the planet has become largely uninhabitable by our species. This death is a final death.
But some thing can still make me feel like a kids again. When I listen to certain songs, I'm 17 again. And when I’m on my bike, I’m 10, riding to the corner store in my bathing suit with a nickel in my hand for a freezie.
Just beyond the half-way point, at 70 k in, my legs and lungs were fine, but my eyes started getting weirdly blurry, so I took that as a sign to re-fuel. I stopped briefly to stretch, eat, and drink. I just had 23 k to get to the next city where I could sit in a Tim's to wait for the car if I needed to.
I was surprised that it wasn't the hills that got me but the long flat parts where there wasn't anything to mark the passage of time. I watched this in my head as I pedalled:
The music and videos come to me of their own accord, but cycling distances alone takes me to that wonderful zoned-out place where I often come up with entire concepts I couldn't possibly find in my hectic kitchen. Like if it's a coincidence that Rex Harrison played mentor to Eliza Doolittle then later played Dr. Doolittle. Weird. It's a state that can't be as easily achieved with another cyclist there - if they try to have a conversation or if I feel pressure to keep up or have to wait at every turn. That modicum of attention somehow destroys access to the internal world.
And then there's the beauty of the scenery with light filtering through the trees, and the cows cheering me on up the hills. Montaigne said,
When I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts have been dwelling on extraneous incidents for some part of the time, for some other part I bring them back to the walk, to the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude, and to me.
Prolonged activity allows time to get sufficiently bored to actually start paying attention to the details of the world. Those magnificent details!
But the trip was also about reaching a goal even if I didn't want it to be. My mom died in her 60s of cancer, and my sister got cancer in her 40s. I always expected to die young, and I've been ever impatient to finish things because I might be dead tomorrow. I update my will regularly and leave behind instructions in case I die whenever I leave for a trip. It's not the case that I'm living fearful of death, but that I'm living authentically recognizing that it’s right around the corner for all of us. My son sometimes asks me if I’m afraid to die, and I worry mainly, as a single mom, if they’ll all be okay without me – it’s been my primary worry for the past 21 years. Not just financially, but will they have someone to go to when they feel misunderstood by the world. But other than their future, I think I'm okay with it.
And the trip was also about sheer endurance. We need to suffer in order to grow. We need a bit of adversity in our lives - challenges, and since we've had it easy for so long in this time and place, we sometimes need to create personal challenges. Nietzsche wrote about wishing difficulty on others so they can find the strength to fight. It's not about training to cycle, but about training to get in there. Staying in there for that hill creates the means to stay in there to keep on about climate change and injustices and politics even when most people seem completely apathetic.
And then I saw the sign for the campsite and started singing:
And suddenly I was Rocky at the top of the steps, and Sarah Conner bein' badass in T2.
I felt completely fine at the end. I wasn't sore at all, but I was tired of doing the same thing for so long - almost 7 hours of riding plus a lunch break on top: that's a full work day!
I made it the whole way without being rescued, so I still haven't found my limit.
There will be time....
A hawk hanging out at our campsite.
***
It's curious... actually it's not at all curious... but I posted my bike trip from Runkeeper on Facebook, and I also updated my profile picture that was ten years old. The profile change got 12 times the likes as my journey. Being able to keep my casing reasonably smooth trumps actually being capable or useful. So if you want to impress others, stay skinny, smooth, and symmetrical. Doing stuff carries a more personal reward.
It's about arguing in favour of a woman's right to take off her shirt.
How stupid, right?
I mean, it's stupid that we have to argue about this and try to make it clear to everyone why it should be acceptable and actually have to argue with police who don't know it's been legal in Ontariofor decades. But some people - mainly men, judging by the comment on various articles - are still having a hard time with it. And it's really, really stupid that 8-year-old children and their parents have to deal with this crap. So we'll keep arguing. Here are some concerns (in bold below) raised on the issue:
There are so many more important issues out there. People are dying of starvation, and lions are being shot by dentists. This is a non-issue, really.
Climate change is here to stay, and it's only going to get hotter. (Yes I can too make any issue become an environmental issue.) If only half the population can cool off by taking their shirts off when they're dripping with sweat, then that's only going to be a bigger problem as the mercury rises. Anyone overheating should be allowed to ditch a layer as needed.
And about those other issues? We can work on more than one issue at a time. It's totally do-able. The fact that there are worse issues out there is never a good reason to stop working on discrimination issues, which are often foundational problems requiring more attention than they're generally given.
But what about the children?
Children learn what's shameful from us. If adults are nonchalant about bare breasts, then kids will be too. Any trauma caused by the sight of non-sexual nudity is from the context adults wrap around it not from the nudity itself. It can be funny to see people showing more than we're used to, but once we're used to it, then it's no longer a big deal. We're all used to women showing off their ankles now, and that used to cause quite a stir!
Breast are sexual in a way that a male chest is not.
Breasts are sexual body parts. When I see them, I can't control myself.
There is a bizarre notion that exposed breasts are sexual breasts even when they're being used to feed children or just hanging out doing nothing. This is just plain incorrect. Because someone is turned on by something they see doesn't mean that what they're looking at is necessarily objectively sexual. Lots of body parts are enticing to others yet we don't cover everything. And men CAN control themselves. If they choose not to, then they should bear the consequences (assuming, of course, that there will be some serious and predictable consequences once day).
Okay, but breasts are more than just attractive body parts. They're erogenous zones actually used in sexual acts.
Breasts are pretty sexy; no arguments here. And they can definitely be a significant part of sexual antics. BUT so many other body parts that are regularly open to the gaze of the general public are erogenous zones used in sexual acts.
And if we want to be really sexy, it's often best to cover up a bit. Baring all isn't as sexy as baring a little. So, technically, it could be argued that naked boobs are less sexy than partially covered boobs, so, therefore, by the logic of this concern, women should be banned from just partially covering their sexy bits. Which is stupid (the banning bit, not the partially covering bit).
Women won't bare their breasts anyway because they're afraid of being sexually harassed.
This is unfortunately very true. This CBC article seems to address this, sort of. The article doesn't really clarify the interviewed professor's opinion on the issue as much as it acknowledges one concern some women might have: Should women really bare their breasts if it's only going to lead to street harassment? But isn't that the same kind of question as: Should women really wear tank tops and short skirts if it's only going to lead to street harassment? There's a policing attitude in those questions that implies that women are in control of when they get harassed. (Not that the prof being interviewed is asking that question - it really wasn't clear what she thought.) Here's the problem with this line of reasoning: women can get cat-called in a snowsuit and assaulted while they're wearing sweatpants and a hoodie. I just got home from a cottage visit in which I whipped through this excellent book on campus rapes (which has made me very feisty on this one), and I'm pretty sure what women are wearing has scant correlation to whether or not they're assaulted. In fact, women bold enough to go topless could be less harassed because of their perceived assertiveness. Women don't get sexually assaulted because of their clothes; they get assaulted because of a chance encounter with a rapist.
Are women afraid of being harassed because of what they're wearing - or not wearing? Absolutely. But that's a different problem that needs a different solution than suggesting women cover up for safety. (Not that the prof was suggesting that, but it certainly could be read into that article.)
Women won't bare their breasts anyway because they're afraid they don't measure up.
Yup. This is also true, but it also sucks. Women are bombarded with idealized images of what's "normal" to the extent that they think they're aberrations to be shunned or exiled. But maybe a little more exposure to real women on the street could actually diminish that problem. If women everywhere, of all ages, walk around topless, maybe we'll all realize that actually very few have perfect, perky, symmetrical, stand-up boobs that don't need any support. And then we'll feel great by comparison - or at least good enough to stop comparing ourselves to each other in some twisted competition for attention from the male gaze which we don't even want so much once we get it.
Furthermore, because only a few people take advantage of a law doesn't mean the law shouldn't exist. A minority of people marry people of the same sex, but we're pretty clear that it should be an option open for everyone. We need to keep it on the books that women can take off their shirts anywhere a man can. Whether they actually do or not is a neither here nor there.
I'll go to the march on Saturday, but I'll likely be fully clothed. It's not just because I worry about harassment or about measuring up, but because I worry about losing my job for doing something weird with students around. And it is weird... so far. It's deviant behaviour in that few people find it acceptable.
But maybe that's about to change.
ETA: In hindsight, I wish I had walked topless in that march. I lost my breasts to cancer the following year.
