Don To Earth

I'm Not Dead

2007-03-08T21:30:00.000-05:00

To my readers: Family concerns are currently preventing me from posting to "Don To Earth", and from responding to the numerous e-mails that I have received and continue to receive.

Don

My Grandfather And Others

2007-02-14T16:43:00.000-05:00

As I deal with people, some of whom are very close to me, I think of my grandfather, whom I have mentioned before. He died of "fever" in his kidneys at 87 years of age, and it was said that if you listened carefully at his grave, you could still hear his heart beating. My point is that the way he chose to live was very easy on his heart. I never saw him excited, and his lifelong habit was to be 20 minutes early for everything. I remember him on Sunday, with the horse and wagon ready outside, sitting reading while waiting for the rest of us to appear. A couple of months before he died, he had mowed the front lawn carefully with a scythe, in preparation for our arrival from Halifax for the summer vacation, and then had run over a mile to help put out a fire at the creamery in which he held shares. He was part of a bucket brigade bringing water from the lake, and this is how he developed the kidney trouble that took him away about two months later.

With the exception of emergency situations like this, my grandfather was knowingly not under stress, and was always ready ahead of any appointed time. Not everyone is like my grandpa -- some like to see how close to the line they can come, and they frequently miss, some being late by a predictable 20 minutes, which seems to be the magic length of time to be late or early. For myself, I am on time for things. In fact, as a deadline creeps up on me, I resort to my training in radio and television before there was tape delay. This means that I tend to be about five minutes early for whatever is happening, and it is so calming that I do not know why everyone does not deliberately follow the example of my grandfather.

American Express

2007-02-11T20:59:00.000-05:00

Because my wife is in a nursing home -- one of several types of institutions specializing in reasonably comfortable, but very expensive, accommodations for senior adults -- my finances, which were looking better than for a long time, need careful re-examination.

Leave us begin with credit cards, most of which "save money" by allowing us to "take advantage" of golden, silver and brass opportunities, sometimes in very far away lands, where you can get great bargains by spending a few thousand to get there and, of course, back again (by this point in the sentence, I've forgotten who's taking advantage of whom). If I seem to be casting doubt on all these prospects and their premises, of course it is intentional. Anyway, back to my title, and the fact that I hold title to such a card, at least until AmEx gets tough with me, which I sincerely hope never happens.

To feel prosperous, I took out American Express a few years ago, and since I have an inherited Presbyterian conscience about money, I keep it paid with a warm feeling about these nice folks allowing me into this exclusive club of countless millions. I have an AmEx Gold Card, as well as a regular one, for all of which I pay an annual fee. But since these days there seem to be so many other credit angels offering me free money, I must stop and rein in the vanity, because that is all it is -- I refer you to Ecclesiastes: "All is vanity".

Unfortunately, since this is a blog post, which for me begins its life on the written page, my time has run out. To my credit, I've kept within my self-imposed one-page limit.

Who Are You?

2007-02-08T21:17:00.000-05:00

Here in Canada, we are hearing much about nationhood, or at least about nations. We have the First Nations, the Quebec nation, the nation of Alberta, and more (Newfoundland?). We hear also of the Catholics, who used to be the Roman Catholics, and of course there are Greek Orthodox Catholics, Coptic Catholics, and more. The word "catholic" is still used to mean "universal", as in "catholic tastes", and "nation" means that beyond our borders, all are foreigners. I'm afraid Humpty Dumpty has been at it again, with his "words mean what I mean them to mean", and his firm conclusion that what matters is "who is to be master -- that's all".

It is easy to insist on definitions, even legal definitions, in matters such as these, but in every case we can see a struggle for dominance, or at least for survival, and we find ourselves back for another reading of Instincts of the Herd. One thing is certain: the legal profession will always be with us. It is apparent that each of us wants to belong, and to defend the herd or group with which we identify ourselves. Of course, since each of us belongs to several herds, we cannot always be sure to which herd we are loyal at any one time. Is that herd geographic, ethnic, religious, economic, or other? Wolves don't have this problem, nor do ants. But we have this problem in abundance, even with the sexes, which now are three, or is it four?

So who are you? Who I am depends on where I am, and with whom I am. All right -- like the rest of us, I'm not sure.

Series Habits

2007-02-05T20:58:00.000-05:00

U-pun my word, my title is serious. Habits are very serious things indeed. Without them, we would have to figure out certain actions anew each shining or foggy day. I suppose memory would help, but morning routines would be matters for attention, rather than things to be done on autopilot while planning the day. So clearly habits are not all bad; in fact, they make orderly life possible. And habits do come in series -- one leads to the next, and they supplement each other. We have a series of actions to get us up and cleaned and dressed and looking our best for whatever sort of day we see ahead. Then another series gets the car out and down the driveway and navigating the morning traffic. We can arrive at work having forgotten a very important errand that we intended to do on the way, but which was not a part of our usual routine.

Other habits cannot be regarded as good without some thought. We can gradually stay up later and later, and acquire all the ills of sleep deprivation. We can consistently stop in at the bar on the way home for a few drinks and some fried food, without consideration for calories or a history of family heart troubles or the possibility of having to breathe into a police machine for a routine alcohol check.

Clearly bad habits are hard to change, but good habits are wonderful. At the very best, we can put a good habit into the place of a bad one. The worst option is to pay habits no attention, and they will indeed look after themselves.

Blogs: Servant, Master, Or Free Mouthpiece?

2007-02-01T20:44:00.000-05:00

I am now a veteran of fifty or so blog posts, but like all the rest of you, I have cogitated for years, which for me is generations. I have thought and written about my various opinions, and about all the wisdom which must have been repeatedly worked out and then lost again throughout the millennia. In light of this, I am impressed beyond words (well, almost) by the arrival of this form of communication called the blog, which, at the very least, equals the invention of the printing press. Read that, and remember that it is coming from one (me) who is regarded (by me and others) as glum and difficult where words are concerned, and generally not inclined to be effusive.

Blogs are wonderful. Vanity is served at once. If you don't listen, it is your fault. Also, by the very nature of the medium, your audience sorts itself out. Readers don't pay anything, so they really can't complain. Anyone can join in, rebut, whatever -- surely this is democracy, whatever that is, at its most lively and pushy. In the realm of human communication, blogs seem to me to be the atomic units that transistors are in the world of digital devices that surround us.

Having said all this, I am careful, questioning, and a little frightened about the future. I do not think that we, with our unique facility of language, are to be trusted with much. But at the same time, I don't want to stop the momentum of whatever it is that will emerge from the tunnel. Stay tuned.

Honesty? Impossible - But Negotiable, Of Course

2007-01-29T17:05:00.000-05:00

It seems obvious that nobody can ever be honest at all times. Nor can we be absolutely against stealing and killing. These are negotiable, as are many issues in life. Usually we are for honesty and against killing and stealing, but killing can earn us the highest medal for valour, and the morality of stealing certainly depends on the circumstances, while complete honesty as to a loved one's whereabouts may doom that person to death.

No hunter is ever entirely honest with his prey. No soldier will reveal everything to the enemy who is trying to kill him. No starving colonized native is going to be completely forthright with the European plantation owner who forces him from his ancestral lands. In fact, it is ridiculous to consider the question of honesty except in relation to the more fine-grained question: Honest with whom? This brings us immediately to matters of loyalty, and thus to herds and the herd instinct. We risk getting into the biology of competing organisms, and even of our own tissues, which can reject very slightly different ones, or mistakenly identify self as foreign.

Many religious positions deal with absolutes. Often these are based on unexamined premises, which, for Heaven's sake (pun intended), must be the soul of dishonesty. All too often such stances remind us of Alice and Humpty, and his dictum that what really matters is who is to be master. So once again the question of honesty gives way to defining the terms we use, and to defining our interests in a situation. Perhaps clarity can be brought to the whole issue of honesty by one attempt to define its opposite: "A lie is an untruth told to someone who deserves to hear the truth".

Now I Feel Responsible

2007-01-26T11:37:00.000-05:00

My blog, a little over six months old, has become popular. Until now, I have been able to write about anything that occurred to me, not really caring how many people paid attention. Now I feel I have a standard to uphold, and I fear this will cramp my style -- which I didn't try to have. No doubt this phenomenon is part of being or feeling responsible.

I have seen this happen before. When the Canadian Museums Association was put together, with little or no money, it had a real flavour because of the personalities of the eager volunteers. With time, and growth, and hired hands who saw to their own survival, quite naturally some of this flavour was lost. We oldsters hardly recognize it now, even if occasionally we receive some honour for our contributions in the past. I fear this will happen in the free, accidental world of blogs, including my own.

Part of this might be a holding back from subject matter or treatment that could offend some category of readers. Part might be an inclination to look for stuff which will be even more popular. Now there is a foot on the brake and a foot on the accelerator, if ever I've seen one (or two). No matter. Whatever happens, I know I am now a thoroughly hooked blogger.

It Bothers Me That I Have To Go

2007-01-23T21:34:00.000-05:00

Nowadays, no matter how much I try to put off decisions until later, I must admit that everything seems to bother me. For example, my writing bothers me, because I have to be careful to be legible, even to myself. I am quite sure I have had a stroke (the final medical diagnosis is still pending), a small one I suppose, since I still drive a few weeks after my 93rd birthday. At this age, I must say that I do delight in people's amazement when I tell them how old I am. But under all this is the knowledge that I am the oldest male on either side of my family, maternal or paternal, and I know I must go fairly soon. I just don't like the idea.

I've floated on the remark "Been there, done that" for some time now, but the notion that the moment is approaching when I can no longer say this bothers me. The truth is, I don't want to go.

There are many reasons. For too long I have behaved as if I could postpone going indefinitely, and thus have so many things that I must do first. I don't want my successors to find out how much I could have done that isn't done, not by a long shot. There are numerous notes and letters I must write. There are places I've wanted to travel, but never had the chance. Actually, each of you can, if you think yourself into my age, fill out the list. At least you can try to understand why I say that I hate to go.

A Stroke Of Bad Luck?

2007-01-20T16:47:00.000-05:00

Apparently, I have had a TIA, a transient ischemic attack, and like blogs, this is now a part of my life, for a long time to come, I sincerely hope. To those less familiar with medical terminology, I've had a small stroke. This was just hours before I turned 93, and it affects my writing. If it is a good thing, it is because it will also affect my behaviour, causing me to attend to matters that I have postponed, but which should not be left to my heirs.

Some of what I need to do is simply to simplify. I have been meaning to get rid of my credit cards, including Platinum American Express, "forced" on me by vanity (at an annual fee). Then there are magazines that I glance at, but do not read, and which add to the fairly neat piles all over the place. Many items around me are just waiting for attention or for use that will never come. If I wrapped them properly, could they serve as gifts?

One good thing is that I appreciate people more. A flood of phone calls, for example, came within the 48 hours which included my stroke, my birthday, and Christmas, and for these I was most grateful. They were from family, of course, and also from my colleague with whom I came to Toronto 41 years ago to establish the Ontario Science Centre. Enough. My point is that I have had quite a wake-up call, and I intend to heed it.

Why I Am A Cautious Coward

2007-01-17T22:24:00.000-05:00

I've given much thought to this, whether I am really a coward, or just extremely cautious.

Whichever it is, I think I know the primary reason -- namely, that I did not get killed in the Halifax Explosion (the topic of my last post). Having survived this tragic event, along with the experiences that followed, why would I go out of my way to prove how brave I was by deliberately running risks? Living in seven addresses in the two and a half years after the Explosion, making adjustments to each, why would I not play it safe, if possible? By the age of six and a half, I was a very cautious creature.

One of the other main reasons to be careful was that I was small, and always in the company of others who could slap me down, physically speaking. But I was smart, and did homework for the big boys, who became my protectors. To belong to a group did not seem to pay, because gangs beat up gangs, and the small members got it the worst. All through my growing up years, the benefits of being careful and waiting until I had some advantage were emphasized to me. And the flip side of being watchful in order to avoid trouble is that while observing developments, opportunities stare at you, first to make friends, and second to get in on good things early.

Along the way, from time to time, the question of when caution become cowardice intrudes. If I ever solve this one, I'll let you know.

On December 6th, I Missed A Party!

2007-01-14T21:48:00.000-05:00

The party I missed was at TV Ontario, where I spent several years. That day, I was helping to move my wife from a retirement home to the nursing home where she still is. It was such a busy day that it was over before I remembered the party. But the date is also significant for a much more lifelong reason (and I do mean lifelong) -- it was the anniversary of the day in 1917 when the greatest man-made explosion prior to the atomic bomb went off in Halifax Harbour. The blast was fueled by over 2500 tons of TNT, picric acid, and other volatile materials in the Mont Blanc, just leaving for convoy overseas to take part in the war of 1914-18. I was four years old, and survived physically unscathed, but my mother lost an eye and my aunt was thoroughly crippled. The large family across the street was not so fortunate -- all but one died at breakfast. It was, and still is, the dividing date in my life. During the next two and half years, I lived in seven places, three of them foster homes.

All this made me anything but a headstrong hero about anything. I learned I was not the boss anywhere, and this made me a very good boss later on, as a teacher, as the head of museums, and as the chairman of associations of various sorts. I was careful, and preferred to be understated until I showed my hand, although I know my real nature was to take charge. The Halifax Explosion took my DNA and made me what I became. On December 6 each year, I am very conscious of all this.

Life goes on, however, so no TVO party, and I try to come to terms with my wife's weakened state. Sadly, no one I met that day seemed aware of the significant historical event that happened exactly 89 years prior. Tempus does fugit.

The Blog That Wrote Itself

2007-01-11T21:34:00.000-05:00

The incredible things that happen in life outdo anything that your imagination, or mine anyway, could come up with (almost ending this sentence with a preposition, which we know we cannot do). Enough of that -- back to the blog that wrote itself. I think it is about the long arm of coincidence, or the odds of certain improbable things happening.

The coincidence is that my wife, who rarely travels due to her current medical condition, and my daughter, who lives far from here, both ended up at Niagara Falls on the same day, each completely unaware of the other, perhaps even watching the falls at the same time.

My daughter and her husband were attending a wedding, and those details seem to defy chance. Her husband is a teacher, and a brilliant student of his, from Inner Mongolia, was marrying a girl from Nova Scotia. The wedding was set for that classical honeymoon spot, and his parents, academics themselves, flew in from China to witness their only son's nuptials. The wedding went well, and all stayed over for a few days. My daughter phoned to ask about her mother, but I had no new news, as I was just about to leave to see Margie on my daily visit to the nursing home where she has been for over a month. When I arrived, to my great surprise Margie had left, part of a busload gone on a sightseeing trip, complete with wheelchairs.

Of course, the trip was to Niagara Falls, and so my wife and daughter were there at the same time, but certainly not together. My wife gets back at eight o'clock, it is now six, and this episode ranks with the one where I met my wife in the first place, when I was in an unfamiliar town in Nova Scotia, buying milk for a travelling lunch. (Perhaps more about that later.)

I suppose my question really is: Do such impossible odds happen to all of us?

Sex And All That

2007-01-08T19:03:00.000-05:00

Whether we are implicit or explicit about it, sex permeates our behaviour and opinions. There is, of course, sexual activity that leads to progeny, wanted or not. But in any case, if we think for a moment we realize to what extent sexual behaviour is actually herd behaviour. The consequences of this may lead us to wring our hands in despair, become cynical, or simply reserve judgment.

The expressions of our sexual drives, and reactions to them, are certainly diverse. We have pornography, laws, surgical procedures, even discussions about how many sexes to recognize. Sex, it seems, is inextricably linked to love, but love is an infinitely malleable word -- we have love of country, love of good food, even love of wordplay (mea culpa). Yet however we try to identify love, gender creeps in and dominates.

To get back to sex, not really having left it, we have difficulties, for example, in drawing lines between what is art, what is pornography, and what is simply historical or cultural description. To some, sex is primarily a sport, with its wins, losses, and downright fun. Clearly some of this fun is sin, especially when it involves relationships too close to yourself, like mother, brother, and so on.

Of course, a lot of sin produces fine children, by whatever standard we judge them. At times this is due to the joining of recessive genes, which can produce results ranging from very bad to exceptional. A number of the great musicians were the offspring of what we would call repeated incest, letting recessive genes do their magnificent best. Enough of this. Now try not to think about sex for the next ten minutes.

Attractive Stuff

2007-01-04T22:00:00.000-05:00

There is a limited number of ideas that hold up under examination, however insistent, repeated, or challenging. One of these, so far, is "Everything in the universe attracts everything else with a constant and unfailing force". We know it here as gravity. In our solar system, the planets zoom about in elliptical orbits that slowly decay over time. Eventually, the sun will win and swallow the planets. Further out, all the stars attract all the others, affecting the motions of stars within groups of stars (galaxies), within groups of groups of stars (galaxy clusters). The attractive nature of stuff, or matter, cannot be denied.

Since stuff accounts for the motion of stuff in a well-behaved way, astronomers can use mathematical formulas (ranging from simple to elaborate) to map these motions, and to determine where all these objects are located. Of course, as a first approximation we can begin with the naked eye, as humans have done for millennia. We can see an impressive amount on a clear, moonless night. And we are quite sure that most, maybe all, of the stars we see have more stuff orbiting around them, ranging from dust to planets. But what about the rest of space, where there are no visible objects of which we are aware? Apparently something in "empty" space also affects the motions of celestial bodies -- something called dark matter. It may be spread so evenly, or have such elusive properties, that it can never be found by our very sophisticated instruments. However, indirect evidence says it exists nonetheless, this elusive matter, this condensed energy.

So there you have it -- stuff, whether visible or invisible, attracts. This principle is as commonplace as a falling apple, and as enigmatic as dark matter. Yet lest you attribute too much power to this wonderful force called gravity, keep in mind Einstein's wry disclaimer: "Gravity cannot be held responsible for people falling in love".

I'm Almost Man Of The Year

2007-01-01T23:20:00.000-05:00

Well, I am the "Person of the Year", because Time Magazine says so, and I am also almost the "World's Oldest Blogger", except for a Swede who is a year or so older, and an American who is just a few months older. This seems to be the story of my life, to be the very reliable runner-up. I suppose I should say that I am pleased about all this, and I am -- almost.

Time's award is to all of us who create content on the Web. I do that, and I also spend a growing number of hours trying to keep up with the reactions to my "Don To Earth" blog. In the past, I understand that I have been considered for the Order of Canada for my services in museums, libraries, heritage, and radio and television broadcasting. I realize I am almost bragging here, but I don't think I have stepped, or slid, over the line. I just had to make the point that I am very nearly as good as any of them.

It is not hard to see how my various interests and involvements have tied together, how one thing has led to another. Broadcasting promoted my museums, and broadcasting also piled up ideas that could be used in other contexts, so when a family member pushed me into blogs, my brain and my filing cabinet were full of material, and suddenly there I was on the Internet, all over the world.

I think I have more than almost made my case, and with no "almost" about it, I accept Time Magazine's honour. Thank you very much.

A Brief Interlude

2006-12-21T19:03:00.000-05:00

(Actually, these are boxer shorts, not briefs.)

In light of the Christmas season (pun intended), I will be taking a brief hiatus from blogging for a week or more. In the meantime, have a great Christmas, everyone, and Happy New Year!

The Presses Are Rolling - All Over Us

2006-12-18T21:17:00.000-05:00

I understand that newspapers are losing readership to electronic media, but I also hear that newspaper publishers everywhere are being bid for at rising prices. What is going on?

Freedom of the press has been the approved moral position of our culture for centuries. During those same years, however, monopolization of the press &mdash which began with moveable type and now charges ahead in this mystifying time of digital "yes" and "no" &mdash has had its loyal supporters.

In the sea of media in which we are engulfed, there is an endless supply of such contradictory stances. We have mounting evidence of the dreadful cost to society of obesity, together with increasingly skillful manipulation of our eating habits by advertising agencies (in the direction of more calories). We witness encroaching centralized control of media, and simultaneously unfettered freedom for individuals, as exemplified by this very blog (among millions). We are lectured to by those who would guide us to financial freedom through prudent savings, and we are overwhelmed by vendors promising us: "Buy now, and don't pay anything for 12 months!"

Free enterprise and freedom of the press must mean that we are free to read, to look, to listen, to do whatever we like. No doubt there are some who turn everything off as they go about their mental lives, but they are indeed few. Most of us abhor silence, and welcome input. When forced to wait, we pick up something to read or listen to or even to watch. Of course, it must be our own fault if, in so doing, we invite pressures on ourselves &mdash or is it?

Philosophize as we will, in the meantime the free presses are rolling, and rolling all over us. All this begs the question: Are we as "free" as they are? That should make us think. At least we are still free to do that &mdash the last time I checked.

Words Of Wisdom

2006-12-15T21:16:00.000-05:00

Recently, I bought a book at a temporary stall set up in the entrance to a Salvation Army hospital. It cost $11.99, and in retrospect I should have bought more of their books. It is called "8000 Things You Should Know", and thanks to plagiarism, it could supply blog material for as long as I live. I suppose not all 8000 will be "words of wisdom", but undoubtedly some of them will. In the spirit of that book, here are a few other insightful (and pithy) remarks. These are taken from an old clipping of unknown origin, and I hereby borrow them for "my" column.

Mark Twain: Golf is a good walk spoiled.
Lily Tomlin: The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you are still a rat.
Groucho Marx: Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
Voltaire: The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
Gioacchino Rossini: How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers.
John Ciardi: There is nothing wrong with sobriety in moderation.
Woody Allen: I took a speed reading course and read "War and Peace" in 20 minutes. It involves Russia.
Dorothy Parker: Brevity is the soul of lingerie.
G.K. Chesterton: To be clever enough to get a great deal of money, one must be stupid enough to want it.

I have some words of wisdom of my own that I have amassed over the years. But enough — I don't want to overdo it. As Solomon mysteriously admonished, "Do not be overly wise".

Age Equals Incompetence, Right?

2006-12-13T17:16:00.000-05:00

As we grow older, our senses and physical abilities tend to become less available and less effective, but many of us take for granted that this happens on something of a time schedule, just as the leaves fall in the fall, and then comes winter. I suppose, as it is December and the leaves are long gone, and as I will be 93 the day before Christmas, that I am being personal again.

I have written before about the tendency of people to regard me as changed since I am over 90. Some of those closest to me are among this lot. I do observe that I drive more carefully now, but this is because I want to avoid any discussion with the authorities about age if I commit some tiny infraction. I accept that eventually time conquers all, but I also know that individual schedules are hard to predict.

Composers create music, and musicians give concerts well into their late eighties. We see people of that "ripeness" completing marathons, even if not winning them any longer. Writers and scientists do very well at similar ages. Understanding accumulates, I think — I was party to matters in my fifties that I am too "smart" to touch now. The "been there, done that" flavour of wisdom does not suffer with the passage of time.

Some societies, as termites and primitive human groups, pool their learned and instinctive behaviour, acting as the group "knows" how to act, often avoiding pitfalls thereby (sometimes literally). This collective wisdom is passed down from generation to generation, a group inheritance of sorts. However, it is difficult to find examples of such complete cooperation in our Western society, or of such attention being paid to the knowledge of elders. In the rush of modern culture, is the voice of the older individual still heard?

In Mourning, Among Her Souvenirs

2006-12-10T20:37:00.000-05:00

My first wife, as I have always reminded her she is, is in the hospital, and has not been home for over eight weeks. She has had many ongoing medical conditions, from hereditary thyroid deficiency to Type 2 diabetes. Her heart efficiency is about 30% after a heart attack in October, and now her blood sugar levels call for monitoring and readily available insulin. And what can I say about myself other than that I am in mourning?

Here I am, in a home where I am surrounded by her choices of nearly everything I look at. As you come in the front door, a lovely big bowl of fake flowers greets you, and the walls have her framed selections, some of family memories. In the off-kitchen eating area &mdash as we have eliminated a definite dining room &mdash the wall decorations range from extremely good to great, and the junk in the adjoining kitchen is definitely OK. In short, Margaret Hilda MacLeod Crowdis, my present wife, is just everywhere.

In the middle of the night, I am careful when I get up for drainage purposes, so as not to disturb her who is not there. In the morning, I always come downstairs early to read the papers, and can't help thinking about her preferences for breakfast. Since I am almost 93, what do you think I think of during those early hours but the future, and what on earth (good expression) I can do about it?

Between missing Margie, and wondering when we will again share the same residence, I am simply reduced to this: I am in mourning among her souvenirs.

We Begin To Die ...

2006-12-07T20:41:00.000-05:00

As I am contemplating my 93rd birthday this coming Christmas Eve, my thoughts are, of course, on life with all its mysteries, and on death with some mysteries of its own. As has been said, "If we knew all about anything, we would know all about everything". I am still alive, but not as "alive" as I once was, and I realize that this process has been gradual and inexorable. As I approach death, I ask questions concerning when I was most alive, and I have reason to think it was just following that lucky sperm being allowed into that lucky egg. The speed of division and specialization was never so great again. I am very aware that my cell replication and repair processes are still slowing, and that this can only result in something vital not happening, or not happening correctly enough. Then I will, for the record, die, although many of my tissues will be sufficiently alive to be usable by a lucky, compatible, somebody. This is a fascinating thought, that parts of me might "live" after I have died.

Taken all together, though, I would choose to stay here &mdash in one piece and in good shape, of course &mdash indefinitely longer. I would not object to being the oldest human on the planet by a hundred years or so. Or would I? Some things, like sex and good food, might lose their sensory appeal altogether. In any case, this is not my decision to make. We cannot reverse, or even alter, the arrow of time. Tissues will repair more slowly and less perfectly, and eventually some tissue we need will fail entirely. As we slow, we prepare to die, and then we do.

Thomas Edison Was Deaf, Wasn't He?

2006-12-03T18:59:00.000-05:00

It is well known that Thomas Edison was deaf, but later in life, when he was famous (to say the least), a specialist told him that it might be possible to repair his hearing. However Edison declined the offer, saying that this way he could hear when he wanted to hear (and sometimes he heard things to his advantage that others obviously did not intend for him to hear). It was a sort of tranquility on demand.

This brings up several questions in matters of morality, of ethics. Was this honest, to pretend what was not (entirely) so? How many of us tell others everything we know? Should we, no matter how we acquire information? Why was Edison permitted to be left alone to work productively because of his "affliction", when otherwise his time (like ours) might have been taken up by someone wanting to sell him some thing or some idea?

To be sure, it was sneaky, but who isn't? As Jesus said, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone". Now think of all that Edison accomplished — and of the thousands of things he tried that did not succeed, which he viewed as successful because he wouldn't try them again. Apparently, Edison did not regard himself as lonely, for he could communicate with others when he cared to. Another famous man who valued being left along was Alexander Graham Bell, who often spent weekends on his houseboat to get away from the telephone.

My title is a question, and the answer is: Define "deaf". Hearing, like sight, mobility, and health in general, is so involved with other considerations that we can only say, as in most matters, "it depends".

In Living Out Of My Time

2006-11-30T19:57:00.000-05:00

Watching television, including CBC and TVO, with which I had so much to do, and especially the programs on museums, with which I also had so much to do, I realize to what extent I do not belong. Those working under good pension schemes retire after 35 years of service or less, and so people retiring today from jobs in media and museums came into them as fresh recruits just as I was completing my 35 years of service, and moving on. They are the authorities now, and I am a generation "out of touch", wondering what my opinions could possibly offer, or matter. Yet perhaps that is too pessimistic. Very recently, I was asked to give an interview for an article to mark the 60th anniversary of the Canadian Museums Associations, of which I am the only surviving founder and original member.

This is, of course, how time flies. Space travel is old stuff to the new retirees of today. Television was old stuff in my day. My father worked for Alexander Graham Bell, and was out of university with three degrees by the time the Wright brothers flew. As I watch war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is all so familiar to me at 92 — the good guys, the bad guys, loyalty, slogans — and I remember that Germans and Italians were once our enemies, then the Japanese, and now terrorists of all origins.

Of course, I am loyal, but sometimes confused as to whom that loyalty should be directed. My grandfather was born British in Nova Scotia, and as a blacksmith working in Virginia at the outbreak of the American Civil War, was not yet Canadian — Confederation wouldn't happen for another six years. Since it was not his fight (the Civil War, that is, not Confederation), he lit out for home. Now I am Canadian, watching on this TV gadget the never ending struggle to determine what I am supposed to be loyal to. Do you wonder that I feel like a spirit come back from the dead?

The Security Of The Insecure

2006-11-27T19:37:00.000-05:00

Constantly, we, or at least I, deal with those who are sure of something, usually of themselves generally. Of course, this lets them get through each problematic day with an assurance that the world, indeed the cosmos, is as they know it to be. That there are millions of published papers dealing with new insights into matters of science and of ourselves as individuals and groups, concerns them not. They know, and that is that!

The crux, or crutch, of all this is that if they recognized that nobody knows very much -- in light of all these published papers -- then the proper position would be "tell me more". Only those who are secure in the sometimes hard-won awareness of their partial-knowledge / partial-ignorance condition, can relax in the security that they do not know, and therefore can learn.

To me, the question is: Why can't we be content with our very obvious inadequacies? We accept that foxes, cows, ants, elephants, and so on, cannot know everything, so why not accept that neither can we?

The risk, no, the fate of someone who "knows" all is disaster when it inevitably turns out that he/she does not. I could rest my case, and I think I will.

Rumsfeld And The Reverend: Pretty Poor Stuff

2006-11-24T07:08:00.000-05:00

I remarked in the last post about comments made to a preacher who was satisfied with his orations. Here's another one: A preacher was glowing with pride as the church members made their way out of the sanctuary, and he asked an honest old farmer what he thought of the sermon. The farmer, who just had to be truthful, shifted his Sunday allotment of chewing tobacco from one cheek to the other as he gave his verdict. "I was in the back pew, Reverend, and the people up front were swallowing up all the best parts, so what got back to me was pretty poor stuff, pretty poor stuff."

Often this is the case. Right now in U.S. politics we have seen the departure of Donald Rumsfeld and the startling power shift in the Congress. This is, of course, the fallout from the voters in the world's most powerful country telling their Chief what they think of him. His performance does not fit his statements, and what the people really heard was not honest confidence but desperate bombast, or to quote our church-going farmer, "pretty poor stuff". Another familiar quotation that comes to mind is Abraham Lincoln's "You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time".

Those responsible for misleading us don't always intend to mislead, as they often sincerely believe what they say. Some simply want to be followed, to be important, and they adopt causes and speak accordingly. But eventually "the truth will out", and what gets to "the back of the church" is "pretty poor stuff" indeed. So what's the message for us in all this? To warp a couple of well-known sayings: Listen before you leap, and listen with your eyes open.

Before Blogs ...

2006-11-21T14:35:00.000-05:00

... we had wise sayings. Many blog articles, like this one, are just strung-out ways of passing on things that are clever, and maybe even wise. One that I'll always remember is the following anecdote: A young clergyman had preached a trial sermon at a prominent, not to say prosperous, church, and he was sure it had gone well. After the service, he stood at the door and shook hands with the parishioners as they filed out. At the end of the line was a little old lady, who held his hand, looked up at him, and quavered, "Young man, has anyone ever told you how wonderful you are?" "Why no," he said, nearly choking in his attempt to be modest. She replied, "Then how did you ever get the idea?" Now how could anyone improve on that put-down?

Some wise sayings are so obvious that they almost don't seem wise, as in two of my favourites that I've used before -- the Scots' "Many a mickle makes a muckle", and the German-American "Too soon we get oldt, too late we get schmardt". In keeping with these is the comment by George Bernard Shaw: "A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing". And then there are the Proverbs of the Bible, and Ali Baba and the stories from Arabian mythology. In fact, I suspect the sayings of any ethnic literature would be gold mines for blogs. What are Aesop's fables but ready-made blog posts? In modern times, our comics of stage, screen and Internet are of the same tradition.

Blogs are so easy, so convenient, so quickly disseminated to millions, that they are here to stay, while they mine the resources of the recent and distant past. Now I should finish with a good one, but I am sleepy, so I will just say "Come back", because I know I'll have something clever when I awake.

Don't Throw Out The Baby With The Bathwater

2006-11-19T14:40:00.000-05:00

It is easy to make a case that we think in discrete steps when trying to move from uncertainty to decision, and often each step can involve a binary choice: Is it this, or is it that? A left turn at the bridge, or a right? Fries or baked potato? The sort of thinking many of us, including myself, regard as the best the human mind can produce is the merciless process we call scientific reasoning, which is of this discrete kind. However, this wonderful method of either/or can become a ruthless weapon in the hands of those who start from unexamined premises, and demand that any opponent stand, or preferably fall, based on the inexorable conclusions.

My point, if I still have it, is that we must be clear about any position that is up for a "yes" or "no". History, whether of philosophy, or religion, or empires, or families, records that many a "no" threw out all sorts of promising implications that were never considered. Truly Thoreau's "Simplify, simplify" has been much abused.

Gravity, which seems as obvious as an apple falling off a tree, looks quite a bit more complicated when we consider that it holds together the solar system, with its elliptical orbits, each of them falling smaller as time goes by. Anyone bitten by a "vicious" insect can think badly of insects, while enjoying no end of fruit made possible by insect-enabled fertilization, not to mention honey from bees, or the beauty of flowers whose function is to entice these insects to do their jobs.

If the oft-muttered wish, "Rain, rain, go away", were actually to be granted, the consequences would be dreadful, and ultimately fatal, as a desert climate crept over the earth. The counterbalancing maxim has also been spoken over and over: "Be careful what you wish for -- you might just get it". Or, as I'm fond of saying, "It's not that simple".

So the lesson is to identify your premises, and then proceed logically to a conclusion. In other words, make clear what it is you are really talking about.

What Happened To The Paper Shortage?

2006-11-16T21:41:00.000-05:00

I take in too many newspapers, in order not to be left behind on something. The result is that I have difficulty getting them all ready for garbage day. Very little is real news, and not much is original opinion about what news there is; in fact, most of the "opinions" are very predictable, correlated to whatever newspaper is printing them. The majority of the paper surface seems to be advertising, including numerous full-pages sprawls that are so image-oriented one has to guess what is being sold. One thing is sure: it makes foolishness of all the fuss some years back about a paper shortage, and the accompanying urgings to recycle, or just to use less. Maybe you understand how this shortage became a surplus, but I sure don't.

Paper is a commodity, and demand brings supply, which can, I understand, lead to surplus (unless there's a shortage, right?). Another commodity is oil, which seems perpetually threatened with extinction, if you listen to the right voices. The resulting price fluctuations have the potential to change our way of life, and to determine whether the U.S. will be the top dog, or will it be Russia? Between these two, oil and paper, there is a drastic difference in that no more oil is being produced, as it requires many millions of years of geological activity, while trees for paper are growing all the time, assuming we don't cut them down all at once.

Surpluses and shortages bring us to the economics of the market system. This is just as interesting as any topic of the day. "Free" enterprise apparently includes the freedom to squash competitors and create a monopoly -- which of course your competitors were "free" to do as well -- paying off politicians in the process, if that helps. Whatever it was all about, the "paper shortage" was interesting, and, I must say, had some lasting effects. My wife still makes sure all the toilet paper rolls end up in the right bin.

The Law

2006-11-13T19:58:00.000-05:00

Once I was told by an extremely good lawyer, who happened to be Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia and senior member of a firm put together by a member of my father's congregation, that I too should have been a lawyer, but that the first judge I appeared before would have had me hanged out of jealousy. In revisiting this remark, my defense is that I have never pretended to undue modesty. In fact, what modesty I do have, I am quite proud of. Anyway, back to "the law", if you recall the title of this column.

The law is an institution, a very human institution, and, of course, depends on the premises of those establishing it, which in turn depend on the definitions of the words in those premises. Rapidly we come full circle; to quote Humpty Dumpty: "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." (To which Alice demurred, "The question is, whether you can make words mean so many different things". And Humpty replied, somewhat ominously, "The question is, which is to be master —- that's all".) If we pursued this line of reasoning, we would find that making law, administering it, amending it, and understanding it are all impossible, in a certain sense.

So definitions are impossible to get any absolute agreement on, although there is no lack of trying -- witness the Charter of Rights, with its "notwithstanding" escape hatches. I would recommend that we have a Common Law, like the U.K., where we have judges refer to past decisions and defend departures from them. And the meanings of all the words in that previous sentence are perfectly clear, of course.

Cannibals All (or: You Eat What You Are)

2006-11-09T18:29:00.000-05:00

Most forms of life on earth, including humans, lack the ability to manufacture internally all the chemicals needed to sustain themselves. To obtain these substances, they eat other creatures that can manufacture them. This happens all the way up the food chain. At the top we have ourselves, who eat just about anything, including vertebrates, crustaceans, plants, fruits, insects, the lot. Put differently, we eat our fellows who eat their fellows. And if that's not cannibalism, please explain what is, while I take time out to have some shrimp, mushrooms, and a nice pork chop.

Seriously, the best food, or at least the best protein, is that which is most like our own. Of course, eating others of our kind gives rise to social problems, and is rare as a result, but it happens. In times past, among some of the Pacific Islands peoples, since a butchered human very much resembled a butchered pig, it was referred to as "long pig". I presume these cannibals ate only their enemies, not their family members, no matter how tasty they may have looked. Most of us have accepted that humans are precious in the sight of God, while ordinary pig, or "short pig", is OK nutrition.

Disturbingly, the fact remains that protein is best when nearest our own, but religious leaders, politicians, and relatives are against what this implies. Long pig is nutritionally ideal, however stick to the shorter variety. Next time you're stranded on a desert island with a small group of people, and you're tempted to change your ethical stance, ask your priest or lawyer first. Fish is good.

Many A Mickle ...

2006-11-06T21:02:00.000-05:00

It is a drowsy, cloudy, rainy Sunday, and I have turned on the TV to get the weather. Listening to the forecast reminds me of the heavy storms that have battered our continent in the recent past. Houses and people were washed away, with many deaths. This is one more reminder that "many a mickle makes a muckle", but of a different type than I had in mind. Raindrops add up.

Lately, I have been hearing from relatives who have been influenced by my advice to them, my advice from The Richest Man in Babylon, to put away at least 10% of income, never to be spent but to be invested very carefully. As time goes by, taking few or no chances, you will become better off, maybe very much so. Begin young, and your "mickle" will indeed become a "muckle".

Populations are like this, including human populations; the effects of a few more being born than dying, or vice versa, can be profound. Tip the balance slightly in one direction, and the population can alter drastically. If it grows, we have pressure on land, transportation systems, food supply, and health services. If it shrinks, we may choose to increase immigration to compensate, with accompanying changes in religious mix, labour relations, crime, sports, and more. In a similar way, gradual geological changes, like grains of sand deposited as a river curves and slows, result in vast volumes of material being spread over great sedimentary plains.

To say it again, "many a mickle makes a muckle". And to back up a couple of paragraphs, put some money away, now and often.

The Red Queen

2006-11-03T12:27:00.000-05:00

When Alice complained that they were not getting anywhere with their constant running, the Queen said that in Wonderland it always takes all the running you can do just to stay in the same place.

Most of us do struggle to keep up, and in my case it has to do with paper. I get too many newspapers and magazines, including the New York Sunday Times. I spend as much time at the kitchen table throwing away papers into a box as I do eating.

The solution is simple. I must stop getting some things, but which ones? Also, I must conquer the backlog of many hundreds of pages torn out for later. Well, this is later. If I don't conquer this mountain, Mrs. Red Queen, I'll never get to the quietly waiting pile of requests from all the charities. I've given to over 100 of them, and mail from new ones keeps arriving, thanks to the efficient computers that spread my information around, and systematically churn out bulk mail. Between papers and charities, I am cornered.

My spare time is gone, and I wonder how I ever held down a steady job, or indeed paid any attention to my own family, who appeared from somewhere, somehow. Is it fear of something, or instinct, or just habit that makes me like this? And what do I mean by just habit?

Maybe I should read Alice and Through the Looking Glass again, or consult the Red Queen myself. If I weren't so busy, I'd get around to that.

Right now I'm off to bed, because I have so much to attend to tomorrow.

A Lovely Late October Day

2006-10-31T12:52:00.000-05:00

Warm golden sunshine beams through the tall glass doors that lead to my balcony, reminding me they need to be cleaned. A large tree branch adds pattern, and nothing could be more beautiful, I tell myself, as I gaze out on the woodland beyond. Truly, what is more lovely than this late October day in the mid-latitudes?

My world -- alright, our world -- is tilted to the sun so that its hot rays must pass through quite a slice of atmosphere, with its pollution and dust, favouring the golden rays of my October day. Of course, the intense colours fade as the sun rises, but this means the day will warm up. And as for colour, frosty nights are not far away, and the trees over there are aglow with beautiful dying hues as the leaves prepare to fall off. This seeming decay protects the trees from sucking up too much water to service leaves which could not do their job in the cold weather in any case. Nature knows what she is doing.

Events in the fall do seem to be intelligent, and what is intelligence if it is not survival in changing circumstances? As I bask in this lovely morning, I know it will not last; it will be followed by snow on ground and trees, and by ice that will glitter in the branches on bright, cold mornings. I know winter can be stunning in its own way, to be followed by spring with its return of bursting life.

Eventually, outside my kitchen glass doors, I know too that lovely late October days will come again, and again.

"In The Bowels Of Christ"

2006-10-27T21:00:00.000-04:00

The quotation is, of course, from the well-known remark of Oliver Cromwell, urging the mule-headed General Assembly of the Church of Scotland to repudiate their allegiance to the crown, i.e., to Charles II. Cromwell, mule-headed himself, made his famous plea: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken".

History is full of those who were wrongly sure of themselves, to the point where we suspect that anyone who is completely sure is never quite right. Many religious groups have been "sure" that "others" were wrong, and have used force to convert them. Within Christianity, Roman Catholics have burned heretical Protestants at the stake, and vice versa, and so on.

Not only in religion do we find this, but in political life as well. Communists have forced their ways on society, as did the Nazis. None of all this made many true converts, or proved who was right. Sports and styles offer more examples, without the violence, mostly.

If we search for reasons for all this, we find ourselves considering, again, the biological need to belong, preferably to those whose appearance, language or geographical origins are similar to ours. We are uneasy being alone. It all seems as simple as that. So much for freedom.

What's Your Herd?

2006-10-24T11:57:00.000-04:00

As I was going over the newspapers, very fat on the weekend, I couldn't help marvelling at the fashion sections. Spots are "in", as in those of the leopard, a creature becoming scarcer as hunters pursue its skin. Coats, bags, skirts, boots are to have spots, but also stripes and swirls in spots. These patterns will indeed be everywhere, from $20 to $1000 or so, depending on what store you patronize, which is an odd word when you reflect on how very much they patronize you. You are, of course, being herded once again, depending on your age, wealth, where you live, and so on and on. You belong to many herds.

At the centre of this issue is the need to belong. First at home, then in the schoolyard, in Tim Hortons or McDonald's, in your church of choice, we must belong, and belong to the right grouping. On a larger level, wars are fought and "enemy" identities exterminated. And still, we believe in free will and intelligent choice. We look with scorn or pity on flocks of sheep or herds of cattle, following anything but freedom or any choice of their own, either as individuals or groups. Really, what is the difference between us and them?

This is not all bad, of course. We have the comfort, the security, of not being exposed. We have our philanthropists, our hospitals, our jails for our support and protection. It is natural to identify (and to identify with) your herd. As for myself, God Save the Queen, I say!

Salt Shaker And Casket

2006-10-21T14:57:00.000-04:00

My title indicates that table salt kills people. Of course it does --there is no mystery about it. In the past, traditional African people living in the wild did not get heart attacks, at least not at any significant rate, but if the same people took jobs among the white people and ate a "good" Western diet, they experienced heart disease at the same rate as in the West.

You see, in the bush their diet was mostly plants, along with whatever animals, large and small, they could catch or kill. Plant juice is high in potassium and animal blood is high in sodium, minerals that we need in the right quantities. But in the Western world, a bit more salt for cooking and a bit more at eating time makes things tastier. The purveyors of dried, preserved and pickled foods know this, and so with "progress" comes tasty, salty food.

You can draw logarithmic lines for amounts of salt and potassium intake versus time in years, and you pretty well get a diagram of incidence of heart attacks over the same period. All this is well known, and the medical people and the "health nuts" agree in urging us to eat our veggies and to avoid dousing everything with salt.

As more of us eat out, and as fast foods increase, so do heart problems. This can't be ignorance, so it must be stupidity, or is it perhaps a modern form of death wish? Certainly, the old saloon motto in German-American bars is "dead" on: "Too soon we get oldt, too late we get schmardt".

Half? Or Half?

2006-10-18T22:44:00.000-04:00

There is something fascinating in what we reveal about ourselves when we give an opinion. Two people can see the same thing as quite different, opposite in fact. One sees that the glass is half full, while to the other it is clearly half empty. Both are right. It is simply that they are different people, probably seeing every situation as either reassuring or as very much to be watched.

Unsettled weather is threatening to one and hopeful to the other. To one, a thousand dollars is very much alright, to the other far from being security. A healing broken leg is great to one, crippling to the other. A hamburger is junk food to one, but very satisfying to the other. I could go on and on, but we all know this. Why this difference?

Staying with our either/or hypothesis, the answer could be in-born or acquired. I suppose it could be both, and I think it is. We are conditioned by our surroundings as soon as, or perhaps before, we are born, so our behaviours, including our attitudes and opinions, are indeed both from heredity (DNA if you like) and from environment (of all sorts). I don't think we can fully pin this down, but in any case there are these two sorts of people we must deal with, the optimists and the pessimists, and I proclaim myself to be the half-full type. "I know and know full well" that I am right, and yet I know that "they" are right too. Collectively, we are all on the edge of being sane, with all the problems that accompany this state of being. And musing on these things doesn't do much to change the world around me, but it sure is fun.

I Wish I Loved The Human Race

2006-10-14T17:32:00.000-04:00

Long, long ago I learned a mean little rhyme, and there are days when it comes back. I have a head full of these gems, some of which are handy bits of wisdom that make up for my lack. Others, like this one, are reactions to times when people seem to cooperate to make my time irritating, frustrating, or simply boring. The full version (by Sir Walter Raleigh) is:

     I wish I loved the Human Race;
     I wish I loved its silly face;
     I wish I liked the way it walks;
     I wish I liked the way it talks;
     And when I’m introduced to one,
     I wish I thought "What Jolly Fun!"

This is the flip side of the herd instinct, which keeps us together, collectively and individually. I suppose we have to have crowds to make us value being alone sometimes, and certainly when we have been alone too long, we value company.

Occasionally, I believe, we agree with the sentiment behind this rhyme. We do not always need company, at least not necessarily human company. Certainly, cats, budgies, puppies, big dogs or little ones for hiking or hunting, are company. The don't argue; indeed, they seem to agree. My oldest daughter has snakes longer than herself which almost seem to purr when she wraps them around her neck. If they could talk to you, I'm sure they would say they love her.

I suppose if you exercised requited love with some other friendly species, you might believe you did not like our own species, and there is plenty to dislike. For myself, I'm frequently partial to certain humans, but I am very choosy about it.

My Experience With Lung Cancer And TB

2006-10-07T14:03:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time, over 50 years ago, I was a member of the Council of the American Association of Museums, and was to be away for three weeks at their Annual Meeting in the U.S. I was working evenings to get ahead of my responsibilities in Halifax, Nova Scotia. So I was tired, and had a lame feeling in my side, and foolishly consulted a medical doctor. He took X-rays and put me in hospital, where he and a very good surgeon (whom I had taught to cut up cats in Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy), took out two-thirds of my left lung in a nine-hour operation that left a 25-inch scar. The lung was supposed to be cancerous, but in fact had a lump of healed tuberculosis, and should, of course, have been left alone.

Following that, I told them to put it back, but they said it had been thrown away. As I had had tuberculosis, I was put into the TB sanitarium, where I stayed for six months.

Afterwards, I was short of breath for a couple of years, and of course avoided doctors like grim death, and pondered what I had learned. High on the list is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", and "Doctors have to get experience". Also, "Don't ask so many questions", and "Well, we don't have to do that again". Or, as Thomas Edison must have so often remarked: "We know that doesn't work". I must say, it cured me of smoking, a habit that consisted of one cigarette around a campfire or a pipe of tobacco at university reunions. So all is not lost, yet. I've cheered up, and so should you.

Time To Get Rich!

2006-10-05T12:50:00.000-04:00

Given enough time, and doing some very simple things, you can hardly avoid becoming rich, maybe very rich. For example, if the $24 paid by the Dutch for Manhattan Island to the natives had been put out at 10% compound interest, it would be worth over 12,000 trillion dollars by now, more than North and South America are worth by any accounting. So what are you waiting for?

We do not have that sort of time, of course, and there are taxes to contend with, but the principle is the same, if you will pardon the pun. Do not put off until tomorrow what you can do today. As our wants will always exceed our earned income, this means you do not wait until you have some left over, but put your 10% away first and live on the rest. Time is, indeed, of the essence. The future never arrives, and the present is always sliding into the past. So do it now, quickly, before it too becomes the past.

I have talked one family member into putting money away daily, never to be spent, but instead to be put to earning. It seems as if that were just last week, but already this person is wondering how to do better than a savings account at the bank, which pays 2% for money that it then lends out at 14% or so.

When I worked in Buffalo, there was a sign in a tavern which said "Too soon we get oldt, too late we get schmardt". There is a principle that if you force yourself to do something every day at the same time, you will find it difficult not to do it in two to three weeks.

Habits can help us or hurt us, so right away, put the same amount aside every day, so its earnings can sooner look after you. Time to act!

On Packaged Dinners, Etc.

2006-09-30T19:00:00.000-04:00

The game is to find out what to do with the stuff ... in very fine print. Now a good many of the purchasers of these one-person packages are actually one person. They are one person because their companion has left once again, or they never had anyone, or everyone else has died off, and with the passage of time their eyes are not good, even if both of them are operational.

If the maker of the product "believes" in it, he/she should surely want the message of what to do with it to be clear. So, to get at the mystery. While "Nutrition Facts" are in quite large print, and "Ingredients" are in capital letters, the finest print is reserved for what the hell to do with it to make it edible. By the time you scrutinize this minutiae, if your time is worth anything, you are better off to take a taxi to the nearest fast food outlet, because this cute package is sure as hell not fast food.

Skipping "For firmer rice, decrease water; for softer rice, increase water", you come to microwave instructions. By this time, you have had two drinks more than you should, and a couple of chocolate bars are starting to look good to you.

It seems that food purveyors spend zillions on experts to design everything, from recipes to more efficient packaging. Hell, I could do that, much better. Could you tell me where I apply? I'm tired of just working for a living.

That Y Chromosome

2006-09-27T18:47:00.000-04:00

Princess Kiko has had her baby and it is a boy. This will end Japan's facing the possibility of one day having an Empress instead of an Emperor. For 2000 years there has been an Emperor, held to be divine until Hirohito resigned the idea of divinity after the atomic bomb led to surrender in World War II, and an American general ran the country.

All this is against the background of advances in knowledge of DNA and of the nature and mechanisms of life. Eggs have X chromosomes, while sperm have either X or Y, meaning that sex is determined by which brand of sperm gets to join the X egg -- XX gives a female individual and XY a male, so chance determines whether the ruler is divine or not. In many other cultures the same has been true, where only a male could be the boss. It is a flip-of-the-coin matter.

Always, there has been a method of selecting sex of infants, age-old in India and very current in China. This is usually by drowning or suffocating unwanted female babies, although smashing the head end against a wall was often the method when, in the southern American colonies, a white mother had a "tarred" baby.

It is interesting to note that eggs are few, like one a month, while sperm come in the millions, and also interesting that more males are born than females, who make up by living longer -- there are more old women than men.

We are talking sex, and as we consider other species, that becomes very interesting indeed. Some invertebrates, I think among the molluscs, have adults which are male some years and female other years. I'm sure we will get back to discussions of sex again.

A Few Good Men Books

2006-09-25T22:25:00.000-04:00

One of our more recent philosophers said, "The trouble with reading books is that there is so much in them that isn't so." So I am suspicious of all books, including the few that I am so fond of that I re-read them, some frequently.

On the matter of wealth, the top of the list is The Richest Man in Babylon; what he said was that to be rich, we should put away the first ten percent of income at least, before we use or spend anything. Soon, we should consider how these "slaves" can work for us, in complete safety. In time, we become very wealthy, of course.

If I have a favourite book, it must be Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, by Wilfred Trotter, pointing out that enlargement of the group affords protection within the group; this is true from single cells to great societies.

Of Stars and Men takes up the story and emphasizes again that families, villages, cities, nations and leagues of nations all attain strength and variation by the smaller units becoming dependent and giving up some functions. Today we see world becoming more and more of a unit, with resulting internal pressures and clashes by formerly independent states, cultures and religions.

My list is not very long before I hasten to add Alice in Wonderland, by a mathematician, for a favourite young friend. It is full of sly, worldly wisdom. Really good books are worth re-reading, again and again. So they do tend to be few.

What's Wrong With The Morning?

2006-09-23T17:16:00.000-04:00

There are people I know who are adverse to getting up before noon. Since I fade at about 9 p.m., I do not know what time they put their heads down, but I suspect 2 or 3 a.m. My going off so early and their going off so late can't be accidental, but why? It must have to do with diurnal rhythms, acquired or built-in or the result of outside agencies. In the wild realms of nature, we have extreme examples of such rhythms.

The most extreme I can think of is the breeding of the palolo worms in the South Pacific. With precise timing each fall, the adults ready for it simply rise to the surface layers and burst, releasing tons of eggs and sperm, the whole mess a feast for sea predators and marine birds (and humans). Fertilizations take place, of course, nearly all wasted. The successful ones are the survivors, the ancestors of the next go-around.

Another is the return of the swallows to San Juan Capistrano in the spring. Accurate to within a day or so, something moves them to migrate. There are many more examples. So, what about us?

Just as babies become slowly enculturated, necessarily embedded in human groups, we adults are the effects of just such continued multiplied habits and groups of habits. For myself, coming from farm people who had to get up early to accommodate the animals, I was never surrounded by people who were late starters. Also, at one stage I had to get up early to write radio items I was to record later that day.

So, these habits are habits, but how acquired, how transmitted? As I usually do, I'll give it some more thought.

The Fat Of The Land Is Sinking The Land

2006-09-20T21:47:00.000-04:00

One third of the world's population goes to bed hungry. Drugs are saving the disease-prone, and many who have not considered the consequences are having large families, often without attending males and with increasing statistics on AIDS. Natural resources are exported or used for products that are exported, with the benefits going to non-residents, mostly corporations, mostly foreign. However, in the rest of the world, people are getting fat, disastrously fat.

Everywhere, we are urged to eat carbohydrates which turn to fat, or fried foods, or meat whose production involves great use of land, water and food. In short, we are all, worldwide, either starving or getting fat.

Even in rich countries, "health" services, meaning services for the sick and unhealthy, are stretched to limits and face impossible demands in the all-too-near future. It is clear that young fat kids are almost certain to become obese adults; fat adults represent increasing percentages of diabetic and coronary cases; and as the "baby boomers" become older, and ultimately old, numbers will soar. All this is for sure, and may be a lot worse than we think.

So, food industries with very efficient promotion through the media are, although maybe unintentionally, but hardly in ignorance, producing sickness and early death.

Yesterday, we killed off passenger pigeons and most species of bison. Today we are fattening ourselves for the kill, while starvation and AIDS stalk the less "fortunate". Individually, we may be intelligent, but collectively, this seems stupid.

My Wonderful World

2006-09-18T21:01:00.000-04:00

I understand that not everyone's world is good, and some are very bad, as for the one-third of humanity which lives and dies without ever not being hungry. But my world has been just better than I could have hoped or managed. My original geography, my family DNA, my early childhood crossing with world events, were all so unusual, even startling, that it was as if someone was orchestrating my introduction into this life of collisions of cultures we witness now. We may experience it next door, or by media, or airline, but in any case it is inescapable. To encapsulate it, for my sins I live in Toronto, by far the most cosmopolitan city in the world, if you count the 150+ languages, cultures and religions which flourish and, of course, clash here. I'm not saying all is good, whatever that might mean, but boring it is not. Now, back to me.

I was born at an early age, I understand, and according to all reports, with fairly firm opinions in advance of any direct fresh air evidence of the things about which I held these opinions. We are all born somewhere, among people, and so our first views come with the words and grammar of our parents, relatives, friends, and enemies, and the views of these people we soak up as geese adopt whatever they see as they hatch, whether that is a farmer, a hen, a rock, or a PhD. And so, like yourself, I was pushed out physically, and punched out mentally and physiologically into whatever I was when I began to experience this world, which, I insist, is wonderful.

With Respect To Age

2006-09-16T21:10:00.000-04:00

I have been moved to write one on how I am regarded, treated, looked at, and all that. I thought of "My Age is Showing", "People Are Getting Nicer", "A Grin in Time Wipes Whines", but maybe I can write this again, later of course, with a different tag like one of these, or maybe "It's the Way I Walk".

People have begun to hold doors, to wait for me in various circumstances. Is it pity, is it admiration, or just respect to old age? True, I am older than I have ever been, in fact older than any related male I know of. My maternal grandfather mowed by hand all day, and that evening ran over a mile to help the bucket brigade up the lake to put out the fire at the local creamery, owned by them all, and got "cold in his kidneys" and died at 87. My paternal grandfather died with a knife in his back when he was throwing a troublesome drunk from his saloon restaurant in a mining camp in Colorado. But I am the oldest male living past 90. So perhaps my age is beginning to show.

Maybe I should lie about my age and say I am only 85 or so, or perhaps I should lie the other way and say I am 99. Depends on how much respect I want, or do I want pity? Not that, please, as it might be catching and I might begin to pity myself, and that would interfere with my plans to go see my grandchildren in Wales, and come back by going the rest of the way around the world.

People do form opinions about age, and their attitudes are affected, sometimes for the better. Altogether, getting older, and even old, does have its advantages in some respects, sometimes including more respect, I think.

The World Is Getting Smaller

2006-09-14T19:05:00.000-04:00

If you were able to control a large area which had many kinds of plants and animals that lived on the land and on each other, and which had roughly the same critters and climate as one hundred years ago, and you put a fence -- an impenetrable barrier -- around it, and each year made it smaller, do you imagine that the "balances of nature" within your enclosure would not be affected? Not so. Species dependent on the same resource would, of course, be in conflict with each other. As your fence hemmed in less territory, the conflict would become more deadly, and some things would decline or perhaps disappear. Fear, anger, slaughter would increase. So should we wonder that as populations grow, our world with its finite resources would be fought for and endangered? Add wild growth in communications and you have the world we live in.

The world, in effect, is getting smaller. Something has to give. The earth is for all life, and we humans are not the owners and free exploiters we have thought we are. We imagined God to be made in our image -- or was it the other way around? -- and we paid no mind to the evidence of the past -- the fossils, the disappeared species such as passenger pigeons and bison, victims of our "free" enterprise.

Mostly, we think that we humans, or at least our particular colour in our generous open spaces, will be alright. Whatever is wrong we will fix, somehow.

However, our world is getting smaller, more crowded, its irreplaceable resources exhausted. God has watched many experiments fail. It seems we are determined to join the list.

Habits CAN Be Changed

2006-09-12T11:51:00.000-04:00

I have just come from Sunday brunch with my wife, youngest daughter and her husband at my Country Club, and during lunch I kept thinking about how habits hold us all. We were on time at twenty after ten as agreed, which is my own life-long habit, partly from my years in radio and television but also following the ways of life of my maternal grandfather, who was always ready twenty minutes early. I favour him because he was short among tall people, as I am. My paternal grandfather was six foot ten, or rather a brother of his was. About my father's father I never knew, as he was knifed in the back by a drunk whom he was throwing from his dining room saloon out in Colorado during one of the gold rushes. I'll get back to that later, but this column is about habit.

Actually, my daughter and her husband were right on time, on their own time, because they are knowingly and even consciously twenty minutes late for everything. I know that they could change that if they wanted to enough. Now I'll go back to a time when a surgeon, whom I had taught to cut up cats in pre-medical school, took two-thirds of my left lung for cancer in a nine-hour operation. When the pathology report came back the first of the following week, the suspicious lump had been calcified tuberculosis. So I was sent to the TB hospital for some months for a disease I hadn't had for years. There we were on bed rest for the first couple of months, except once a day to the toilet. We were supposed to sleep from noon till one o'clock, although in bed 24 hours a day, and I thought this was hilarious. However, after about three weeks I could tell when noon approached because I was falling asleep.

That's when I really learned about habit, and have used it to my benefit many times since. It works especially well if you use it to replace a bad habit. After two weeks, you feel guilty if you don't do whatever it is now your habit to do.

Change of habit can be done, and you can almost make yourself over, habit by habit, to a new, better designed you.

I have been writing these pages or columns or whatever long enough that I feel vaguely badly if I were not to do it. Since it is a habit for me to tell other people what to do, now you can go do it.

Responsibilities Of Age

2006-09-10T14:14:00.000-04:00

As we age, we lose ability and others assume responsibility. Too many of us are too willing to let them, and we lose more ability. We should face this loss, and ourselves define our responsibilities. At the least, we should look after ourselves as much as possible, for our own good as well as for others'.

Also, we should accept and even ask for help when we do need it, avoiding unnecessary difficulties for all. We should be responsible, in every sense.

This responsibility includes continuity for what should not be lost, both things and records, and possibly most important, memories. We should pull things together, decide title as we prepare to go, write down the record, and with today's media, tape, photograph, or put on disk what we can, including our own memories. My own father remembered when there were no airplanes, and I remember when there was no television. My own poorly recorded memories also include the Halifax North End after the Explosion. I'd better hurry, as I am ninety-two and consciously -- or is it knowingly? -- forgetful.

Together with the record, shouldn't we pass on advice? Surely we have learned something which is relevant to the future, which so reliably repeats itself. Our responsibility, then, is to be as little a burden as we can manage, and to pass on the records and lessons we have accumulated and learned.

On Being Old

2006-08-26T00:44:00.000-04:00

Anyone over 90 who says they never give their age a thought is not being truthful. Every day I wake, I give thanks and check my pulse. Then I go to the front door and get the papers, and get six dollars in coins to put away never to be spent (I will get back to that another time). Then I attend to the first pills of the day before I eat and listen to the morning news on TV, which is always bad these days, with various religious persuasions infiltrating and killing each other in and around the Holy Land. I want to keep up, even though I am old and do not have to do anything about it all.

Somewhere along the line I have suffered osteoporosis, and my back hurts if I have not laid down for more than five hours or so. So after lunch I do lie down for a half hour, which can easily become two hours. After that is when I do things I should do every day, like this page of comment, which would be better done first thing in the morning, with orange juice.

This brings up the subject of habit, about which I will write again. Long ago when I was in the tuberculosis hospital, I learned that three weeks of doing the same thing at the same time each day forms a habit, especially if it displaces another one, and you will feel guilty if you do not do it. As you grow older, forming habits helps to make up for the loss of short-term memory, which is inevitable.

Now that I have gotten started, again, on getting old, I could go on indefinitely, but at least I have several topics, related, I can turn to. I meant to write a page, and I have, and I will be back.

Wars, News, Sports And The Herd

2006-08-22T01:12:00.000-04:00

Wherever we turn to read, listen or watch in our multimedia age, we are faced by belonging and not belonging, i.e., herds of various sizes and kinds for various reasons and of various origins. Young versus old, native-born versus immigrant, colour versus colour, accepted "history" versus accepted "history", gated condos versus all outside. The possibilities, indeed the probabilities, are endless.

We might put it all down to improved means of communications, the Web, the computer, the transistor, the now-nearly-obsolete vacuum tube, the alternating current, the direct current, the early physicists like Ben Franklin and his kites in the lightning storms, and we would not be wrong.

In various isolations, living material, that is ourselves, imbeds variations into varying DNA, and biology repeats in miniature our customs, hatreds and loyalties. Despite this, we have forgotten prophets like Trotter, with his Instincts of the Herd. With communications increasing at an increasing rate, we now have collisions of herds which over long ages went their calm separated ways. We have been told we are becoming, or already are, One World. Are we, or are we becoming shells of concentric worlds which will react vertically by shell rather than horizontally by geography, or whatever?

I do not know who said it -- it might have been myself -- but I hate to die; I want to see how it all turns out!

Copycats By Instinct

2006-08-16T15:40:00.000-04:00

Human relationships are so varied that they seem to defy explaining, let alone any reasonable basis which will survive hostile or even objective examination. However, some social phenomena, like style and popularity, can be understood as pretty much the same. Some can be paired or grouped around fear, of practical consequences or social rejection.

The behaviour of animals can readily be ascribed to instincts, while for ourselves we look for "reasons", as if we are governed by intelligence rather than instinct. However, there is a case to be made for much of our strange behaviour being grouped under instinct. A book, now about one hundred years old, made this case very well. The author was King George V's official doctor, Sergeant Surgeon to His Majesty. His own specialty was sub-cutaneous enervation. His lasting fame rests on an essay in sociology, Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War.

This column is for the single purpose of urging my readers to read it. The author's name was Trotter. I have read it myself several times a year for over thirty years. I'll stop this now, and you go read.

What Should I Write About?

2006-07-12T19:06:00.000-04:00

For many reasons which I have mentioned and of course will again mention, I am aware of the avalanche of "information", thanks to the sneaky invention of the "yes or no" transistor, so that few of us "know" what things are of importance, or even what we should listen to on the short time matters of "making a living" or even survival. Consequently, I do not know what things are of sufficient interest to me to think on, or to you, to be of some early use.

Actually, I have hundreds of "subjects" on which I can do a column -- or is it thousands? -- if I were to look at the 2 to 10 feet of cut out newspaper sheets awaiting my attention, while I contemplate stopping the New York Times Weekend because it gets in the way as I intend to read it, and then trip over the last issues.

When I say to my first wife, "What should I write about?", she says, "Oh, about a page. Your clergyman father said that the congregation shuts off in less than 20 minutes." So I decided I would write about a page on what I should write about, since readers today are not only fewer but have shorter attention spans too.

And so, here I am at the end of the page, and I still don't know what, of the awful lot of choices at my elbow, I should write about.

I've run out of time, but I have written a column. So, next time, I'll do better.

Calling My Column

2006-07-05T19:05:00.000-04:00

I notice that there is an active industry in cornering names for commercial enterprises, including writing. Apparently, copyrights and even patents have been issued, to tie up names until someone makes some money and has to buy their own name if they have not protected it. In my case, I have written unpublished columns for years, or is it generations? I have done radio and television programs which I have not protected, some running in Asia after fifty years.

"Don To Earth" is a favorite tag of mine. "Things of Nature" is another. A favorite book is Instincts of the Herd, and I write columns which specify or detail ideas indicated there. That book is over a hundred years old. Some titles of series of columns coming from it could be "We Must Be Herd" or "So You Must Be Herd" or "Have You Herd?" Maybe I should register them anyway.

My Country, 'Tis of Thee is herd material. So are the followers of Mohammed, though the Sunnis and Shiites hate each other as did the Protestants and Catholics of old. There used to be Coptic Catholics and Eastern Orthodox descendants of the Roman Church, but now Catholic means the old Roman Catholic. But back to my own concern with rights and ownership of names.

I'm not sure if I favour a general tag which can cover everything, or rather anything, as "Don To Earth" can, or if I should have series titles which indicate or hint at more limited interests. Dear me, I seem to have made a column of this. I'll be back.