Changing times in Wildrose Country

It's difficult to ignore the electoral seismic shift that appears to be occurring in Alberta in the run-up to next week's provincial elections. Even Ontarians like me are stopping to gape.
The Progressive Conservatives have been in power there for 44 years, practically forever in political terms, and even quite recently Conservative incumbent Jim Prentice appeared comfortably set for another majority.
Recent polls, though, if you believe such things, show the centre-left NDP in majority territory, with the Conservatives languishing back in a distant third place, with only the Wildrose Party for company. Of course, polls being polls, nothing about this is certain. In the last Alberta election in 2012, all the polls were predicting a win for the Wildroae Party, until election day, when they were't.
It's difficult to put a finger on exactly what is souring the mood in conservative Alberta. It could just be as simple, and as wrong-headed, as blaming the incumbents for the worldwide fall in oil prices, which has decimated the province's finances. Or a more considered slap in the face for the Conservatives' lack of foresight in developing an economy so tied to oil, and in not putting aside contingency reserves while times were good (and they were VERY good). Even taking into account the changing demographics of the province, and particularly of its larger cities, I don't think the populace has suddenly had a communal change of heart and seen the innate wisdom of the NDP platform. This is at best a protest vote, designed to deliver a sharp wake-up call.
My own feeling is that, when push comes to shove next week, the redneck population of Alberta - which is substantial - will balk, and the NDP will squeak in with a minority. But even that will be a big deal in Alberta, which in many more ways than one is the Texas of Canada. The times certainly are a-changin'...

Be cautious of contact with evangelical teenagers

I seem to be on something of a non-fiction jag at the moment, courtesy of the wonderful Toronto Public Library. Currently, I am working through "The Village Effect" by Susan Pinker, subtitled (and all non-fiction books have a sub-title these days) "How Face-to-Face Contact can Make us Healthier, Happier and Smarter". Sounds horribly self-help-ish, I know, but it purports to be a serious piece of social science.
Worthy as it undoubtedly is, I'm not sure that I would go out of my way to recommend the book. I think I may have read just too many of these kinds of books, and reached saturation level. By "these kinds of books" I mean well-researched but slightly over-earnest tomes, ploughing a lonely and narrow furrow of scientific research, which the authors are convinced is THE solution to some major problems with society and the world, or, it sometimes seems, ALL problems of society.
In Ms. Pinker's case, her current obsession is with the social, psychological and physiological benefits of face-to-face (as opposed to online) contact, particularly, it seems, contact with women. According to her research, it can allow us to live significantly longer, and can improve and often completely cure cancers and other life-threatening conditions. In support of her claim, she throws at us any number of statistics and studies and miraculous stories and case histories.
The one thing I did want to share, though, is only peripherally connected to her case, but it jumped out at me when I read it.
Apparently, although 75% of evangelical teenagers in America say they believe in no sex before marriage (a much higher percentage than other religious denominations), a huge US government survey has revealed that teens from evangelical and conservative Christian families have an earlier sexual debut, are more sexually active, are less likely to use contraception, and have higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy than other American teens. (For those who may be interested, the study is called "Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate and Think About Marrying", 2011, by Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker.)
I suppose in a way it makes sense: such kids are unlikely to talk or learn about sex, or to actively seek contraception. But "sex happens" to them anyway, as it does to most teenagers growing up, despite their moralistic talk and holier-than-thou attitudes. They are just less prepared for it than most. And, it seems, they are probably even weaker in the will-power stakes.
Anyway, there: I've shared it now. I don't intend to review the book as a whole (any more than I already have done above). And I'm not going to suggest that you go out and join a book club, or volunteer at your local community centre, or even (heaven forbid) go live in a Sardinian village.
Just watch out for those holy rollers, kids.

We all have creative minds

I have been reading a thought-provoking new book by Kevin Ashton called "How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention and Discovery".
Ashton, something of an inventor and scientific pioneer himself, begins his introduction by quoting from a famous and oft-quoted letter by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a bright young man usually considered a genius in his field. The letter explains how he, Mozart, envisions his music fully formed in his head, merely requiring the quick and simple task of writing it all down on paper. This is the classic image of a creative genius at work: a special person with a natural gift verging on magic.
Aston, however, then explodes the myth by pointing out that the letter, despite its strong currency among many illustrious commentators both new and old, was actually a 19th Century forgery, and that Mozart's actual letters to family and friends describe the long and painstaking process of sketch and elaboration, error and correction and revision, that represents the reality of his creative process.
This, then, is the main thrust of Ashton's contention: despite the myth of the individual genius established during the flowering of the Renaissance and honed over the centuries ever since, inventions and discoveries actually require long hours of hard work, building on the work of those gone before. Furthermore, great innovations do not come fully formed in a blinding flash of inspiration, but are composed of many smaller steps. As Ashton phrases it: "All great discoveries, even ones that look like transforming leaps, are short hops".
Even more importantly, in Ashton's view, the act of creation requires no special mental processes, and no superior type of brain: in theory, any or all of us are capable of the kinds of extraordinary achievements we normally associate with individuals of genius. He points out that there is no essential difference between the brains of modern humans and those of the homo sapiens of 200 million years ago, even though the first 150 million years resulted in almost no technological advance whatsoever. Likewise, in the light of 20th Century neurology, we now know that there is no essential difference between the brain processes involved in creativity and our normal everyday thought processes. Again in Ashton's words, "Put simply, we all have creative minds".
Most of the rest of the book is an examination - through analyses of well-known and not-so-well-known cases, and other scientific studies - of the idea that genius does not predict, and is not a prerequisite for, creativity, and that extraordinary outcomes may result from very ordinary acts.
Along the way, Ashton debunks many persistent myths about the creative process, including the so-called "aha!" moments of Archimedes, Coleridge, Kekulé, Einstein and others; the claimed efficacy of incubation; the spurious superiority of brainstorming over individual efforts; etc. He looks at creations and innovations as diverse as the Wright brothers' airplane (the "flying horse" of the title), the development of fighter jets during World War II, Kandinsky's ground-breaking paintings, the iPhone, the discovery of the structure of DNA, William Cartright's automatic loom, the development of Coca-Cola, and many more.
Part of the point of Ashton's approach is to demonstrate to what extent important innovations are the result of hard work, dedication, collaboration and "standing on the shoulders of giants", rather than the virtuoso solo effort of an individual of genius.
He also goes off on various peripherally-relevant tangents, including the discrimination against women in science and education, the so-called "Matthew effect" (whereby the well-known tend to receive a disproportionate amount of credit at the expense of the lesser-known), writer's block, the "marshmallow challenge" (in which kindergartners tend to out-perform adults and professionals), opposition to innovation by the Luddites, the Amish, etc. Most of these are interesting enough digressions in their own right, even if they are arguably just padding for the (rather slim) main argument.
While in the main an interesting read, I found myself becoming somewhat irked from time to time by Ashton's belabouring of some of his points. He has a tendency to repeat something in five different ways without really adding much in the process. An interesting point made in a short pithy sentence might be followed by essentially the same sentiment using different words. And then another. Much as I have just (deliberately) done here. This suggests to me that perhaps the material would actually have been appropriate to a much shorter book.

Toronto is pretty happy, but the rest of Canada is even happier

A report from Statistics Canada called "How’s Life in the City? Life Satisfaction Across Census Metropolitan Areas and Economic Regions in Canada" was released recently, which purports to rank Canadian cities according to their subjective well-being or "life satisfaction", i.e. how good the residents feel their lives are.
My own hometown of Toronto languishes down near the bottom of the list, with only Vancouver (yes, Vancouver, B.C., commonly referred to as La-La Land) below it, but both cities score at around 7.8 out of 10, which is still pretty happy. The top of the list is dominated by smaller cities, especially those in Quebec and Newfoundland, although, to put this into perspective, even the top scores are only around 8.2.
To put this even further into perspective, on a global scale, Canada now ranks the fifth happiest in the world, according to the latest World Happiness Report, up from sixth last year, and only narrowly surpassed by Switzerland (really?!), Iceland, Denmark and Norway. These five all had scores of between 7.4 and 7.6, as compared to the lowest five on the scale (Rwanda, Benin, Syria, Burundi and Togo), whose scores range from about 3.4 right down to a dismal 2.8 in the case of last-placed Togo.
This international index takes into account a variety of factors, including income, healthy years of life expectancy, availability of social support, generosity and charity giving, perceptions of corruption in government and business, and individuals' perceptions of their personal freedoms, and so is not necessarily directly comparable to the Stats Canada index, which is limited to subjective responses to a simple question, "how do you feel about your life as a whole right now?"
It kind of makes me happy I don't live in west or central Africa, though.

Parents with their heads in the sand

It is against my better judgement, perhaps, but I can't help but mention the recent developments in the proposed introduction of a revised sex education syllabus in Ontario's schools, as a group of parents opposed to the proposed changes are encouraging their children to go on strike for a week, or, rather, they are preventing their unfortunate children from going to school in order to further their own political and religious ends.
I hate to see adults using children as pawns in such political games, and I hate to see religion, and religious-based cultural views, being used as a sacred cow against which is it considered politically incorrect to argue. So, my position on this one is pretty clear.
After much research, the Ontario government has decided to alter their currently rather lame sex education syllabus to include such important issues as masturbation, same-sex relationships, online safety, sexting, and affirmative consent, and also to begin to tackle such issues at an earlier age than heretofore. This will being Ontario more into line with much of Europe, which has had such policies in place for years.
Some of the comments of the opposing parents are instructive, comments such as, "The sex curriculum that I read is completely age inappropriate, and it’s far too heavy for children at the age and maturity level that they’re in", and my personal favourite, "If you teach my kids at school, when he comes home I have to deal with him for the rest of the day". Well, sorry for the inconvenience, but that is part of being a parent, I'm afraid. And surely it is better that such issues are dealt with early than too late.
I understand that some religions are squeamish and blinkered about sex but, whether these parents like it or not, masturbation, homosexuality and teenage pregnancies are facts of life, and issues like online predation and sexting are products (however unfortunate) of the age in which we live. Better that a handful of at-risk kids, who may not have the benefit of hands-on parental involvement, are averted from a harmful path at an early and impressionable age, even if a few others have to hear some hard truths their parents would rather they not hear.
To be forewarned is to be forearmed; to stick one's head in the sand is to get a mouthful of dirt and to risk asphyxiation. I know which I would choose for my offspring.

Turtles vs. Wind Turbines

A tricky dilemma has arisen in eastern Ontario, as two issues dear to my own heart - species conservation and renewable energy - face off in the courts.
A project to install nine wind turbines in Prince Edward County, enough to power 50,000 homes and create 300 construction jobs, is in danger of being rejected due to its potential effect on the endangered Blandings turtles that are found in the area. The developer, Gilead Power Corp, are being as responsible as they can be, and indeed are bending over backwards to accommodate the problem, including setting aside 40 hectares of protected habitat (over and above the 8 hectares the development will disturb), funding a research project on the turtle at a Canadian university, monitoring the turtles for 20 years, and even building only between October and May while the turtles are in hibernation. The location was used in the 1940s and 1950s for testing air-to-ground bombs by the Canadian defence department, a traumatic episode that, incredibly, had apparently little or no effect on the local Blandings turtle population.
It's important to note that it is not the wind turbines themselves that are being taken to task here, although a cursory reading of the articles about the conflict might well give that impression. The problem is the 5.4 km of access roads needed, and the possibility that the turtles may cross the roads and come to grief, although the company are proposing to close the roads to the public anyway, and so only sporadic maintenance traffic would be involved.
It's interesting to note that there is also a distinctly similar argument going in British Columbia, where a wind farm development is at odds with a spawning stream for rainbow trout. In that case, the species in question is not endangered, and the risk is to a couple of sports fishing clubs, so I have less sympathy with the plaintiffs. However, one can see it becoming a common problems for an already beleaguered renewable energy sector, and it seems such a shame to see two eminently worthy environmental issues at loggerheads.
The outcome of the Ontario Court of Appeal case could have far-reaching implications for future wind energy projects in the province, or, in the event the development company wins the case, for future interpretation of the endangered species legislation. My own feeling, for what it is worth, is that, in this case at any rate, the development company is doing enough, and the risks to the turtles are sufficiently circumscribed and minimal, that the two could happily coexist.
To me, the ideal outcome would be for the wind energy project to go ahead, but with an explicit understanding - and, perhaps more importantly, a precedent for future projects of any sort - that endangered species and environmental considerations of all kinds are important and not to be trumped lightly, and that development companies SHOULD be ready to bend over backwards to accommodate such concerns, as I believe Gilead Power Corp are in this case.
The courts, however, may not agree. Watch this space.

The powerful poetry of Shane Koyczan

CBC has introduced me, rather belatedly I fear, to Canadian poet Shane Koyczan.
Koyczan is a big, bearded, bruiser of a guy, but he's a jolly gentle giant. Having survived a messed-up childhood in northern Canada, involving a broken home and extensive bullying, he gave up his early ambitions of becoming a professional wrestler in favour of ... poetry. To be fair, he actually calls himself a "spoken word artist" rather than a poet, and his work is more in the way of spoken word lyrics for stand-up performance than traditional poetry. Less reliant on intricate wordplay and literary obfuscation than most poetry, Koyczan's work focuses more on powerful ideas and heartfelt, often intensely personal, emotion.
And he's quite a performer. Check out his performance on CBC's "q" radio program - try to ignore the advertising, and skip to about minute 13 for his reading of "For Many", a recent poem about self-image and self-worth.
There are a bunch more Koyczan videos available on YouTube, including his famous ode to the bullied kids of the world, "To This Day" (which he has also performed on a recent TED Talk); "Heaven, or Whatever", his memories of his grandfather; "Shoulders", about the environment and the power of activism; and, perhaps my own personal favourite, "The Crickets Have Arthritis", his incredibly moving tale of time spent in a hospital ward with a young cancer victim. There are many more Shane Koyczan videos on YouTube, some live on stage, some backed by music, some featuring cute (and often poignant) animations. All are worth your time.

Tentative steps towards beer freedom

Ontario has taken some tentative, stumbling steps into the 21st century with its plan to break the stranglehold the Beer Store has over beer sales in the province.
Soon I may not have to embarrass myself when I explain to confused out-of-country visitors that they can only buy beer from the beer store and liquor from the liquor store, oh, except for this inexplicable foible here and that inconsistent exception there... But don't get too excited: this is far from a transparent opening up of the alcohol retail sector, despite their #FreeTheBeer hashtag. It is more of a cash grab combined with an exercise in political optics.
Publicly promoted as a scheme to allow up to 450 grocery stores to sell beer (those "big enough to set up a separate area for the beer"), in fact only 150 stores in urban areas will be eligible to receive a licence at first, and that not until May 2017. I guess it will take a couple of years for them to get their shelves ready... Convenience stores, even larger ones like 7-Elevens, will definitely not be eligible.
Those stores that do receive licenses will need to sell the beer from physically separate spaces that keep the same hours as the Beer Store, employees will apparently need special training, pricing will be fixed so that the Beer Store does not experience any undue competition, and the stores will be limited to selling individual bottles or six-packs. To call this tentative would be vastly overstating the case.
The Beer Store, a syndicate run by three foreign-owned private beer companies, will therefore retain its monopoly over 24-packs (the Great Canadian Two-Four), and in general even over 12-packs, although it will have to open up its shelves a little further to smaller brewers, and is under orders to "improve the experience of its customers" in some way. Meanwhile, the provincially-owned LCBO, which currently restricts itself to selling 6-packs, is to take part in a special limited 10-store pilot study to investigate "the viability of offering 12-packs" (as though this required some kind of special skills). There is even to be a Beer Ombudsman - I kid you not! - "to hear complaints from brewers and customers regarding operational issues".
Oh, and, of course, there is an additional tax to be levied, equivalent to about $1 on a pack of 24, presumably for the privilege of our being able to buy beer from a regular store, like you can pretty much everywhere else.
Well, Ontarians have been waiting for some movement on this issue for decades, and finally we have something. But I not convinced that many people will be impressed with these half measures.