Marci Ien's article does her cause no favours

Marci Ien's op-ed piece in the Globe and Mail a couple of days ago ("The double standard of driving while black - in Canada") seems to have struck a raw nerve or two, judging by the letters it has elicited from both men and women, black and white.

Ms. Ien is a 48 year old reporter and daytime talk show presenter with CTV. She is a pretty well-to-do and articulate middle-class Canadian, and probably lives in a reasonably toney part of Toronto. She is also black (of Trinidadian descent). She was pulled over recently by a police car for not stopping at a red light near a school, for what was apparently the third time in eight months. As Ms. Ien tells it, this was a typical case of racial profiling and police harrassment.

She seems to have taken umbrage in particular at the policeman's tone when she got out of the car and walked towards him, and was told in no uncertain terms to get back in the car and just wind her window down. I know from my own limited experience that this is standard police procedure (presumably for their own security), and I once received the same peremptory command, in the same tone, when I - not knowing any better - made the same mistake.

She also takes umbrage at the policeman's line of questioning about where she lived, whether this was her car, etc, but I seem to remember that I (a middle-aged white guy in a hybrid) also got those questions when I was stopped, in my case, for doing a U-turn on a residential street outside a subway station, where everyone picks up people and does a U-turn (and yes, I too felt aggrieved).

Perhaps it was strange that the traffic cop followed her home, rather than stopping her at the scene of the infraction, although we don't know how far that was, or what other contributory factors were involved. We don't even know whether he followed her with red lights blazing, waiting for her to stop. And three times in eight months? Yes, that sounds excessive - unless Ms. Ien is in fact a particularly bad or aggressive driver. We don't know about that either. Same cop? Different cops? Who knows? Is the fact that she was wearing a black hoodie relevant? Did the cop even know that she was black when he stopped her? There are many possible narratives stemming from the little that we are told.

The other thing Ms. Ien is incensed about is the fact that she wasn't charged or fined on any of the three occasions she was stopped, which seems to be proof in her eyes of harrassment. Most other people would merely be thankful for this (I was fined the only time I was stopped - it never occurred to me to wonder if this was because I was white). From the way she apparently spoke to the cop, she should probably consider herself very fortunate not to have been charged. In my experience, you don't talk back, or even attempt lame jokes, to police or border customs officers; it's just not worth the risk.

And finally, Ms. Ien seems surprised that she was stopped EVEN THOUGH she is, as she insists on telling us, "an award-winning journalist" who "co-host[s] a national television show", and who "lived in the neighbourhood for 13 years". Is any of this relevant? Would she really expect preferential treatment for these reasons? She herself admits that her "reporter instincts kicked in", and most people know better than to appear combative in such circumstances. Yes, of course there is an imbalance of power, but that is just an element of the social contract we are all part of, and what allows the police to effectively do their job on our behalf.

Now, I'm not stupid. I know that some racial profiling still goes on, even though the Toronto police force, like many others, has been trying to clean it up, and to benefit from sensitivity training, etc. But Ms. Ien's article has probably not done her cause much good, especially as she comes over as privileged, aggressive and confrontational. Oh, and probably a poor driver.

Can we please ban cellphones from Olympics ceremonies?

I'm sure there is a case for banning cellphones from Olympic opening and closing ceremonies. Having just sat through another one, the closing ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, the parade of selfies once again took centre stage (and, embarrassingly, the Canadians athletes were among the worst offenders).
Do they not realize that the whole thing, including them, is being televised in high definition video? I'm sure they could get hold of a copy somewhere. Surely that would be better than their own shaky, obstructed cellphone version. And then they could concentrate on enjoying themselves, and celebrating, and all that.
I really wouldn't be all that surprised to see skiers, skaters and luge runners with their cellphones out while competing, recording live to their YouTube channel.
Will there come a time when cellphones are considered passé? God, I hope it comes soon.

Guns cause shootings, not people, after all

After yet another mass school shooting, America is searching its soul once more about why it experiences so much gun violence.
Despite input from the country's Idiot-in-Chief, who suggests that US schools need to be "hardened not softened", and that the solution is to arm teachers, there seems to be a more serious feeling this time around that the time has finally come for something to be actually done on gun control, with several major companies publicly distancing themselves from the National Rifle Association (NRA), and with American teens at the forefront of the movement, speaking out (and apparently being heard).
Well, we've seen scenes of outrage over the country's gun culture before, and we've heard a whole bunch of different theories expounded over why the situation has devolved to its current sad state, from racial divisions to video games to a lack of mental health care, usually followed by a quiet return to the status quo and business as usual. But while many of these theories may be at least partially right, and are are worthy of attention and action, all of them have, according to a recent New York Times article, been debunked at some point by research on shootings elsewhere in the world.
The only thing that fully explains the prevalence of mass shootings in the USA, the article argues, is the brute fact of the sheer number of guns in the country.
A country with 4.4% of the world's population has 42% of the world's guns. What could possibly go wrong? Nearly a thord of all mass shootings take place in the USA. Only Yemen has a higher rate of mass shootings per capita, and it is no coincidence that Yemen has the second highest rate of gun ownership after the US (oh, and it is in the middle of a civil war and its society has essentially disintegrated).
So, it seems pretty clear that the problem stems from America's love affair with the gun, and its assumption that it is everyone's right to own one. So, contrary to what the NRA has repeated ad nauseam for decades it's not people that cause shootings, it's guns.

When is a Russian ban not a Russian ban?

So, what in the end is the point of the IOC's ban of Russia from the 2018 Winter Olympics, when there is a huge team attending it called the Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR)? Or, as the BBC phrases it, "When is a Russian not a Russian?" Or as I might phrase it, "When is a ban not a ban?"
The International Olympic Commitee (IOC) ruled a theoretical blanket ban on the Russian national team due to its systemic state-sponsored doping program, much to the satisfaction of most people around the world. The country has already been stripped of 13 of its medals at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, although more appeals are still underway, and there is still a chance that some of these medals could be reinstated (a thoroughly confusing situation - when is a decision not a decision?)
The fine print behind the IOC ban, though, allows a team called Olympic Athletes from Russia to attend the Games at PyeongChang. As though this is somehow not the same as Team Russia. This team has 169 members, the third largest after the USA and Canada, and although some key athletes are still missing due to continuing doping bans, the OAR team is still expected to appear high in the medals table. Russia? Olympic Athletes from Russia? The Team Formerly Known As Russia? Sementics, schmemantics.
So, is this the IOC weaselling out of controversial decision, or just a reasonable accommodation to allow clean Russian athletes to participate in the ultimate elite competition for their respective sports? Depends on your point of view, really. There will be no Russian flags on display, and the Olympic anthem will be played in place of the Russian anthem at any medal ceremonies. But the Russian fans do not seem unduly perturbed by this, even if the athletes are, and in practice it seems to be pretty much business as usual.
Ban? What ban?

Poland passes bewildering WW2 legislation

In between shovelling an apparently endless succession of snowfalls, I have been trying to get my head around the controversial legislation passed recently in Poland which effectively bans the use of the phrase "Polish death camps" and makes it illegal to even suggest that Poland bore any responsibility for the Nazi atrocities during World War II. I particularly feel the need to figure it out after spending an evening with a Canadian-Polish friend who was absolutely fierce in her defence of the dear home country.
Just to back up a little, Poland had a shitty Second World War: three million Polish Jews died at the hands of the German Nazis - almost half of all the Jews who were killed during the Holocaust - as well as another three million non-Jews. Poland was known to be a particular hate of Hitler's, who vowed to destroy the entire Polish state and to enslave its people. It is no coincidence tbat the Nazis built some of their largest and most notorious concentration camps (think Auschwitz, Birkenau, Treblinka) in Poland.
And that is part of what Poland is trying to address with this latest legislation. What I don't understand, though, is, even if it can be true that people interpret the phrase "Polish death camps" to mean death camps run by the Polish government rather than German Nazi death camps (which I find really difficult to believe, although our Canadian-Polish friend insists that this is a real and pressing problem), what is the point of passing a law about it in Poland? Because it is presumably not Poles who get confused.
As for the other part of the new law, many historians are arguing that passing a law making it illegal to accuse the Polish government of complicity in the Holocaust or any other Nazi atrocity is effectively an attempt at whitewashing the role of Poles in the war. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has compared the new law as de facto Holocaust denial, but you can always trust the Israelis (and Netanyahu in particular) to go over the top in these matters.
Now, while it is true that the Polish government never had a policy of appeasement or collaboration like France or Norway, there certainly were examples of Polish some towns and cities (notably Jedwabne and Kielce) taking part in Nazi anti-Jew pogroms, and various betrayals of Jews by Polish individuals, even if I am sure that our friend would never admit to that. And, once again, why pass a law like that in Poland unless Poles themselves are routinely in thr habit of accusing their government of war crimes from 60 years ago, which I find unlikely. Such a law does not constrain Israelis or anyone else outside of Poland, so what exactly is its function?
Anyway, I don't want to belabour the point, but I just feel that the whole law is just another example of the curbing of the media and judicial independence that the current populist government has been frequently accused of. This kind of government censorship is never to be encouraged.

Why female Uber drivers earn less than men

An analysis by ride-sharing service Uber of its own drivers has thrown up some interesting data.
It seems that female Uber drivers earn on average 7% less than male drivers. But this is not the usual gender earnings gap we often read about. Uber pays its male and female drivers exactly the same for the distance and time they work.
About half of the male-female discrepancy is a result of the rather humdrum fact that the "more risk tolerant and aggressive" male drivers drive faster, and so can fit more trips into the working day. The rest of the difference is partly that men work longer hours (either they choose to, or they are able to) and, as a result of both of these two factors, men accumulate more experience and are able to position themselves in more lucrative locations. Interesting.
As an aside the analysis also reveals that there are 1.8 million Uber drivers in the United States alone, and they earn an average of US$376 a week, or US$21 an hour. Also, 60% of drivers are no longer working for Uber six months after starting, which suggests it is actually a more difficult job than Uber's recruitment advertising suggests.

The ethics of self-driving cars (revisited again)

Pursuing the ongoing debate over the hoary problem of how to program autonomous cars ethically, a group of Italian researchers have proposed a possible practical solution to the conundrum that most drivers believe that self-driving cars should take a utilitarian approach (i.e. they should seek to maximize the common good, even if that means sacrificing the lives of the car's passengers) while, at the same time, a sizeable majority also say that they would not want to drive in an autonomous car if it was set to kill the passengers rather than a group of pedestrians.
This solution involves an "ethical knob", which the driver/owner of the car would set themselves. This know would have three possible settings:

1. Extreme altruism (the car would always choose the lives of pedestrians and others over the lives of the car's occupants).
2. Utilitarian (the car would make logicsl decisions based on maximizing the good of everyone involved).
3. Extreme egotism (the car would protect its passengers at all costs).

The researchers suggest that driver-owners should be deterred from the egotistical option by means of insurance premiums, with those who choose altristic driving paying a much lower premium than those who opt for egotism.
This is certainly an interesting idea, and it takes the ethical onus off car manufacturers, placing it squarely on the shoulders of the human "driver", which is effectively what happens in the real world at the moment. However, I am not sure how well it would work in practice, and I worry about the ramifications of having a one-time decision take away the flexibility of reacting to a specific situation.
It would certainly bring home to drivers/owners the fact that operating a potentially lethal mechine like a car does come with ethical considerations. And it also explicitly addresses the issue of insurance on autonomous cars, something I have rarely seen examined.

Why are salsa jars so hard to open?

Seems like it's not just me getting old and feeble, or at least only that - the interwebs are full of people who struggle to open jars, particularly salsa and pickle jars.
Pretty much everyone has their own workaround for the problem: wear a rubber glove, or a leather glove, or just use a damp dishcloth to allow for a better grip; use a can-opener or a knife to break the vacuum seal at one edge of the lid; run hot water over the metal lid to expand it and make it easier to open; get the body-builder next door to do it; etc. There are also gizmos and gadgets specifically designed to aid with opening jars, although salsa jars are often too wide for some of these (here is a professional model that some peope swear by).
Obviously, jars need to be well sealed for food safety and shelf-life purposes, I understand that. But do they need to be quite so well-sealed, to the extent that normal healthy adults struggle mightily with them?
Well, one has to assume that food manufacturers are not stupid, and that they have put some thought into the trade-off between ease of opening and safety/longevity. Given that most people DO get them open eventually, one way or another, a.d given that we keep buying the stuff because it's so good, they are probably not going to change things any time soon. Cost and taste are overriding factors; actually being able to open the damned thing, not so much. The internet assures me that food manufacturers are aware of the issue, and are constantly working on potential solutions and innovations. But don't hold your breath.
As to why salsa and pickle jars seem to be worse than anything else, part of the problem is the traditional larger size and shape of the jars, which makes a good grip more difficult. But it has also been suggested that salsa and pickles are usually packaged while still hot, which makes the vacuum seal even stronger. That sounds vaguely plausible, but would the same not also apply to jams?