Roadside spandex blooms in the spring

I may be imagining it, but cyclists and motorists seem to be treating each other with more respect. Must be Bike to Work Week.

Put another way — the armchair mayor is writing about cyclists again; it must be spring.

Indeed, the first sign there’s been a change in weather is the sudden appearance of cyclists, proliferating along rural roadways like dandelions and purple haze, a very profusion of colour in their spandex and Lycra.

Goodwill is in the air. I’ve not once seen a driver, in the past couple of days, refuse to give a cyclist an appropriate berth when passing, or heard one honk with annoyance upon pulling up behind a furiously peddling two-wheeler.

Bike to workers are, of course, quite different from the weekend speed demons who spread along our roads on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Those who bike to work are in it for a very special purpose — to get from A to B without being killed, and to save 20 bucks on fuel. It is a noble cause, this going green and clean.

Drivers for whom cycling to work from Barnhartvale or Heffley Creek just isn’t practical, or who would rather die than exercise, respect what the bike-to-workers are doing (and here, I must salute our own Daily News B2WW team).

I suspect, sadly, that next week the workday cyclists — except for Donovan Cavers, of course — may well hop straight back into their gas guzzlers and wheel downtown to the office just like they always did.

But not the weekend road warriors. They’ll be out there come rain or shine in their skin-tight togs tearing along roads that are under built for automobile traffic, let alone bicycles.

They come in flocks, like multi-coloured mandarin ducks migrating north, their only sound the humming of their wheels or the yelling they do at each other as they glide along side by side taking up an entire laneway, ignoring the bumper-to-bumper traffic that has lined up behind them waiting for a straight stretch to pass.

A second species of road hog is the lone ranger who refuses to pull over and allow traffic to pass whether or not there’s a shoulder to rely on.

We shall not, on this day, reprise the many complaints cyclists and motorists have with each other, nor dwell on the dangers they mutually create. We could get into the debate over making cities and countrysides more bicycle friendly, but we all know they were built with the automobile in mind and we’ll have to share the woefully inadequate infrastructure for a good long while yet.

Instead, let’s get along at least for the rest of the week, and continue to demonstrate the good behaviour we’ve started out with.

And, speaking of Bike to Work Week, and that postponed official opening of the Valleyview multi-use pathway overpass, I received a message from MP Cathy McLeod after Saturday’s column, in which I had noted she hadn’t yet confirmed her availability for next week’s event.

Seems she only received her email invitation on Friday. Unfortunately, she must be in Ottawa on June 5 (the date to which the opening was postponed after MLA Terry Lake couldn’t make it on the day that had originally been chosen). An assistant will attend in McLeod’s place.

Somewhere, there’s got to be a manual for these things.

Is there a God? Well, yes and no…

The amazing thing about this past weekend’s Imagine No Religion 2 conference at the Kamloops Convention Centre is that it happened at all.

A few short years ago, it would have been, well, unimaginable in this community. Time was if you were asked, “Are you a Christian (or ‘religious,’ or ‘spiritual’) person?” and you could not answer yes, you were regarded as unworthy.

Now, the theist-atheist debate is on, and neither side has a monopoly on righteousness or wisdom.

Friday night’s debate — “Does a God, or Gods, exist?” — started things off for the conference and I was fortunate to have been invited to moderate it. The evening lived up to expectations, as philosophy instructor Michael Horner and ethics prof Paul Chamberlain debated for the “Yes” side, and humanism activist Christopher DiCaro and atheist Matt Dillahunty for the “No” side.

They were worthy adversaries, if that’s the word, though the debate was waged without the hostility and verbosity that sometimes characterizes the issue. In my view, the most effective debater was Chamberlain — not because of the views he expressed but because of his ability to speak and question forcefully. During the cross-examination, he relentlessly pursued Dillahunty, who seemed frustrated at times in not being able to shut him down with a zinger.

That’s as far as a neutral moderator (and a neutral observer of the issue itself) will go with analysis of the debating techniques, and overall neither side won on either the question or their sum-total success in the argument.

Inevitably, though not by direct reference, the debate wasn’t just about theism and atheism, but about the very meaning of life. A few quotes:

Chamberlain: “You cannot judge a viewpoint by its neglect.”

Dillahunty: “You cannot solve a mystery by appealing to a bigger myster.”

Horner: “The universe is not eternal.”

Chamberlain: “There is no good reason to believe God does not exist.”

DiCarlo: “”Just because the universe had to have a beginning…. This just happens to be the universe that succeeded. That doesn’t mean it got a push from a big god.”

 

 

 

To pray, or not to pray; that is the question

It’s not uncommon, when public institutions hereabouts hold a ceremony to open a new building or mark a milestone of some kind, to invite elders from our local First Nations to offer a prayer.

Such a prayer usually consists of a thank-you to Creator for giving us all that we need, and for bringing us together on this important occasion.

The elders are asked to take part in acknowledgement that Aboriginal peoples were here first. Opening a gathering with a prayer or grace is common anyway, so this simply combines the two.

Yet native prayer at public gatherings has been brought into question elsewhere. A recently released letter from Taskeo Mines Ltd. president Russell Hallbauer asks the Harper government not to consider native “spirituality” in its deliberations on the proposed mine.

Hallbauer wrote that the federal environmental review panel “does not have any right to attribute significance to the spirituality of a place per se,” and aboriginal prayer ceremonies should not be allowed at hearings on the mine’s revised proposal.

This has not gone down well with First Nations leaders. I suspect neglecting to invite local Band reps to civic ceremonies in our own city wouldn’t go unnoticed, either.

The issue isn’t just whether First Nations prayers are appropriate at such events, but whether prayers of any kind are appropriate. We do, after all, live in a country and society where freedom of religion includes the freedom not to have any religion or spiritual belief at all.

For my part, I’m a pacifist on such matters. My agnostic-channelled self takes no offence to someone of faith expressing it at a public gathering, whether it be native elders thanking their creator or a service club member giving thanks to his god for lunch or dinner.

I respect their right to believe what they want, and to express it in a public way. At the same time, I trust they will not be offended if there are some in the room who don’t share those beliefs and, therefore, don’t feel inclined to stand and bow and close their eyes in homage to a higher being.

Those familiar with my past musings on this topic may remember the story from long ago about a non-believer pupil banished to the hallway as his classmates recited the Lord’s Prayer.

It would have made so much more sense for the teacher to just let the kid sit passively at his desk while the rest stood and prayed.

So, demanding that First Nations prayers be removed from public hearings on a mine doesn’t, in my view, make any more sense than it would to insist they be banned from civic ceremonies. We just need to re-set our approach a little to recognize that we don’t all think the same way.

Tomorrow night, a very interesting weekend event gets underway in Kamloops. Hosted by the Kamloops Centre for Rational Thought, it brings together atheists who will ponder the concept, “Imagine No Religion.”

The first evening will feature some top-notch speakers debating the existence of God; I’ve been asked to moderate this debate, possibly in view of my neutral position on the matter (agnostic fence-sitter that I am).

I’ll boldly predict the debate won’t settle the issue. But maybe it will contribute to understanding that having different beliefs — if they’re respectfully expressed — is OK.

mrothenburger@kamloopsnews.ca

Kamloops’ first pride parade attracts enthusiastic crowd

Ready to march.

The city’s first ever pride parade went off without a hitch today. Loud and proud but respectful and fun. Lots of good speeches, signs and banners, and a crowd of about 300 enthusiastic marchers enjoying a good day for a walk — rain threatened at the last minute but held off.

Few politicians there in support, though. The mayor was absent, attending to other business. Councillors Donovan Cavers and Nelly Dever, bless ‘em, did attend. NDP candidates Tom Friedman and Kathy Kendall also.

More on who was there and who wasn’t, and why not, in Saturday’s Armchair Mayor.

Beauty pageant rules need to be fair

Jenna Talackova.

I have no trouble with a transgendered woman being allowed to enter the Miss Universe Canada competition. Vancouver-born Jenna Talackova should be able to compete without limitations as long she follows the rules and the rules are fair.

What I’m wondering about, though, is why boob jobs, tummy tucks and botox are considered fair in beauty pageants. Would there be anything so wrong in staging a pageant in which entrants were required to be all natural, right down to the roots of their hair?

Body building competitions (and most other sports, for that matter), don’t allow the use of steroids, because they give one competitor an advantage over another (not to mention, of course, that they’re dangerous).

Having different sets of rules for competition isn’t unusual. There are different events for men and for women. Different tournaments for athletes who are paid and those who aren’t.

Different sets of rules aren’t bad per se, just so long as they aren’t based on isms or phobias. The issue with Talackova is one of fairness more than sameness.

Counting the pros and cons of the lowly penny

I paid for a sandwich at a drive-through this week. It was $5.99.

I handed three toonies through the window.

At this point, there is always an awkward moment. Does one wait for a penny’s change? Does one say, “Keep the change” and risk a “Gee, thanks, big spender” from the teenager at the till?

Or do you hit the gas before it becomes an issue?

Mostly, I’m able to avoid the problem by keeping a $10 bill handy for just such occasions. There’s no shame in waiting for two toonies and a penny in change. It all goes into the ash tray — the toonies add up and you use them the next time.

Unfortunately, the pennies add up, too. That sigh you just heard was the fast-food till tender after she’s been handed a fist full of pennies.

Counting pennies does not come naturally to someone who has been educated with a built-in i-pad calculator and trained on a pre-programmed cash register.

Meanwhile, I feel the eyes of the customer in the car behind me burning into the back of my head like a laser, for it is a capital offence to slow the lineup.

Everywhere, there are pennies. Each day I return home with pockets full of metal coinage, some of which goes on the kitchen counter, some in the change bowl, some in various drawers, and the rest simply disappears into thin air (although I caught Syd poking around in my change bowl Friday morning, ignoring anything smaller than a toonie — this might be a clue).

Every once in awhile we do a complete sweep of the place and dump all the change into a bucket. Eventually, the quarters get used up on parking meters, the bigger coins on staples. The problem then becomes what to do with a bucket full of pennies.

It’s estimated that it costs 1.6 cents to make a penny. I’ve never seen a study on the labour cost involved in taking a bucket of pennies and putting them all into those little paper rollers, but I do know it’s not worth it.

The announcement Thursday that the Canadian penny is on the way out has, of course, provided an opportunity to employ every trite penny saying known to man or woman.

People are lamenting the fact they’ll no longer be able to offer “a penny for your thoughts,” or be secure in the knowledge that “a penny saved is a penny earned.”

When we refer to someone as a “bad penny” he or she won’t know it’s an insult. There will be no more “pretty pennies,” and we can no longer chastise the government for pinching pennies or being “penny-wise and pound-foolish.”

No more penny ante schemes. When the penny finally drops, what will it matter?

None of us, not a single one, will have a penny to our name.

What’s next, the loonie — the very symbol of all things Canadian? The toonie? Where does it end, rounding everything to the nearest five dollars?

No, when you count the pluses and minuses, there’s more bad than good in this. And that cashier I gave the three toonies to the other day? She didn’t even offer me my penny’s change. So I just drove away.

If I had a nickel for every time that’s happened….

Prostitution debate isn’t over, not by a long shot

I’d like to think the lull in street prostitution in the downtown and Tranquille business districts is permanent, but I’m not optimistic.

I don’t totally get the Ontario Court of Appeal ruling that says sex trade workers should be able to hire bodyguards and work in brothels but communicating for the purposes of prostitution is still not OK.

In Canada, as we know, prostitution itself isn’t illegal, but talking about it is. It’s a very practical approach, since catching people making a deal is a lot easier than catching them in the act.

What I’m wondering about is how, if the Ontario ruling becomes the new way of doing things, the prostitution business will work. How does someone set up shop with support staff and an address but not tell anybody about it and then expect to make a profit?

It would be like having widgets for sale but keeping it a secret.

The mayor of Kamloops says the issue of brothels has never been discussed by City council. That’s not true, not by a long shot.

Street prostitution, and the alternative of brothels, has been a matter for debate inside and outside City Hall since the 1990s (during which business-licence fees were boosted for escort agencies) and led to the Task Force on the Sex Trade in 2000.

At that time, and for years after, the very focus of the prostitution debate was the impact of the visibility of the street trade versus the alternative of keeping it out of sight in brothels.

“Various possibilities are routinely suggested: legalization, decriminalization, red-light zones, neighbourhood brothels,” I wrote in a column in February of 2000.

“There isn’t much new under the sun, and most of these have been tried somewhere in the world. Red-light zones have flopped in tragic ways as they become magnets for criminal activity. Legalization has sometimes proven just another way to create a corrupt bureaucracy. And who would want a brothel next door to where you live?”

Indeed, zoning for brothels would result in some very interesting public hearings. Ultimately, though, there isn’t much civic governments can do about prostitution except try to reduce the harm it causes.

“Several cities have passed prostitution bylaws only to have them thrown out of court because they are beyond municipal jurisdiction,” I acknowledged in the same column.

“My own feeling is that we should use the tools at our disposal: Do the best we can to keep prostitutes safe, but go after the sex trade and clear it out of the downtown. If it moves somewhere else, follow it wherever it goes.”

If, as Ask Wellness Centre director Bob Hughes suggests in a story elsewhere in today’s Daily News, the “stroll” is a thing of the past, all to the good.

I hope he’s right, and that prostitution won’t make a return to the streets. But here and elsewhere, the issue will never go away, and we’re going to be talking about it — including so-called “chicken” or
“bunny ranches,” the safety of sex-trade workers, and the attendant social issues of drug addiction and violence — for many years to come.

So if the current council hasn’t turned its mind to it yet, maybe the Ontario ruling is a good place to start.

No need for shouting in teachers’ dispute

You know people are excited about something when they start using a lot of CAPITAL LETTERS and exclamation marks!!!!!

Really, there’s no need to yell when you write a letter to the editor. There’s no difference in meaning between, “This is NOT fair!!!” and “This is not fair.”

All that capping and exclaiming reflects, though, the anger, frustration and stridency characterizing the divide between our teachers and those who are cheerleading the government in putting the boots to them.

Everybody is walking around with calculators trying to figure out — literally — what teachers are worth.

Take the hours they work in a day, add preparation time, subtract summer, winter and spring breaks, divide by time off for compassionate leave, multiply by professional development and take the square root of dedication, experience and training and, supposedly, we should be able to come up with a number.

It’s all so silly. We’re trying to compute a value for something that can’t be computed.

As a whole, teachers are no different than any other employee group. Some are very good, some are terrible, and most are average. From my own experience and that of my children, I can remember the names of the good ones and the really dreadful ones; the rest I’ve forgotten.

Becoming a teacher doesn’t make you special, any more than any other career choice. If you want to be special, empty out your bank account, sell your home and your belongings and give it all to charity.

Teaching is a job, one that requires a particular set of skills combined with a desire to do the work. If it pans out, you’ll love what you do and will feel you’re doing something worthwhile.

You’ll feel blessed that you have a job you enjoy, unlike the many or even most who must work at jobs they don’t much like but do it to put food on the table.

This doesn’t give your employer the right to take advantage of you. Reasonable ground rules are needed. You deserve to be paid fairly within the range of what others in similar jobs are paid. Working conditions need to be fair, too. Expectations must be clear.

It needs to be in writing — it’s called a contract. You get the best deal you can within the labour marketplace. Sometimes things go wrong.

The best work place is one in which an employer can say, “There’s a job here that needs to be done and this is what it is, and this is what I’m willing to pay you to do it. As long as you do it well, we’re even.”

Believe it or not, there are workplaces in which trust, flexibility and teamwork exist. Our schools used to be such places; not now.

Since everyone’s asking questions, I have two.

To those who think so little of teachers: do you really believe people are in the business of teaching out of greed, and that as a whole they don’t give a rat’s patoot about what’s best for their kids?

Of the teachers, I ask this: Is it possible we might all be better off if teaching got back to being a little more like a profession and a little less like just another way to put food on the table?

 

A very revealing start to Kamloops Project on this Leap Day

Mel at his computer, just now, hoping he'll find a better picture to take for Kamloops Project day.

Happy Kamloops Project Day. I met a stripper this morning up at the Broadcast Centre. They said she was there to help celebrate Henry Small’s birthday, but I’m sure she was there to help kick off Kamloops Project Day.

Unfortunately, I neglected to get a picture of her, but she was wearing very nice leather chaps. I also neglected to ask her for her business card.

It was a good start to the day, though.

Later.... A little off the top — me, taking a picture of me getting scalped by John DeCicco at his Continental Barbershop on Kamloops Project Day.

‘Old’ is now an insult, not just a stage of life

A few years ago, I spoke to some Grade 3 kids at their school. That evening, one of them reported back to her parents that I “had wrinkly hands.”

Such input is important, as I’m a true believer that we should see our hands as others see them.

Feedback on aging isn’t always so kind. On the day you go from being not old, to old (and the question of when that actually occurs will be the subject of heated discourse for the rest of time), you turn into a loathsome, disreputable, reprehensible individual who should, really, be done away with.

Much in the same way as if you have coloured skin, are poor, disabled, unemployed, of the wrong religion, or otherwise undesirable.

Calling someone “old” is, nowadays, used as an insult. If someone disagrees with your opinion, and they know your hair is grey, you are dismissed as “old” in the same way you might be called a criminal.

It’s a form of discrimination and intolerance as surely as religious discrimination, racism, homophobia, or any of the other isms and phobias.

As someone who grew up with all the arrogance of youth and all the privileges of being white in a white society, I had no real appreciation for what it was like to experience discrimination. I’m beginning to get the picture.

In recent years, I’ve been subjected to being called “old,” “old man,” “Gramps,” and variations thereof. A few weeks ago, a teenager who didn’t like one of my columns dismissed me as “a bored old man with nothing better to do than harp on the achievements of others.”

She was incorrect on at least one point — I am not bored. Harping is quite an enjoyable way to make a living.

You might be surprised if I told you the names of some of those who have made such comments to me, which are as bigoted and as insulting as if I had slurred any of them about their colour or their religion.

“I think the best solution to solve the OAS problem is to instill mandatory euthanasia for all people reaching 65 years old,” a frequent commenter wrote on our website.

I think that was supposed to be funny, but most times age references are meant purely to be hurtful.

Having been in the public eye for quite awhile now, I’m more used than most to being flamed by those who disagree with me but, look, if you don’t like my opinion, is it possible to argue the point without personal remarks?

I’ll still write what I think of politicians who celebrate mediocrity, ho-hummers who settle for second best, and ship-disturbers who spend all their time tearing down instead of building up, but if you want to call me a cranky, ill-informed S.O.B. I’ll be fine with it.

Just, please, be more creative with your insults than “old.” And don’t even bother whining about how the older generation screwed everything up. Running the world isn’t easy — you’ll find that out when you get here.

Nelson Mandela was 75 when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Mahatma Gandhi led India toward independence when he was in his late 70s. Adolf Hitler was a psychopathic meglomaniac well before he hit 30. Kim Jung Un is 28.

Who would you rather have in your corner?