Ben Johnson for the Order of Canada

Posted on 30 June 2012 by Larry Russwurm

Let’s look at the good Ben Johnson did. He handled reporters well as an up and coming track star in the eighties.

The steroids he took were not a magic bullet. He still had to train strongly to attain his muscle mass and his explosiveness and speed. Rumours have it that he wasn’t the only track star using steroids in 1988. He was just the one who had his gold medal in the 100 meters taken away.

And he had success before the Seoul Olympics. Perhaps he wasn’t a cheater back then.

I remember how proud Ben made Canadians in the mid eighties. The fastest man in the world lived here. What a turnaround from the Montreal Olympics in ’76 when Canada achieved no gold medals at all.

Some would ban Ben for all time from getting the Order of Canada. Representing some of the highest achievements in all of Canada, the Order of Canada is a privilege to the recipient. Ordinarily I’d agree with Ben being banned. But another famous Canadian cheater, Ralph Klein just got one.

If you don’t know, Ralph Klein was the premier of Alberta when he took a university course. For the purposes of the rest of this article I’ll ignore that the top person in the province was even allowed to take an education course and have it count, when education is a provincial responsibility. Anyway, an essay of Klein’s leaked and it was found to a great degree of certainty that large parts of it were plagiarized from other works.

I know people feel sorry for Ralph Klein, now, as he has developed dementia and has other health concerns. But giving out Orders of Canada out of sympathy seems like a bad precedent. Surely others have had bigger sob stories than being premier of a province.

Does this mean that if Ben Johnson has a protracted illness before death, that he, too, will be given an Order of Canada? I think that is only fair. This puts our famous cheaters on par with one another.

And a small cautionary tale for the kiddies. Notice how Ralph Klein avoided some thinking in his course? They say that to avoid dementia later in life, it helps to exercise the brain regularly. Apparently Ralph Klein didn’t do this and ended up with dementia. Now, cheating in education doesn’t guarantee dementia. But if you wish to minimize your risk you should avoid it.

UPDATE: An anonymous source told me that Ben Johnson does have an Order of Canada and that it has never been taken away. So that mostly eradicates the points I tried to make. My major point was that a major cheater like Ralph Klein (and now Ben Johnson) should not have an Order of Canada. Four other Orders of Canada have been taken away. Maybe we can add these two to that list.

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Suspension of Disbelief Important for Cats and Kids

Posted on 27 June 2012 by Larry Russwurm

I usually play with my cat twice per day with a string. I get frustrated that she ignores the string for a long time, sometimes. I guess she is practising her looking like part of the background skills. Or is waiting for the perfect time to stalk the string.

Getting bored by this I will start making the string go very close to her in a repeating circle. This sometimes still isn’t enough for a reaction so I make the string go so close to her that it hits her in the face. Usually this stimulates a gut reaction in the cat making her swat the string. But sometimes there still is no reaction.

I’m certain she doesn’t react because she cannot suspend her disbelief enough to get into the game. When is the last time in nature you’ve seen a mouse come up to a cat, ten times in a row, and slapped that cat in the face? It just never happens.

So I’ve come to the conclusion that my cat may very well want to play, it’s just that she is too discerning to accept the premises I am offering.

Kids are very likely to play cops and robbers a few times in their youth. Usually this is tried amongst a large group of kids.

There is always one kid in the group who thinks his every shot results in a death. And when others get good shots at him, he never dies. If he is more slick of a player they are just flesh wounds. But more often he says they missed completely.

Kids know that Rambos never happen in real life. When you are shot at 30 times, you are almost certainly dead. When you shoot at 30 moving targets in quick secession you are bound to miss a few shots.

That kid who never dies and always kills, fails to get the other kids to suspend their disbelief. As a result the game ends in arguments and everyone quits and little fun was had all around.

As I’ve gotten older, I find it harder to get sucked in to new fiction. I think it’s because I find it harder to suspend my disbelief. As I’ve gotten to know more and more science or facts, I find many authors haven’t kept up and they will trip up and not let me suspend disbelief.

Myself and others aren’t being anal when we say ‘get your facts right’ to the authors. It’s a simple matter of them not getting the facts we know correct enough for us to suspend disbelief. This makes us not want to play with those authors ever again. Suspension of disbelief is always key in fiction. Something even cats and kids know.g

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Bed Bugs Cause Fatigue

Posted on 23 June 2012 by Larry Russwurm

More information gets circulated about bed bugs as they become more and more common. The pesticides we formerly used on them have been banned. I knew we would become a bit more susceptible to them but a new public information poster on the bus made it seem that we are becoming downright welcoming.

The poster said an infestation of bed bugs can cause fatigue in humans. You heard that right. More fatigue means we’re feeding more bed bugs.

This is as stupid as a hen laying an egg and then picking it up and handing it to the farmer.

This is as stupid as a cow trying to skin herself so her owner could have leather couches.

This is as stupid as a two pigs makin’ bacon but not in the slightly risque way this is portrayed as in country mythology. More like in the sadistic/masochistic way that involves no sex, but involves a knife and plenty of salt.

This is as stupid as a sheep leaving the herd to frolic with the wolves.

This is as stupid as a mouse sneaking up on a cat and noisily unbelling it.

Aren’t humans supposed to be the apex of evolution? I’m reminded that the apex thing is a myth. Sometimes evolution goes upwards. But it’s also likely to go downwards and its most frequent trick is to go sideways. Evolution you are a bitch.

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The Story of the Lost Hijja

Posted on 21 June 2012 by Larry Russwurm

Climate change deniers pose as the other side of the climate change “debate”. Well, I’ve got news for them. Climate change science isn’t the other pole of the spectrum. Indeed climate change scientists are centrists. The other pole of climate change are people who believe the story of the lost Hijja.

The Hijja lived on a world that seemed to suit them all too well. They developed strong civilizations with much culture. They even had science which made them dominate the planet.

But many of their abilities resulted in creating greenhouse gases as a byproduct. There were those that warned of a runaway greenhouse effect as a possibility. But the rulers liked the way things were going and made no early effort to contain their greenhouse gas byproducts.

The planet grew hotter so there was an exodus to the poles and temperate zones. Still, the rulers of the Hijja kept their heads in the sand. Strong political forces tried to keep things the way they were. But temperature kept going up and up.

Finally, desperate mega engineering projects were started to contain the temperature rise. This only resulted in the atmosphere becoming denser. So dense, in fact that, along with the heat, it started to kill off the remaining Hijja. Completely unforeseen in any Hijja science, but just as deadly, were the clouds of sulphuric acid that took to the sky which would rain down from time to time on the miserable, dying world the Hijja had transformed. Not that wimpy acid rain Earthlings talk about but actual face burning acid rain. All the Hijja perished.

What can you say about an alien race that died out? Would you say that it can’t happen here? But the Hijja believers think it happened on neighbouring Venus.

Venus. A planet so miserable that the Russian probes that landed on its surface were melted and crushed so completely that about an hour after touchdown they could no longer communicate home.

Venus. A planet far hotter than Mercury which is nearer to the sun. The only explanation to the higher temperatures is greenhouse gases.

Venus. A planet you can’t explore well enough to disprove the legend of the Hijja. Especially not with continued cuts to space programs.

Let’s not follow the Hijja to doom. Especially before we can escape to Mars or even the Moon. It is believed the Hijja never made it to Earth. They definitely didn’t for the long term.

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C. D. Howe Institute Signals Ontario Mega Rich How to Revolt

Posted on 16 June 2012 by Larry Russwurm

For those of you who don’t know, the C. D. Howe Institute is a Canadian right wing think tank. That is the official story. But when the results are predetermined (right wing) it’s not a think tank, more like a spin tank. Ontario might add taxes to the mega rich in the coming weeks which spawned the institute’s “musings”.

First of all the institute’s brazen product is a threat to the government. They are saying if you do this, in a few year’s time you will make less in taxes than you do now. This is really an unbelievable statement so let’s look closer.

This article I have linked to has one key paragraph on how the revolt is supposed to go:

“Some [wealthy individuals] may choose to substitute more leisure for overtime work, to migrate to a lower tax jurisdiction, to engage in more aggressive tax planning, or to modify forms and timing of compensation, use of tax deductions, and tax avoidance or evasion,” he writes.

Let’s pick on the first two points. Substituting more leisure for overtime work would result in more jobs for the rest of us. And migrating to a lower tax jurisdiction also results in more jobs for the rest of us. And these jobs pay super handsomely. Else the mega rich wouldn’t do them.

Sure the mega rich can engage in more aggressive tax planning or modify forms and timing of compensation. It’s true that the rich are flexible. But so too is the government and tax law. The government can remove some of its loopholes in taxes at any point.

As for using tax deductions, that simply means more charities will get the money. With charities brimming in new found money, this takes some of the strain off social programs, meaning the government will need less.

Finally there is tax avoidance or evasion. You’ve seen the problems organized crime has hiding its money. This is true of any large amount of money. The mega rich will find they have problems and if many take this avenue, many will end up in jail.

Further down in the linked article, they give stats about how the mega rich are paying what is supposed to be more than their fair share. What I find shocking about these stats is that the mega rich make this much more than the rest of us do. They can easily pay a small amount more.

The C. D. Howe Institute will undoubtedly deny they are signalling the mega rich how to revolt. After all, counselling to commit a crime (tax evasion!) is against the law. But the mega rich can easily read between the lines. I just wish there were a left wing shadow institute to call the C. D. Howe Institute on its ridiculous $#!+.

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Embarrassed about Reading

Posted on 12 June 2012 by Larry Russwurm

It was either Grade 5 or Grade 6 when the teacher decided to have a reading contest in our classroom. Now I knew that this would fall flat amongst the rest of the boys because if it wasn’t for library class they would never read on their own. My reaction might be interesting – some ‘fun’ competition geared at my strength. The contest worked as intended amongst the girls and got some of them reading more.

That first library class was interesting. I scoured the library for the biggest tome of a book I could find. That turned out to be ‘The Mysterious Island’ by Jules Verne. Later on, sitting down reading it at a table, I thought about my male peers again. Even with this tome, I bet I would easily beat them in amount read. So I turned the book upside down and began reading that way.

The librarian saw me like that and chewed me out. She was certain I had just done something evil and put the book that way by mistake. It had been slow going but I was able to read that way. The hard part was Verne’s dense description that he puts at the start of each book until the story gets going and he forgets to put it in.

So I was punished for slowing myself down. I decided to only report the books that I took out of the library and none of the many books I would borrow from my older brother and sister (also heavy readers).

My instincts were correct. With only a fraction of my reading being reported, I beat all the other males in my class.

Officially a number of the girls beat me. Perhaps they won a ribbon for such achievement. Perhaps some of them even got turned onto reading by this.

But I know I won that contest. Some of those girls may protest this. But ask my sister who was also in my grade if I won. I did.

And for all of you who lament the small amount of boy readers? Boy society should be changed somehow to make reading a positive. It was already severely scarred when I was a kid – imagine how it is now. Perhaps comic book reading is up with Hollywood’s recent fetish of the comic book world. And although some of you have decried this, it might help make boy readers.

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Give a Monkey a Brain and He’ll Swear He’s the Centre of the Universe

Posted on 9 June 2012 by Larry Russwurm

That’s not my title, it’s from a Fishbone album in the ’90s but it suits my post nicely.

A long, long time ago in the eighties, I was thinking about what I want to do with my life as far as a career is concerned. I have disparate interests which doesn’t help. I was good at a few of these things but nothing was a standout. One of the things I was good at was physics. One of the reasons I liked this discipline was that I figured the salaries were fairly good, what with a good number of physicists being employed by universities as professors.

But the thing is I really didn’t want to decide. You see I still like doing a little bit of many things. So I came up with a rationalization. I rationalized that everything follows the laws of physics and in some cases, like the sub category of astronomy, they try to take into account the entirety of existence.

And from physics we get almost all our tools, math is half developed by physicists and physicists have made outstanding contributions to chemistry and biology. It is rarer for someone from another discipline to make an important contribution to physics.

So basically I decided that physics was a central discipline. That’s why I went to university for it.

My first year Chemistry textbook had a different philosophy. It was called, Chemistry: the Central Science. I hadn’t thought of it before but chemistry courses were required for both physics and biology, the three of which make up the hard sciences.

Eventually I thought even further. Biology is necessary, ie. human beings, to create all knowledge and learning.

Psychology is about the minds that view all of existence.

From here I even got to the arts. Economics is necessary for humanity to divvy up the worth of all disciplines and thus is essential for any enterprise.

History and geography almost always seems to centre around the deeds and spots of the student, thus making them the centre of their own universe.

So, finally I get it. No matter what discipline you are enamoured with, chances are it can be shown to be the centre of the universe. Because after all it will be the centre of your own universe. If you made it to this vantage years ago, well carry on. I can be slow sometimes.

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Baby on Board Certification

Posted on 6 June 2012 by Larry Russwurm

Baby on Board signs have always been a self regulated kind of thing. The majority of the public doesn’t abuse the sign or the kind of behaviour the signs are meant to evoke. Myself and I think most of the public would agree the Baby on Board signs are still applicable when a Mother being driven is only pregnant.

But we’ve all been on a 4 lane street, pulling up to that Baby on Board vehicle, when we look in the back and see no baby or car seat. Then we are further surprised when neither the baby or car seat are in the front either. But maybe just maybe the driver is a pregnant female. We look over to see the lone driver is male. Obviously self regulation isn’t perfect.

Indeed self regulation can lead to other odd circumstances. Say there is a drunk driver who spots a Baby on Board sign. He speeds up to inspect the back to prove to himself the sign is valid. Driving very close to the back he can see there is no baby in the back so he swerves into the other lane to see more from the side. He matches speeds with the Baby on Board driver. Let’s say while peering over and driving by peripheral vision he spies either a pregnant mother or a baby. So now, deciding to honour the Baby on Board sign, since it is valid, he pulls over to the side of the road, turns off the car, pukes and passes out.

Ridiculous you say, but that is one of the avenues self regulation leads us down.

The picture I included shows a sign used to denote a new type of parking space. Two spaces were designated “Expectant and New Parents”. They are immediately beside a handicapped space right beside an entrance to Fairview mall in Kitchener. Since expectant and new parents now have a privilege that comes with the condition, perhaps we ought to have regulations similar to handicapped spaces.

The Baby on Board sign meets the visible requirement. It’s just that it needs to be certified somehow. So for privilege on the road as well as privilege in the parking game, I think Baby on Board signs need to be regulated. Some branch of the government, perhaps the ministry of transport ought to take this on. Of course they will charge a fee.

Until that time, I will buy the (for now) unregulated Baby on Board sign. So if you see a monster truck or sports car or even the Batmobile in an Expectant and New Parents parking spot, just look for the Baby on Board sign. Maybe Batman had a baby. But far more likely, it’s me or someone like me that has grabbed this great parking spot.

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Could We Save Lives, Money and Put a Dent in Crime?

Posted on 2 June 2012 by Larry Russwurm

I’m not trying to oversell it but I’m very excited about my idea that could save a life or lives, thousands – even millions of dollars and help take a bite out of crime. And that’s just in my region alone. But at the same time I don’t want you to expect many lives saved, millions of dollars saved and less crime. Because you see I don’t have a certain statistic.

That is the statistic of how many people have trouble memorizing 911. Sure it’s short, but you’ve heard some say it themselves – there are people who are number challenged. So my idea is to make a handy mnemonic to memorize 911.

That’s right, the people who make mnemonics have been slacking off. In the many years that we’ve had the 911 system, not one intellectual has come up with a mnemonic for ease in memorizing it. The usual mnemonic producers have been barricaded in their ivory towers. Like the astronomers, who avoid sexual harassment charges while still saying, “Oh Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me!”

The 9 in 911 looks like a small uncapitalized G. The two ones look like I’s. That’s right, my mnemonic is “Guys”.

So when your house is burning down you need Guys to help you. When someone is running off with an expensive iPad of yours you need Guys to help. When someone close to you is having a heart attack, you need Guys who know something about medicine.

Notice how my little mnemonic doesn’t require you to know numbers. On the keypad you can just punch little G and I’s. If you go too far with the I’s it still sends you to 911 – the extra I’s are irrelevant.

Now I know you want to thank me for coming up with this. So to keep this as unembarassing as possible I offer one big blanket, “You’re welcome, world.”

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Leather is Murder

Posted on 30 May 2012 by Larry Russwurm

Johnny Robinson had a troubled night’s sleep. For some reason he was fixated with the scary looking guy in the leather jacket he had seen earlier that day passing out “Fur is murder” pamphlets. There was something else about him. The piercings, the creak of his leather. Johnny sat bolt upright in bed. That was it! He had the revelation, “Leather is murder,” too.

Scary as the guy had been, the next day Johnny went to the harbour front where the guy had been passing out his pamphlets. Johnny couldn’t find hide nor hair of him. He wasn’t sure exactly what he would say to the guy but “hypocrite” was definitely near the top of Johnny’s ideas.

Johnny looked around and eventually went home, all the time thinking about the “Fur is murder” tactics he had seen being used. Indeed, he paced around at home before finally going to the store and getting a can of red paint.

The most visible and egregious uses of leather came to Johnny’s mind. It preyed on him so much that he found himself outside of the Satan’s Angels clubhouse as the sun was beginning to set. He sat on the curb lining the street till it was pitch dark and a full moon could be seen skimming the trees. Finally he pried open the can of red paint, took a number of deep breaths and got up. He set his smart phone to film on the front door of the clubhouse.

Yelling “Leather is murder! Leather is murder!” he ran into the clubhouse. The door was unlocked and he pushed by one thin biker, making sure to slosh some red paint on his jacket. There was a shocked table of bikers playing cards that looked up at the novel sound. Drinks stopped being drunk and words stopped being used. Johnny sloshed the can of red paint around the circle splashing the majority of the leather jackets.

The obvious outrage and anger made Johnny drop the empty can and run out as quickly as he could. But he remembered to yell, “Leather is murder! Leather is murder!” Johnny ran out to the street. The quickest bikers were chasing him.

All of a sudden spotlights appeared and a megaphone signalled the presence of the police. “Stop everyone. Freeze where you are.” Johnny was by his camera so he stopped there. A police man came out to him from behind the lights to impress on Johnny that they meant him, too.

It took a couple hours of processing at the police station. His camera kept getting taken to show more and more officers. Johnny kept insisting that he needed it for his cause. He told them he needed to post it to Youtube to generate interest in the cause. The police said he could go at 10 p.m. But that was without his camera. He kept insisting and he left with the camera at midnight. Apparently the police didn’t think they were incriminated in any way. As he left the cop at the front desk just shook his head and said “You activists are getting crazier and crazier.”

Before bed, Johnny posted the video. The next day he needed more red paint so he bought some at the hardware store. He disguised himself as a construction worker, including hard hats and boots and bulled his way through a checkpoint of a big construction site. He opened the can of red paint just as the lunch truck pulled up while sounding its horn. In only a short moment later the far flung workers were gathered round and Johnny set up his camera on the way to the entrance of the site.

He walked calmly to the lunch truck and only a few paces away began the call, “Leather is murder! Leather is murder!” He got many a boot as he ran. Sensing that he could only get away with the nearest bunch, he dropped the can and ran. He managed to pick up his camera and get out the exit.

Stopping his yelling after leaving the site, he heard what the workers were yelling. “I’ll turn my own boots red by stomping and kicking you with the steel toes!”

But Johnny was safely enough away. And the workers had to work.

Johnny posted to Youtube and then bought a ticket to Texas.

It was at a mega ranch’s mess hall that he came with his bucket of red paint. This time Johnny set the smart phone to film at the entrance to the mess hall. None of the cowboys really sized him up till Johnny was in their midst, red paint flying onto boots, belts and chaps. Of course he yelled, “Leather is murder!” Again Johnny dropped the can and ran. But he took too long picking up the camera and a cowboy managed to grab him. Johnny jerked free but two more cowboys now had a hold of him.

“Well, well, well,” said the foreman. “We’ve got the red paint guy. Leather is murder, I heard.”

“I’ll be out soon enough,” hoped Johnny aloud. “And I’ll have alerted even more people to the cause.”

“It’s not like your beloved by America, like Oprah was. Men! We shall have a lynching!”

They destroyed the evidence of the smart phone. But quietly a video showing red splattered boots and belts and chaps made it onto Youtube. Letters appeared on the screen saying “Leather is Murder! And people who wear leather are murderers. Oh yes.”

Many searches were made for Johnny Robinson. But he was never found.

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