Election Coming

Me at White Sands, 2007

So October 14^th will be the big day. An election that we don’t need and shouldn’t be holding, particularly since the law (to hold elections every four years) enacted by the same government that is calling this one is being flagrantly broken.

Coincidentally, the US presidential vote will take place just weeks after ours. The Republican ticket now includes a woman who is a self-described “hockey mom” and a “pit bull with lipstick,” and a man whose campaign organizers seem to believe that he deserves to be elected because he suffered much as a POW. Meanwhile, the Democratic ticket features a relatively inexperienced presidential candidate who has had some shaky moments in the campaign but represents the best hope for change in a discredited political establishment.

For me, of course, names like Harper, Dion, Layton, May or Duceppe won’t be on the ballot, let alone McCain or Obama. I have to decide whether or not to vote for incumbent Maurice Vellacott or one of his opponents. To help me choose, he’s placed another brochure in my mailbox featuring a get-tough-on-criminals message with the conclusion: “The Conservative Government is standing on the side of law-abiding families and taxpayers. Prison perks have to end.” Vellacott wants to see an end to tattoo practitioners serving prisoners, the closing of smoking rooms and a withdrawal of the right to vote.

It’s the typical conservative response to trouble: meet deviance with force; punish harshly; “they asked for it.” It was Bush and Cheney’s response to 911, and caused them to jump swiftly to choices that were seen in retrospect to be foolish in the extreme.

The problem with this mindset is that, logical as it may seem, it’s ineffective. According to Vellacott, prisons are about “accountability, public safety and punishment.” Prisoners are locked up to pay a debt to society. The problem is that after sentences have been served and the debt paid, we are left with the hardened and broken husks of human beings, incapable of reintegrating, partly because they have been treated like animals in the prison system. This is not doing a favour to “law-abiding families and taxpayers.” This is substituting harsh retribution for a more considered approach to crime and punishment.

Conservatives tend to leave rehabilitation and reconciliation out of their dialogue. That’s why Bush’s foreign policies have failed so utterly, and that’s why another four years of the Harper Conservatives will continue to push our justice system and our foreign policy closer to the retributive model, a model of the past, not the future. Our military budget line will rise faster than our foreign aid line.

In a time when care of the environment, particularly, is front and centre on the global agenda, we can’t afford to be led by the conservative mindset. The Harper record is clear: “Do no more than you have to to keep the tree huggers off your front porch.” Harper appears far more interested in Arctic sovereignty than in Arctic conservation and—as he let out in a recent news conference—that has much to do with the oil that may lie under the Arctic waters.

With any luck, Americans will shake off the Bush legacy, and will refuse to be swayed into thinking once more that their security lies with the pit bulls. With any luck, we Canadians will recognize that conservative thinking in our country is taking us steps backwards when we need to go creatively forward.

Prison-perks is a non-issue in comparison to the global hurdles we face.

We need an MP who recognizes this.

Prince Charles speaks out.

Prince Charles farming . . . in a tie

Bonnie Prince Charlie takes on Monsanto and friends©

By George Epp

Bonnie Prince Charlie has spoken out again, this time on the evils of corporate farming and the rush to genetically modified food products. Apparently he was being interviewed by the Daily Telegraph recently when he was reported to have said of the corporations concerned that they are conducting a “gigantic experiment with nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong. Why else are we facing all these challenges, climate change and everything?” (Saskatoon StarPhoenix, August 14, 2008)

I’m not sure you can trust completely a person who ends his opinion with “all these challenges, climate change and everything.” Seems to me that climate change and genetic manipulation (not to mention “everything”) are separated by enough distance to make lumping them together and laying them at the feet of one villain unacceptable, rhetorically.

Genetic modification has been with us for a long time. Here in Rosthern, a man by the name of Seeger Wheeler selected seed from different strains of wheat and mated them until he achieved a desired result: better, earlier maturing grain. Wheeler, however, took years to achieve a very small alteration in the genetic makeup of wheat, and furthermore, he was not aiming at control over the seed industry and the chemical inputs that go with it like modern corporations are. I admit that I share the Prince’s skepticism about the practices we’re currently seeing in the food industry, primarily because they’re profit driven, and if power corrupts, then so does profit. Profit begets power.

The debate gets quite heated. On the radio the other day, an industry person and an ecologist were exchanging pretty emotional viewpoints on the subject. From industry: the growing population requires that the tools of genetic modification be applied in order to achieve the production that will be needed to feed everyone. From environmentalists: the corporate takeover of the food industry is effectively driving farmers off the land all over the world and forcing them to subsist in the slums and ghettos of the big cities. From environmentalists: the introduction of genetically modified crops is doing way more damage than good. From industry: No it hasn’t; it’s working really well. From the environmentalist: No it’s not!

Charles cites the onslaught on the water tables in India as an overt manifestation of the problem. New, genetically modified plants being grown require far more water than their predecessors, he says, and the end of that process is drought and famine. He also talks about the issues arising from increasing herbicide, pesticide and fertilizer use, all of which are already familiar to most of us.

Prince Charles is frequently the butt of jokes. He’s an aging heir to the throne who may die of old age before his wiry mother is ready to hand the throne over to him. His estrangement from the divine Diana and simultaneous entanglement with Camilla Parker Bowles didn’t help his image much, and most of us are automatically skeptical when a man of wealth and influence—who farms as a hobby—speaks out on the subject of agriculture.

But today I’m with Charles. We dare not put the earth’s future in the hands of the corporate elite. They make a mess of everything. They exploit, they pollute, they manipulate people, and they simply are not the kind of global citizen that is needed to grapple with the big issues of the day.

Go Charles.

Harvest time in the Garden

Grow your own Food

Yesterday, as we harvested some of the goodies in our backyard garden, I thought about gardens when I was a kid and wondered if there will come a time when people will again garden for food. I've been told that the average item on our plates these days travels 1700 Kms to get there. Transporting food takes energy; fossil fuels are expensive and becoming scarcer; the globe is suffering from CO2 emissions, etc., etc.
I have a friend who market gardens. I believe he said that he grows $8.00 worth of food on a square metre. We have about 75 square metres for vegetables. This produces enough potatoes to last us past Christmas, carrots for most of the winter, tomatoes for a full year (in the form of frozen, canned spaghetti sauce and juice), plenty of beans, greens for the full summer, and so on. In June, we're eating strawberries that taste like the wild berries we used to pick on the prairie with enough left over for jam for the winter. Raspberries are our most beloved dessert throughout July and into August.
We also have a sour cherry tree that provides an abundance (about 30 Kg.) of cherries, a plum tree and a chokecherry tree that produce as much jam, sauces and jellies as we need for a year. Gardening takes energy too, of course., but in that it provides useful exercise, it's a win/win proposition. Moreover, there's no comparing the taste of a vine-ripened tomato picked 10 minutes ago with the tennis balls available in the supermarket; the same holds true for most of the other vegetables. New potatoes fresh from the garden with dill sauce and a bit of salt and pepper is a foretaste of heaven.
All our fruits and vegetables are organic; we know they haven't been sprayed, are not genetically modified.

Tomatoes and Zucchini

Green Beans

Raspberries

A Sunday Morning Reflection

a prairie Sunday

One Sunday Morning – a meditation^©

by George Epp

Sunday morning. It’s one of those rare prairie days when a brilliant sun caresses the earth through air so clear that you feel like you just gave your glasses a good cleaning. Every leaf, every blade of grass is in sharp focus here on 5^th Street this morning, and it’s a relief to realize that there’s hardly a breath of wind to disturb the tranquility that is, well, Sunday morning of a prairie summer.

I was in a downtown Rosthern store the other day and as I made my purchase, remarked that it was already August 1. The clerk sighed and said, “Yah, summer will soon be gone.” It’s a distinct side of the prairie character, I’m guessing; an inbred pessimism that makes it hard to relish the great food on your plate when your thoughts are on the dismal fact that it will soon be gone and you’ll be left with that overstuffed feeling and absolutely no appetite.

If only every day could be like this day!

But then, life is not only weather, is not just about physical calm and warm, peaceful days between storms, winds and cold. As the sun arose this morning to herald an absolutely splendid morning, life was ending all around us. It’s an unfathomable sorrow for us mortals that things—no matter their splendour—must end, and that far too soon. The day is too soon over; the dinner too quickly eaten. The lilies that were so resplendent in the vase on our dining table two days ago are today wilting in the compost box.

Given these inevitabilities, what are we to make of the gems we hold fleetingly in our hands? For many, it’s become an obsessive resistance: a search for the fountain of youth by which the march to an end can be thwarted. An ad repeated nauseatingly on TV promises to even out the telltale wrinkles that remind us that youth is escaping our grasp. “Do not go gentle into that good night,” Dylan Thomas wrote to a dying father. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Others teach us that there are resources to be had that make it possible to relish each day like this prairie Sunday without lamenting the winter to come. I envy the tranquil people; I want to be like them. While some of us may say that we believe in the goodness of God as being central to the universe—and to those who live in it—others live each day in that reality as if it were knowledge, way beyond faith.

In any case, this morning I look forward to a great day. The sun, the clear air, the quiet seem like a glimpse into a world that is so good that it chokes us up to contemplate it.

The ends of things may wear a death mask, but there is a reality that declares every end a prelude to a sunrise.

Murder: America vs Canada

A Right to Bear Arms?©

Maclean’s reported the following in the July 7 ’08 edition (“Lawless, but Gunless,” p. 58):

A. One-third of Canadians own a gun or guns; 90% of Americans do.

B. Canada has 60 gun murders for every million people annually; the US has 340.

C. Canada annually has 190 total murders per 1 million population; the US has 570.

Let’s crunch those numbers a bit:

• Of the 190 people per million who are murdered in Canada, 60 die by bullet, 130 by some other means (knife, mostly, one imagines). That’s 31.5% by guns.
• Of the 570 people per million murdered in the US, 340 die by bullet, 230 by some other means. That’s 59.6% by gun.
• The murder rate overall in the US is 300% of Canada’s.

The appalling statistic here is that in Canada, annually, ca. 4750 and in the US, ca. 145,000 people are violently killed, by our own citizens, by and large. We fight wars abroad to combat terrorism’s threat; is that ironical when we look at the threat from within?

The statistics don’t prove anything about the efficacy of gun control. Gun murders in the US account for 60% of such events and in Canada only 32%. Obviously, people don’t murder someone because they have a gun available; it’s more likely that they decide to murder someone and then decide on the means. In Canada, murderers more often resort to knives, clubs or cars, possibly because handguns just aren’t as readily available here. Or does the possession of a handgun actually increase the likelihood that a person will contemplate murder as a way out of a dilemma?

It could be argued that in the heat of the moment, the clean, arms-length death that can be delivered with a gun increases the likelihood of a murder being committed. An angry person might be deterred by the messy nature of hand-to-hand killing, but might not be if a handgun, say, were available and the murder could be done without looking the victim so intimately in the eye.

Also, the “right to bear arms” may contribute to an overall cultural climate in which the use of guns seems to be legitimized, and by extension, the use of violence of all kinds to settle quarrels. Is that what’s behind the enormous difference between the murder rates in the two countries, so similar in so many other ways?

Lest we become smug about our superiority to the Americans in this, however, Maclean’s also reports in the same story that our break-and-enter, arson and auto theft rates are higher than theirs. Go Canada!

Text and Context

Text

Text versus Context or Text plus Context?©

The Christ in our Context by McGill theologian Douglas John Hall is speaking to me rather directly—and I might add, disturbingly—about the theology that guides—or doesn’t guide but ought to—our lives in the Western World today—pardon the plethora of ellipses. I’ve read only part of it so far, in preparation for a discussion group session a week from now. It’s become my habit to apply little, semi-transparent sticky tabs to the pages rather than underlining or highlighting passages that strike me particularly, and it’s becoming apparent that I’ll run out of these before I finish the book.

Today, I’m struck by the concept of text vs context discussed around page 57. The idea is that we Christians possess a text; this text includes the Bible, our traditional communal understandings of God and Christ, writings of our scholars, cultural habits, etc. That is to say, the authorities we refer to when we preach, teach or debate issues, or even when we privately decide what is and what is not ethical in our behaviour.

We also live in a context, namely the world as we find it, so different in so many ways from the world in which our texts generally came into being. I think, for instance, of the matter of baptism and how the text for my own Mennonite denomination was “written” in a time when rebaptism as adults was a powerful political choice in that it defied church/state authority over the citizenry. In our context, baptism may not have lost any of its significance, but it is no longer a political statement as it was. The question than becomes: is the Mennonite text on baptism an anachronism, and does it govern our thinking to the point where we are blind to contextual clues about what baptism means today? How would John the Baptist or Jesus baptize people coming to the faith today, as opposed to the time of the Reformation, or the Jordan River episodes in the gospels?

Point is, we Western Christians have struggled with the text/context thing, and have often failed to witness properly to the world in which we live because we put text over and above context, and have preached a gospel to the world that their circumstances make it impossible to embrace. The missionaries that worked among Canada’s aboriginals, for instance, preached a text, with some exceptions, of course, and tried to alter the context to fit it. Seeing that that wasn’t working, the church and the country reverted to a forced assimilation policy and the residential school system was born. We have just learned again how brutal applying text to the backsides of aboriginal children became in the end.

Recently, our church had a visitor from a Mennonite Church in Colombia. The contrast of their meager resources, their political constraints, their context when compared to ours made me squirm. I learned more about context from Amanda’s visit than I will from the book, probably, and the members of our congregation who visited this group in Colombia did even better in this. Without context, text can turn into a hollow reed, sometimes even a sword—but that’s a whole other subject.

I look forward to the rest of the book.

Tessie the Guard Dog

Open Letter to my MP

An open letter to Maurice Vellacott, MP

Dear Mr. Vellacott;

Here are some of my thoughts in response to your Summer, 2008 mail out to constituents:

1) The announcement that VIA Rail will be giving free travel passes to Defense Department employees and Canadian Forces personnel during July was news to me. I must say that I fail to see the reason for granting such a privilege to one sector of the population and not to others. Do our defense forces really merit the honour that is implied here, above, say, teachers or nurses or bridge builders?

I won’t get into my own disapproval of our presence in Afghanistan, except to say that a claim that our soldiers are there in defense of our country is a stretch; terrorism has never been a primary danger to Canadians, at least not when compared to domestic crime, traffic accidents, natural disasters or disease and addictions. Let’s honour the people who struggle daily to overcome these real dangers for a change.

2) Thank you for reprinting in whole the article by Michael Den Tandt of Sun Media, even though it is nearly a year old by now. I appreciated the inclusion of the following quotes:

“Canada is [losing the communications war]. The military and the media deserve some measure of blame for this. Mainly though, responsibility falls to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Even as he struggles to sell the Afghan mission to an increasingly uneasy public, his mania for control is stifling the truth about what’s happening there.”

“The five officials from foreign affairs, the 10 RCMP officers engaged in training Afghan police, the head of the CIDA mission in the province (with a budget of $39-million this year alone), are not allowed to speak to the media. According to multiple sources here, they have been gagged by the Prime Minister’s Office. Figure that one out.”

Including these quotes in your publication one flip of the page away from “Stephen Harper is a Leader . . . Stephane Dion is not” takes some courage. One might arrive at the misconception that a great leader is one with a “mania for control,” but that surely was not your intent.

3) I was puzzled by your inclusion of the “Trials and Tribulations” article from the Canadian Shooting Sports Magazine, which basically outlines ways to stymie a government official who requests permission to inspect one’s firearms to ensure that their security complies with the regulations. Are you not a member of the government that is responsible for the regulations on gun safety? Are you not a member of the government that is responsible for ensuring that these regulations are adhered to?

(Was it just a coincidence that the hunter photographs you chose to accompany the article are all of females with guns, exhibiting their kills?)

4) Lastly, I’m not impressed by the personal attacks on Stephane Dion despite the fact that he doesn’t possess the same “mania for control” of Stephen Harper. Your leader has ridiculed the carbon tax scheme here in Saskatchewan, a stance that matches nicely with that of our current Premier. But the status quo that both are trying to window dress for public consumption is not leadership at all, and the viciousness of Mr. Harper’s attack seems to me to be an indication of his suspicion that his perceived weakness on environmental issues may become the nub of the next election campaign.

Have a nice day,

George Epp

cc. Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry . . .

South Saskatchewan River, Saskatoon

While we’re apologizing . . . ©

By George Epp

A few days ago, Stephen Harper and the other party leaders apologized to the Aboriginals, Métis and Inuit of Canada on my behalf (except for those in Newfoundland & Labrador, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick). They told them I was sorry for the policy that took their children away from them and put them into boarding schools with the express purpose of forcefully assimilating them into the culture, religion and language of the colonials invading the continent.

Well I’m deeply sorry that that was done. But I find myself wanting to get more off my chest than just the residential school issue, which was horrible enough. So here I offer to the Aboriginal people and their descendants in ALL of Canada, a few more apologies:

1) I’m sorry that I benefited from the process that saw you marginalized by an imperialist and ethnocentric power—in your own country, and failed to recognize that fact.

2) I’m sorry that I continue to live on land that was stolen from you and then sold to others, and finally to me.

3) I’m sorry that you are still not considered worthy of the same property rights as other Canadians.

4) I’m sorry that when one of your women—a bright, influential health-care administrator—attempted to reserve a meeting room at a Winnipeg Hotel, she was presumed to be a prostitute and was told to take her trade elsewhere. (Apply this apology as needed to the thousands and thousands of incidents like this that whittled away at your self esteem and self confidence, and for which my protests were far too weak and half-hearted.)

5) I’m sorry that land agreed to be yours by virtue of signed treaties was confiscated in many places whenever the government felt a need for it.

6) I’m sorry that I didn’t punch my neighbour in the mouth for you when his truck was vandalized and he jumped immediately to the conclusion that it was “those damned Indian kids from the trailer park.” (Multiply this apology by several thousand, on second thought.)

7) I’m sorry that when one of you is discussed, you are an “Indian” and when a neighbour is discussed, he is a “person.”

8) I’m sorry that we have not done enough to focus on the basics of health and education as stepping stones to dignity and equality, and have reverted instead to a welfare and indigence model.

9) I’m sorriest for the fact, however, that despite the magnitude of the apologies, the conditions in which you find yourselves will probably not change noticeably, because the ones who made them are good at words, but not so good at doing what’s right.

10) I’m sorry that I belong to the group that precipitated the apology. I hope I can be a contributor to any group that forms to make real changes.

Another reader response - on incarceration vs restorative justice

Hi, George:

The John Howard Society is a world wide prisoner advocacy organization. After I retired from work, I chaired the Manitoba John Howard Society, and spent four years on its national body. The experience strongly affirmed what I already believed about our penal justice system, and it provided me with empirical evidence that I would otherwise not have.

Re prisons:

I've come to thoroughly disrespect the established practice of incarceration. Here are some reasons :

- Broadly speaking, punishment almost never achieves the goal of deterrence. Our usual punishment for offenders is incarceration and we find that most people in prison have been there before. (Remember school detentions? It could have been easily predictable that the same kids were always there.) Punishment, or its threat, works only as long as the punisher is present. "If prisons worked, the United State would be the most crime free country in the world".

- A study done a few years ago at Manitoba's Youth Centre (a lock-up) showed that for every gang member who spent time there, two new gang members came out. A recruiting station.

- About ten years ago the federal government did a study on the relationship between length of sentence and the likelihood of recidivism. It found that the longer the sentence the more likely it was that the offender would offend again. !

- The following example is anecdotal, has been told to me many times: It's easier to get drugs (including alcohol) in prison than out. (I heard of a guy who became an alcoholic in prison. When he was released, one item topped the list of things to buy, borrow, or steal.)

- If it's vengeance we want, I have little to say except that at least the lash is gone.

There are a few good alternatives to incarceration. Here's one: "Restorative Justice"

Restorative Justice is slowly getting government recognition -- if for no other reason, it's much cheaper. Restorative Justice is the one process I know of that regularly has measurable, positive results. The rate of recidivism, for example, improves with inmates who are given the choice of being active in its educational classes and individual counseling... I like it for lots of other reasons. Check it out. There's lots of info about Restorative Justice on the net.

HN, Winnipeg

Some interesting reader responses

From friend and reader, JB

Trickle down economics

I am somewhat familiar with the economics of Vietnam having lived there for a number of years. After 1986 when Vietnam changed its policies at the 6th party Congress, foreign companies were allowed to invest and set up factories. It took a while but by the mid 1990s there were many corporations that took advantage of low wages and generous government tax laws.

The 4th generation phenomenon occurred. Companies that invested in Japan first, moved to Taiwan and South Korea when wages in Japan rose. They then fled to Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Now that wages are too high there to make a maximum profit, Nike and dozens of other companies have moved to Vietnam. I have visited factories in the south of Vietnam. Poor villagers prefer the Nike jobs because the conditions and wages are much higher than in locally owned companies. This may sound strange but this is what people told me. Are there unfair practices? Of course. Are people dismissed when they complain? Yes. Even so, there is no problem getting people to work.

So does trickle down work? Probably yes and no in Vietnam? The people benefit and have disposable income. While that is happening lax environmental laws allow companies to dump untreated wastes into rivers and streams. Short term gain at a long term expense. This phenomenon repeats itself everywhere

JB

Saskatoon

From friend and reader, JY

http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/magazine/16-06/ff_heresies_intro

response to your blog question , especially 3rd and 4th points - I read
this issue of Wired on way home from Ontario, intrigued by perspective

Stuff about which I wonder these days

Main Street Rosthern

Stuff I wonder about^©

by George Epp

In order to be a contributing citizen in a democratic country like Canada in 2008, it seems to me I should have a basic grounding in the facts pertaining to a number of key issues. If you have answers to any of the questions below, or if you have found a good source for their exploration, please email me at g.epp@sasktel.net, and I’ll post your contribution for anyone who wants to know.

Information is what I need, not propaganda.

• Does the trickle-down principle in economics really occur, and to what extent? In other words, is it good news for the masses when the powerful are doing really well for themselves? More particularly, should I (who live on a fixed income—more or less) herald or dread the economic boom in Western Canada?
• Could the fouling of the environment appropriately be treated as a crime, like arson or sabotage?
• What alternatives are there to the present energy-hungry economies? Would an accelerated move away from carbon-burning fuels impoverish our country? Will the time come when a dollar’s worth of wheat requires a dollar and ten cents in energy to produce? Should I be shopping for a strong team of horses?
• Could hydro, wind, tidal and solar power supply our basic energy needs, or are we “tree-huggers” just whistling through the graveyard?
• Is a certain share of the fruits of the economy a birthright, or must it be earned, and if it must be earned, who should decide how?
• How much medical care are people entitled to, and how can we prepare for the crises that will come when we can neither afford nor supply anymore what is demanded? (Assuming that that’s the road on which we’re traveling.) Should palliative care be the only medical service available to the elderly, besides basic nursing care? (Who is “elderly” these days?)
• Does an individual have the right to climb a dangerous mountain, and then request rescue when things go wrong? Are there equivalents to this in the area of harmful habits and practices? In other words, does the community have an obligation to save individuals from themselves? (Needle exchange facilities spring to mind.)
• Constitutionally, should the government be able to take us to war without first asking us for our consent?
• Is it appropriate for “special interest” groups or persons to finance the political parties that purport to share their values? Should all political campaigning be financed through taxes?
• Is a fetus a person? Is there an ethical process for deciding this question outside of religious prescription?
• Is sexual activity between (among?) consenting adults always a private matter?
• Is the family the basic social unit in our culture, or is that a stupid question? What is and what is not a family?
• What is the rehabilitation benefit of incarceration on deviants, and are there viable alternatives? (Shaming, flogging, wrist slaps?)
• What, in fact, do the treaties with Canada’s First Nations legally bind both parties to?

At present, I hold opinions on all these questions, but an opinion is often just a stance we hold until we get around to educating ourselves on a subject. My education on these subjects is still lacking; my opinions often clash remarkably with friends who grew up much as I did.

I look forward to your responses.

Ever been to Grand Cache?^©

By George Epp

Maybe you’ve heard of Grand Cache, Alberta. It’s a coal-mining town north of Jasper, now working hard to be more of a tourist destination for hikers, canoeists, and other aficionados of rugged mountains and rushing rivers.

Some dozen years ago, Grand Cache’s coal mine closed down, the population fled for other employment and houses went on sale for $20,000 or so as the “last one to leave turn out the lights” syndrome kicked in.

Recently, a consortium of local entrepreneurs reopened the mine and are currently selling coal to China, mainly. The town is alive again and a lady told us this weekend that a mobile home in Grand Cache today sells for ca. $220,000.

We spent a few hours of daylight and a night in Grand Cache, not for any particular reason except that whimsy occasionally takes us to places we’ve never been before, and after a day and night in Edmonton at our kids’ place, we hit on Grand Cache as one of those places that hadn’t yet had the pleasure of our presence. Also, we needed to be near mountains for a few hours and away from telephones and email.

At breakfast in the motel, we chatted with a labourer who was on his way to Grand Prairie where the Manitoba steel-construction company for which he works was just starting a big project. He said he’d be working in southern Alberta next before going up to Yellowknife for another project that would take years to complete. I asked him if there wasn’t enough work in Manitoba and he said there wasn’t much going on there at all.

On the way back to Edmonton, we stopped for lunch at a grubby Smitty’s restaurant in Edson. A group of burly young men were feeding at the next table, apparently on their lunch break from work. The one with his back to us wore a T-shirt that read “I got a new gun for my wife yesterday; the best trade I ever made!” We reminded ourselves that we were in rural Alberta and—trying to be less judgmental—considered the possibility that the gentleman had picked up the shirt at a thrift store and that the message on it was not his message at all, but an accidental consequence of picking up a bunch of work shirts cheap.

What motivation would result in anyone buying a shirt with such a clearly misogynistic message on it—and wearing it blatantly in public? There must be men in this world whose association with women would no longer be necessary. . . if they could only find a way to have sex with their rifles.

Had we taken the time to scoot up to Grand Prairie and to drive back to Edmonton down the Alaska Highway, we would have passed Mayerthorpe, where a man with a bunch of guns and a festering rage killed four Mounties a few years ago.

We used to live and work in the Stony Plain/Spruce Grove area, and as we drove through these towns, we marveled at how what had been towns were now cities: construction of buildings, roads, overpasses everywhere, heavy traffic at midday; along the highway, car dealerships overflowing with sleek cars, pickup trucks, SUVs and RVs. Suburban sprawl as far as the eye can see. We wondered how life had changed for the people of the two bedroom communities.

Gas in Grand Cache sells for 123.9 today; Macs on 109^th Street and 61^st Ave in Edmonton was selling it for 120.4 and here in Rosthern, it’s 129.9. The president of Exxon-Mobil was asked by a senate committee hearing in Washington yesterday how much he earns in a year in salary and bonuses. He said he had earned $12,500,000 last year.

I can’t understand how Exxon expects him to live on that!

Gang Warfare

Gang Warfare; Saskatchewan Style^©

By George Epp

Reading the paper over breakfast is a routine that can make or break your day. This morning, I read an editorial in the Saskatoon StarPhoenix that didn’t do much for my mood. The headline said: Anti-nuke gang won’t carry day in province now. The gist of it was that Saskatchewan has come to its senses since it turned down a proposal to build a uranium refinery back in the 1970s, supposedly as a result of the work of the “anti-nuke gang.” One paragraph pretty much sums up the argument:

Had the radicals not knocked Saskatchewan out of the game, first in the 1970s and again in the 1990s, this province could have been a world leader not only in extracting raw uranium but in milling and refining and processing it and using nuclear power to generate electricity. It also might have meant this province would be the world leader in the most lucrative side of the business—finding a secure location in the stable Canadian Shield to permanently store the wastes.

Later, in coffee row, the conversation turned to the decimation of the BC forests by the Mountain Pine Beetle. Someone said that the outbreak had started in a national park and environmentalists had successfully lobbied against spraying and that dealing with the pest at that time would have prevented what we are seeing today. Someone else said, “Those damned environmentalists!”

Are people who actively promote the protection of the environment really “damned?” Do they run around in “gangs?” Is common sense on the side of economic growth, or is it on the side of the protestors? Today, I felt attacked. Well, call me sensitive!

Environmentalists and assorted “tree-hugging” activists are as likely to make foolish errors in judgment as anybody else. The criticism leveled in the StarPhoenix appears to be that nuclear energy is a clean, safe way to make a pile of money, and we’d be stupid not to buy into the concept. Ergo, the “anti-nuke gang” has foolishly sabotaged the happiness of the entire province.

(For the “anti-nuke gangs” of a few decades ago, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were fresh in memory, and they can surely be forgiven for not wanting to put the label “safe if used as directed” on any nuclear facility.)

But are proponents of nuclear energy justified in declaring it safe now? Are there good reasons to believe that the Canadian Shield provides a safe place for disposing of nuclear waste? These questions still have to be answered to my satisfaction.

Nuclear power plants are terribly expensive to set up and maintain . . . and to decommission. How many wind generators could be purchased for the same amount, I wondered. So I searched the web for information and found some. For instance, http://www.smallwindenergy.ca/calculator/home.php is a web page that allows you to enter your location and energy-use information, after which the viability of setting up your own wind generation facility is calculated.

I learned this: Rosthern is a good place for wind generation; to set up my own small wind generator would cost about $16,000 complete; this generator would provide me with half my current electrical needs. Downside: the cost recovery period would be about 52 years. The life expectancy of such a wind generator would be about 25 years.

What if the provincial government were to subsidize the cost of these generators to make them more viable for individuals? Say, with a $10,000 initial grant and a yearly maintenance subsidy of, say, $200.00. That would make it cost-effective for individuals. Suppose they coupled this with an aggressive conservation program. (I’m sure I could cut my electrical needs in half if you put a taxation gun to my head.)

Mind you, the spectacle of a wind generator 30 meters above every house in Rosthern would be . . . odd.

Add solar panels, water power and you’d have a province where energy production left no carbon footprint whatsoever. Well, except for the oil we will be extracting in the future tar sands project up near La Loche.

There’s another gang forming. The powers that be should take note. It’s an anti-growth gang, and they may soon be hard to stop. They’re much like the anti-nuke gang except that they will argue convincingly and loudly that the economic growth mentality is not only destructive, but unnecessary. “Unsafe” for them won’t just mean the possibility of accidents; it will mean the far greater danger of feeding a feverish economic growth shibboleth to the point of insanity and planetary ruin.

We don’t need to grow more energy; in particular, a nuclear energy alternative for Saskatchewan is a want on the part of the “economic growth gang.” It is not a need of the population. But given our current “free enterprise” government, we will likely see an all-out verbal battle between the two gangs, after which the growth gang will undoubtedly defeat those “damned,” dreamy environmentalists.

Or maybe not.

Alberta Tar Sands Project - Satellite View

Go right, go left, go straight ahead?^©

By George Epp

Do you consider yourself a conservative or a liberal? I know those terms are fraught with more than meaning; they arouse fervour, anger, elation, all kinds of emotions that don’t have much to do with what was intended when they were coined. A good check on this can be found at numerous Conservative/conservative websites where the vitriol aimed at liberal thought borders on trespassing hate-mongering laws. Explore the contents of one or two of the US “conservative radio” websites and you’ll see what I mean (KRLA 870 at http://krla870.townhall.com/, for instance).

The PERSONAL FINANCE Section of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix featured an article called “Historic rivals share success” on April 28^th, 2008. The gist of it was that the fertilizer, fuel and food industries are simultaneously enjoying windfall sales and profits. Well we all know about the cost of gasoline, but many of us are not aware that the potash mining industry in Saskatchewan is booming big time. Shares in PotashCorp have gone from around $30.00 less than a year ago to around $140.00 presently (according to Ray Turchansky’s article).

That fertilizer prices should climb alongside food prices is not surprising; neither is the rise in fuel prices, since food production is so dependent nowadays on fossil fuel, both for growing and transporting. The three industries will continue to extract higher and higher profits in tandem with each other, and the question for me is: while the shareholders are gleefully pocketing their increasing dividends and the CEO’s are enjoying massive raises, and the western farmer is finally enjoying some business success (if the cost of fertilizer and fuel don’t eat up the increases), what will be the NET effect on the human populations of the world?

Such escalations both in price and in quantity of resource exploitation are unsustainable; we all know that. In this, we are well advised to be conservative. So chocolate cake tastes good—that doesn’t mean that you can get away with eating it morning, noon and night. A breaking point has to come. Balance must be restored.

Conservative thinkers will cry, “Go back! Go back! It was better back there.” Liberal thinkers tend to realize that “You can’t go home again,” and either despair, or get to work turning the new reality into something workable.

I’m a conservative when I think that our best hope for a sustainable future is to reduce, reuse and recycle—particularly the reduce part. The West’s focus—food wise—is to find ways to curb people’s insatiable appetites or to develop means to prevent obesity while overeating regularly. That picture is obscene to most of the world, but it still serves as an apt metaphor for the resource gluttony that characterizes North America particularly.

I’m a liberal when I think that conserving won’t be enough; we’re going to have to picture the world as different in the future and begin devising technologies and practices that shape that future. Think outside the box, if you will.

There are people who are challenging the deeply-held conviction in the West that economic growth must be the yardstick for success in managing our communal affairs. I would urge my readers to check out the website, http://www.growthbusters.com/ where filmmaker Dave Gardner seeks to do what he can to propose an alternate view of the how the future world will need to work.

However you view the future of the globe, whether conservatively or liberally, you may come to the conclusion—as I have—that the dialogue needs to leap the political barriers in order to meet the challenges of the future.

Look out! Here comes money!

Oh! Hard times, come again no more^©

By George Epp

Yesterday’s Saskatoon StarPhoenix carried a bold, front-page article with the headline: Making money hand over fist. Record oil and potash prices mean that royalties paid to the provincial government will bring in some 265 - 475 million in unexpected revenues. That’s roughly 250-450 dollars for every man, woman and child in the Saskatchewan. That’s additional; not total.

In the words of song writer Ian Tyson, it looks like we may be “Alberta Bound.”

But looking at these indicators means different things to different people. The “additional” hundreds of dollars obviously won’t be handed back to the citizens in greeting cards that say, “We didn’t plan on this money in the budget; we don’t need it; it’s rightfully yours so we have enclosed a cheque. Be happy!” (Ralph Klein’s Alberta Conservatives actually did this at least once; the Bush administration is planning something similar to kick-start the economy in the USA.)

And it might not be a bad idea. We are certainly paying-in the additional amount: not in taxes, but in gasoline, diesel and food price increases. What to our finance minister looks like a lottery-winnings windfall, looks like trouble to all but the few for whom an increase of, say, 20% in the cost of living isn’t threatening.

The other, sad part of the news involves the crush on urban housing. Landlords eager to cash in on the record-breaking real estate prices in Saskatoon are evicting tenants, slapping a coat of paint on the apartments and selling them as condominium units at horribly inflated prices. People on social assistance, small fixed incomes of other kinds and the working poor and the labourer/waitress/McJob class in our culture can no longer find accommodation they can afford.

A story on page 3 of the same paper is headlined, Priced out of the market. It’s about a grandmother raising three grandchildren on social assistance cheques and child tax credits. The rent on the house they live in is going from $550 to $900. If the provincial government were to share their windfall with the grandmother, she could actually afford to stay in her home for at least another month.

She claims she’s cut her personal meal portions in half to trim what she can from her escalating grocery bills. The article goes on to tell us that food bank use has jumped by nearly 10% . . . in the last month!

Around the world, the rising cost of grains, fuel and fertilizer is creating a crisis: poorer countries can no longer afford our food commodities, period.

How can it be that prosperity can cause such hardship? Why are we so elated to see the housing boom, the rising population in the province, the overflowing government coffers?

Maybe we’ve been conditioned over time to measure our security by the pronouncements of those to whom prosperity does mean a great deal, i.e. the investors in the stock market, the holders of commodity shares, the political culture, etc. For the working stiffs, the seniors on fixed incomes and the poor, good times can be hard times.

Prepare yourselves; you’re going to be fleeced again of the little you may have, while the shearers who don’t need it will be laughing all the way to their brokers’ offices!

Lions prefer bureaucrats

Babylon Post

April 29, 492 B.C.

Babylon: 120 Innocents Slain by lions as Darius avenges bureaucrats’ Treachery

Every Sunday—from September through May—a group of adults meet on the front pews of the Eigenheim Mennonite Church and converse about a scripture passage chosen by a committee somewhere in the USA and delivered to us along with commentary and background information in quarterly booklets. Three of us take a month in turn to prepare and lead the discussion and to render it pertinent to the group in this time, in this place.

It’s not always easy.

This quarter, the committee has “strayed” into the book of Daniel. I say “strayed” because that book itself begins with a mythology under girding the need to be faithful in exile (Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego in the fiery furnace, Daniel in the lions den are two) and then “strays” into the highly coded and apocalyptic visions of Daniel. End times theology often chooses to relate these visions of Daniel to modern times and to the second coming, a field in which most of us are decidedly uncomfortable, particularly since the interpretation of that book and the Revelation of John have resulted in false predictions leading many, many people into horrifying ventures in anticipation of an immanent apocalypse.

Today, we’ll be discussing the lions' den story. Daniel is a Jew who has been educated in the royal household of Babylon and through astute dealings, honesty and his ability to interpret kings’ dreams has risen above the functionaries in the kings’ civil service. The Persian bureaucrats are jealous, and they plot to do Daniel harm by urging the king to issue an order that, for 30 days, all citizens must pay homage to no god whatsoever, but only to Darius the king, on penalty of being fed to the lions. They then catch Daniel at his ritual prayer, rat on him and remind Darius that his decrees are binding. Daniel spends the night in the lion’s den but the lions aren’t interested—and anyway, God has tied their mouths shut.

The upshot. Darius is so impressed with Daniel’s rescue by his God that he sends a decree to all in the kingdom ordering everyone to convert to Daniel’s religion. And he has Daniel’s accusers thrown in with the lions—along with all their wives and children—and the lions feast on them; bones and all are devoured.

The lesson writers are focused on the faithfulness of people like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego. And they rightly should be; that’s what the stories are apparently meant to convey.

I don’t know how a rabbi would deal with the story of Daniel in the lions’ den. Neither do I know what Gerry has decided to do with it. I’ll find out in a few hours. But there’s something almost bizarre about a group of Christians in 2008 focusing for discussion on this type of material belonging to people of Jewish faith in antiquity. Granted, there’s an obvious continuity from the Old Testament to the New and neglecting that important aspect raises as many problems as it solves. But we in our discussions may again be horrified with much of this particular story. I don’t know, for instance, how many bureaucrats Darius had thrown to the lions as punishment. Let’s say 10. Because polygamy was the norm, let’s assume for argument's sake that together they had 30 wives. Let’s further assume that each wife had an average of 3 children; that would make 10 men, 30 adult women and 90 children who were thrown to the lions and eaten to avenge the husband-bureaucrats’ treachery against one of the king’s favourites.

Oh, I know that the book of Daniel doesn’t justify that enraged act by Darius. But neither does it question it. That these 30 women and 90 innocent children should be horribly and brutally killed by lions as a response to the victory of Daniel’s God over the treachery of some bureaucrats really sticks in my craw. Except that I recognize it to be a story-telling device as opposed to historical data.

When I was a child hearing this story in Sunday school so many years ago, that avenging aspect of the story was never mentioned. I wonder why? Not.

At the same time, there is a core to this story that shouldn’t be lost in the puzzlement over its peripherals, I guess. Daniel was a political functionary who remained faithful to his principles—and was rewarded by God for it. In our world as well, it’s apparent how difficult it is to work in the seats of power without compromising basic values.

Maybe that bit is enough “lesson” for a wintry spring morning.

Make the world a better place. . . .

Rosthern elevator

To make the world a better place. . . .

If Joan Chittister is right in concluding that the improvement of the world makes sense as a platform for discussing purpose and meaning, then I have to ask, “what do I do to further that cause?”

First, define for me what constitutes improvement. In Saskatchewan at this time, a lot of politicians and entrepreneurs are ecstatic over the economic picture. People are moving into the province, the oil and gas industry is thriving, grain prices are up, we’re going to build a huge ethanol plant, we have an agreement with the federal government to refit a coal-burning power plant so that CO₂ emissions are safely sequestered underground, etc., etc. We’re on a roll; our world is getting better and better. We’re on the road to happiness, at least by the economic growth measurement.

Some time ago, CBC’s Ideas program on radio featured an interview with David Sanborn Scott, author of Smelling Land and founder of the Institute for Integrated Energy Systems at the University of Victoria. That institution is all about improving the world—environmentally. As I listened to the interview, I noted the following startling assertions by Scott (in my words).

1. The threat of global warming and the resulting upheavals cannot be reversed; it’s too late.
2. If we are to mitigate its effects, we will have to look at the whole energy picture as an integrated system and stop treating it as a bunch of disconnected bits (ethanol, earth hours, hybrid cars, windmills).
3. We must stop burning fossil fuels to obtain energy; this is not negotiable if we are to save all we can for the next generations.
4. All energy of the future—and the sooner the better—will have to come from non-CO₂ emitting sources, primarily nuclear energy augmented by wind, solar and tidal technologies.
5. In order to deliver the energy to trucks, trains, cars, ships, factories and homes, hydrogen will be the medium. (Energy will be harnessed to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen, the hydrogen will be burned to produce water again while giving back the energy it has stored, that is 2H₂O + energy→2H₂ + O₂→2H₂O + energy). Did I get that right, students of chemistry?
6. Burning of ethanol, sequestering of CO₂ and so on represent a piecemeal approach which does not address the real issues at all. Reduction is not the goal; elimination is.

If I as a Christian want to contribute to God’s creative process—assuming that that involves an earth on which people can live well—then I will have to do more than recycle my newspaper. I will have to engage in the battle against the forces determined to maintain the status quo because they want to continue reaping the economic harvest that destroying the environment is providing for them.

By what measure do you and I define the “better world?” There are certainly other measures than economic and population growth. Most of us Christians are signaling by our acquiescence to the standards of our world that we don’t give a damn. While scientists are struggling to clue us in to the peril our consumption represents, we nod in agreement, and go out and buy another polluting SUV, or snowmobile, or quad-runner, or we fly in airplanes, drive nearly empty cars, shun the bicycle and public transit.

Our words are Christian, but our actions are decidedly not. If we are to authentically sway the world to disengage from its fossil fuel gluttony, we will need to shed a lot of our own baggage at the same time—or first.

The meaning of life - finally

(At Cameron Trading Post, Arizona)

The meaning of life – a reflection^©

by George Epp

“The purpose of life, the philanthropist knows, is to make the world better. The only question is, Why?” (Joan Chittister, Welcome to the Wisdom of the World, p. 130)

There are, of course, many stories and anecdotes that contain the question of “the meaning (or purpose) of life.” One such is a spoof on Kahlil Gibran and goes something like this:

A disciple climbed the high mountain to the place where the great guru sat in meditation. “What is the meaning of fate?” the acolyte asked. The teacher was silent for a moment, in deep thought. “It is what causes great ships to embark on stormy seas to carry goods to those who need them. It is what causes trucks and trains to travel many, many miles in the dead of night with a worthy purpose in mind.” “And that is the meaning of fate?” said the puzzled supplicant. “Fate?” exclaimed the master. “I thought you said ‘freight.’”

One of Chittisters chapters is titled, “What is the purpose of life?” In a few pages, she—in a manner that some would call ‘audacious’—proceeds to answer the question. It got me thinking, though, about the role this question plays in the way I see the world, and live in it. Like you, I don’t go around asking the question; it smacks of junior high debate, doesn’t it.

And yet, I realize that virtually all my choices are, in effect, an answer to that question. Why did I become a teacher? Because I believed that teachers have a role to play in “making the world a better place” through the education of the next generation. I didn’t say that, but I must have believed it or I would never have let myself in for the low salary (they’re better now), the hours and hours of preparation and grading, the struggles with motivation, discipline, etc., etc.

In retirement, I have chosen to do a number of things, including these:

• I cook meals for my wife and me on days when she works in the local library. I might say that I’m making the world a better place by nourishing her when she’s tired, and helping her to do the important work of providing educational resources to the community without distraction.
• I write this blog, which makes the world a better place because a few people will read this paragraph and think about how their choices represent their answer to the question of purpose and meaning.
• I chair the Eigenheim Mennonite Church council, because I believe that that institution has a role to play in making the world a better place.
• I edit a provincial newsletter for Mennonite Church Saskatchewan because I believe that what the Mennonite Churches of Saskatchewan do together makes the province a better place, and to do those things more and better, people need to be informed and motivated.
• I participate in the local Writers Group because I believe that a world in which people formulate and write their thoughts and share their knowledge and wisdom is a better place than a world without “literature.”

(Some days, I want to pitch all of it and move to a place where “nobody knows my name.” Other days, the activities reward and energize me.)

A behaviourist would smile and say that I do these things precisely because they bring rewards to me personally, and that what I ‘choose’ to do is motivated not by philanthropy, but by selfishness. I know what people around me will reward me for, in other words, so that’s what I ‘choose’ to do.

That may be closer to the truth than my list of activities above. Maybe I just-can’t-say-no to a lot of stuff because I don’t want to risk a loss of positive regard.

I occasionally write adult Bible study material. For that I get paid. It works out—probably—to about five dollars an hour or less. Would I do it without the pay? That would be another test of my version of the meaning and the purpose of my life.

Here’s Chittister again: “God did not finish creation. We are put here to do our part in completing the project. What else can possibly be worth a life?” (p.132)

I don’t think I’d describe it that way. I think my fellow church members—on average—would. What about you?

If you know the purpose and meaning of life, write to me at g.epp@sasktel.net and I’ll pass your wisdom on to all my readers. (Or should I have said ‘both?’)