Barbies and Hot Wheels.

I debated over whether or not this was something to be posted here, but I wanted to briefly touch upon a little off-topic subject from the provincial government theme, but still a political issue in my mind. Technically the provincial government should still have some influence in this area anyways, at least in funding. Boy’s only schools. It's been a topic of major interest and focus in the Toronto Star over the past few weeks. In my opinion, just about the worst, stupidest idea I have ever heard of…especially in today’s times. Yes, I’m one of those feminist people, but I think my view is a little different than typical. When I say I believe in equality, I mean it, I think males and females should be treated in exactly the same fashion, in every situation. Society teaches kids from the time they wrap baby girls in pink and baby boys in blue at the hospital how to fill in the roles of a boy or of a girl. That’s only the beginning. Think hard about how attitudes towards children are governed. If a child hurts themselves, how likely are you to cuddle and gush and put bandaids on scratchs for a boy boy or tell a girl to suck it up?
I don’t know how many times I’ve been in some mixed gender setting where another person calls out for physical help and automatically signals the males out to do the ones to do it. Give me a pillow and him a 46’ screen TV? Give me a break!
Anyways, as you can see it’s very easy to get on an extremely long and never ending discussion of stupid so-called ‘differences’ between genders that are nothing but learned, however, it just brings us further off-topic.
It’s these types of issues that make a segregation of genders in school a horrible idea. Even if gender co-mixing is causing a problem, it’s one that needs to be overcome by changing attitudes of what it means to be a girl or a boy. Think of how girls and boys would be treated differently if they were kept separate. Anyone remember that Simpsons episode as an extreme, but scary reminder? How would this be different than separating schools by race or SES, I’m sure they all have ‘needs’ to.
What happens when children get no socialization with the opposite gender throughout their childhood, then have to deal with them for the first time in the workforce, or university? Segregation would cause a lot more of these long term social problems….but at least we’d all have PhDs.
On the other hand, I have a better suggestion. REDUCE segregation in schools. Amalgamate gyms classes and sex ed. Amalgamate sports teams. Don’t put ideas in girl’s heads that they’re not capable as being as strong and fast as boys. They are.
And for gods sake, stop buying your girls Barbies and your boys Hot Wheels.

Rant of an Environmentalist/Farmer

I took an interesting position for my local government seminar this week, where I’m supposed to present briefly in support of the greenbelt.
It’s a conflicting issue for me, to say the least. My environmentalist tendencies come head to head with my heritage as a farmer.
Although I don’t live in the greenbelt, currently I live on 225 acres of apple orchard, zoned special agriculture. This means no development can occur unless it’s agriculturally related. This causes yearly frustrations with the town as we attempt to build upon our businesses. As the owner of a piece of property, should it not be their right to do whatever they wish with their land, so long as it doesn’t impact the lives of other people negatively?
Though in the same strain, to hear a farmer complaining that he can’t sell his farm when he retires to a developer who has plans to build housing on it rails me with anger. Yet isn’t that the same right I’m complaining about? I’m a hypocrite, I know.
So what about the environment? This type of legislation protects forests and other wilderness areas from development as well as farms. Complaints about this aspect of the greenbelt are just classic. Everyone and their grandma supports the environment…until it inconveniences them that is. People all feel like they do their part by throwing their can into the recycling bin, but would they do it if they knew that dirty cans cause that entire bag of recycling to go straight to the dump? Cleaning that can out isn’t very convenient for them. Same with the green belt. The second profit is lost because of this legislation, you can say bye to public support. So in truth, do I support the greenbelt or not? I don’t know. Should make for an interesting presentation.

HST = GST + PST

HST FAQ
Public Opinion Poll

Harmonized Sales Tax, proposed by Dalton Mguinty's Liberals, and planned to be implemented next July, is the amalgamation of provincial sales tax with the GST. This would end up saving businesses a great amount of money normally spent on administration fees of paying two separate taxes. The idea is to strengthen economy for the future.
However, there's a visible downside for the consumer. Goods that used to be void of PST and contain only GST will now be subjected to both taxes under this new harmonization. The provincial government counters this by saying there are going to deal out large amounts of tax relief over the next three years that will actually save people more money then they lose. Yet the public consensus so far seems to be that this is a bad thing.
I find this example of public opinion is not surprising. When do people ever support increased taxes? People look out for themselves as individuals first, and they don't want to spend more money on a daily basis as they purchase their goods. Even though they might actually save money, the increased cost of day to day purchases of goods may feel more substantial than that quarterly tax refund.
Already their is talk of boycotting spending, which is the opposite of what the government wants to encourage in this time of economic recession. The opposite strategy is to spend a lot, just spend it now. Pre-Pay Before May as they're terming it.
Individually, no one wants taxes to increase, but the constant balance has to always be realized. The more taxes the government collects, the more they can give us in social programs and services. It's a classic problem, but people always seem to have the conception that the lower the taxes, the better. It just makes you wonder how conscious they are of what their taxes do for them?

Billion With a 'B'

Today's discussion in class makes me want to follow up on the initial post I made regarding the lawsuit by Ontario against tobacco companies. The class brought up some good points.
It became apparent that a small number of US states have successfully run lawsuits against the tobacco companies, which shines a ray of hope to Ontario. Although the lawsuit will certainly take years of legal acrobatics before any final word comes out on it, the fact that it has been done with success before leads to the hope that Ontario might also be successful.
One might notice the number figure Ontario has named. $50 billion with a 'B' is a lot of money. Much more than the lawsuits in the US ran for. Why the difference? Ontario claims that this is the value of all the health care resources spent on smoking related illness over the last 50 years. The Canadian public health system means that the money used to fund the aid towards smoking related illness was provided by the tax payers as a whole, instead of the mostly private related costs as would be seen in the US.
Is the government being hypocritical? These do receive large amounts of money from taxation on tobacco products, which could arguably set off the costs tobacco related illness cause to the health care system. The taxation is also supposed to discourage people from smoking because of the high cost of buying the product. Yet, the large bracket of people we see with cigarettes poking out of the corner of their mouths are low income people, who are more likely to buy a carton of cigarettes instead of paying for their kids soccer class. The best way to discourage people from smoking is to make the product unavailable. Of course this opens up the whole other problem of illegal cigarettes.
If the lawsuit does turn out to be a success, it will be very interesting to see what sort of number figure Ontario walks away with. Anything that takes tobacco out of use is great in my eyes, but I’m not sure this is the most appropriate means of doing so.

Attention Deficit

The article Talk 'n' drive fines coming in 4 months was featured in the Toronto Star today.
The problem of people using hand held devices such as cell phones, IPods and GPS is not entirely new, but has risen in frequency in recent years as these types of technologies increase in popularity and availability.
It has been found that the use of such devices while driving increases the chance of being involved in a traffic accident. The reason that can probably be pinned down to this is automaticity. Driving is a learned skill that people get better at over time. When people good at a skill, they don’t need to pay as much attention to the fine details of performing it, they do most of it automatically without having to think about it. However, when something out of the ordinary occurs, perhaps an animal crosses the road or a car brakes hard in front of you, the motions performed aren’t automatic anymore, and need conscious thought to make a decision and react appropriately.
This becomes a problem when someone is multitasking. If a person is talking on a cell phone they are perfectly able to drive appropriately while talking at the same time. However, the conversation becomes the primary focus, and the driving takes the backseat; it becomes automated. Thousands of people drive perfectly fine while talking on cell phones all the time, because nothing out of the ordinary occurs as they drive. However, it’s when that sudden event occurs that demands the driver’s full attention, that the cell phone user is distracted and misses the making the correct decision to avoid the situation.
Using cell phones while driving is highly convenient and valuable. It’s nice to be able to tell a family member or colleague that you’re on your way or where you’re going. In the work setting, it may allow for efficiently using time that is otherwise wasted in commuting time. However, it is a simple fact of how our brain’s work that compromises our attention when driving.
Therefore I agree with the law they are putting in place. It will be inconvenient for sure, but maybe it’s not that big of a deal to call right before you get in the car, or to make a pit stop somewhere if one is that necessary. It just might save your life.