Saturday, April 27, 2013

That Kind Of A(n Earth) Week

Over the past seven days I have:
  • sat in a room with ten strangers to have an earnest conversation about an organization I don't really know that much about
  • watched senior ministry staff make improbably clever ice cream sundaes and
  • plotted my revenge against Kobo
and now I'm having trouble figuring which experience is most worth sharing.

The only one I have pictures of is the ice cream sundae competition, so I'll save my revenge against Kobo for another day.

Here's a picture of the sundae my boss had a hand in making.


This is very clever and alludes to many things the science division of the ministry works with: air quality, contaminated soil, blue-green algae, mercury in fish, the whole megilla.

And this is the sundae the corporate management and environmental programs division made:


This is a pretty shameless play to the extreme patriotism of the average Canadian - with a strong hockey theme, two whole flags and quite a lot of maple syrup.

But this was the winning sundae, constructed I can only imagine over the previous two days by the operations and drinking water divisions:


Appropriately, even though these were built out of doors and we're having a very chilly spring, the polar ice cap  was melting.

Hope everyone had a happy Earth week!

Karen



Sunday, April 21, 2013

What's Your Story?

I see these billboards, in the parking lot on the southwest corner of the intersection of Bloor and Church streets, on my walk home from yoga. 





I wondered where Dove got its numbers. 



It turns out these figures are based on research Dove (parent corporation: Unilever) did with IPSOS Reid, which concludes that six in ten girls have quit sports because of how they have felt about their looks. Dove research also "suggests" that "when girls quit or avoid sports because of their body image, they could be missing out on valuable benefits that can stay with them for a lifetime."

Or they might not. Dove's research also found that girls didn't quit other activities such as school events, music classes or dance classes because of poor body image, but I guess the valuable benefits of singing and dancing don't linger as long as soccer and swimming.

Don't get me wrong. I feel for the poor schlub who had to take the research results and turn them into advertising copy. It's the way I feel when I try to explain to someone what I do for a living, which I'll admit to now is "telling likely stories." 

Policy analysts sift through the enormous amounts of noise (including research) out there and pick out story lines that turn the noise into enough sense that it helps someone else make a decision.

The likely story I'd like to apply to these ads is that a multinational corporation has decided that its products are about high self esteem and will support girls' self-image in order to sell more of these products.

Others tell a different story, because, according to their read of the noise, Unilever is part of the low self esteem problem: some of its other products - AXE cologne and a skin-lightening cream it sells in India - send messages that make girls feel bad about themselves.


What to you think?


Have a great week!

Karen











Saturday, April 13, 2013

Don't Go There

Back in the days when I was trying to keep animal products out of my diet, I was once subjected to an interrogation that went something like this:

"Why don't you eat meat?"

"It's a moral choice."

"Why? Because meat used to be alive? Well, plants are alive, so you shouldn't be eating those either."

Having scored the point, my interrogator moved onto other matters. The quick change of subject didn't give me an opportunity to explore my end of the argument, which would have gone something like this:

"Why do you eat only some kinds of meat? If you eat a pig or a cow, why don't you eat a dog?"

It may be generally true that people are more comfortable challenging other people's taboos than they are comfortable exploring their own, but that's not my point.

My point is something I've been calling all week "rhetorical boundaries" - those inexpressible, voice-lowering, face averting, shoulder-hunching, eye-contact-avoiding zones in human conversation where sometimes you just can't go; rhetorical boundaries like "the sanctity of marriage" or "there'll always be an England" or "freedom of expression."

I've bumped into these boundaries a lot of times this past week, and not just because I had my performance review. 

And when I hear a rhetorical barrier (again cleverly disguised to honour my oaths to the Crown) - something like "we'll always have to manufacture ice cream in southern Ontario, because it would be a shame not to," that's when I want to start asking questions. "Why not? What is it about ice cream that makes a future without it unthinkable? Couldn't there be something better than ice cream in the future? What would a world without ice cream look like? Would it be a bad thing?" 

But asking people to explore their own taboos is rude, so I don't. At least not right away.

Here's a pretty, leafless tree on Toronto Island
Have a great week!

Karen















Saturday, April 6, 2013

Stop Asking Permission

Good Friday in Toronto wasn't warm, but it was sunny, so Bruce and I decided to go for a walk on Toronto Island.

We arrived at the docks just a bit late for the ten o'clock ferry, but very early for the eleven o'clock, and had some time to kill on the waterfront.  

As always when we are out walking, Bruce needed to find a cup of coffee and I needed to find a public washroom. While searching for those things, on the lake side of Queen's Quay we found this Myst-inspired cracked sphere. If you look at the Google map of the Toronto waterfront, the label says this sphere is a sundial.





But it of course is much more than that.



The interior is a magic cave.






And there were blackbirds everywhere, singing.



During my long ago brief, painful sojourn as a sole practitioner environmental lawyer, I represented a group of people who lived on the Island and I used to spend a lot of time out there. But, I think it's been at least ten years since I was last out on the settled sand spit created by the downshore transport of the Scarborough Bluffs.




Looking toward the city, a lot has changed in ten years. For example, there are 50% more buildings in the skyline. Looking toward the lake, nothing has changed. And a walk along the lake side of the Island is the same now as it was a decade ago. The remnants of the once-bustling Toronto harbour are there: 



And the remains of the coffer dams used to build the retaining walls under the boardwalk (you can see just to the left of the light-coloured rock in the middle foreground a row of wooden posts):



And the cottonwoods - the biggest I've ever seen:



The few hundred people who live on the island don't have a grocery store or a bank branch or a movie theatre nearby. And their lives are run by the ferry schedules. But they are luckier by far than the rest of the people who live in Toronto. And their mere contested, controversial, and best-before-dated presence on the island is a really good example of what greatness might be achieved if you don't ask permission.



Have a great week!

Karen