Wearing out

The new school year continues to bring more disappointments than successes. But I can't deny the good moments.

The bike has been giving a little troubel of late. For the last week the chain has been creaking and slipping and finally Friday it broke in the middle of College and St George. Fortunately there was no car hurtling towards me and I was a minute away from BikeChain where I was headed to find out what was wrong with it. I fitted a new chain for 8 dollars. But Saturday no-one turned out for the bike ride, but it was raining...

In 4 years I have worn out 3 tyres, 3 sets of brake pads, one saddle, two sets of pedal bearings,and I have broken 2 bells, 5 wheel spokes on two separate occasions and now one chain. The bike has been worn out because it was been used and not because it was kept safe inside. My veritgo is back because it never went away fully rather because I'm tired and a little worn out. I'm a little disappointed with things this school year but I wouldn't be disappointed if I hadn't tried and trusted. I also wouldn't be able to savour the small moments of success or hope.

Needed a new life including a trade

Many hand operations followed and Paul and his team were feeling rather flushed with success, until one patient came back and said that they had given him "bad hands". The problem was, beggars with deformed and useless hands got money. The ones with good looking, working hands did not. ... That patient challenged Paul to look at the whole man ... Leprosy patients needed a new life including a trade, not just new hands. Sharon Blyth speaking about the late Paul Brand

It's astounding but I've found a website and service called Tourist Remover! (here) The concept is that you'll take a picture and another picture and another and people keep getting in the way. This service will enable you to remove them from the picture. You create something quite nice or even beautiful but it is no longer really a accurate record of what happened or what it was like when you were there. I suppose that we have to be grateful is wasn't Tourist Eliminator!

If life were that simple. But memories and their history are important to us they often tell us who we are both in positive and negative ways. Even most psychotherapies do not attempt to wipeout memories but to reinterpret them. To wish them away is craziness because we need the experiences of life to give true wisdom. Unfortunately most wisdom comes from "the school of hard knocks" the bruises and woundings of life not from the good stuff. I written about Paul Brand and his writing on the importance of pain. He was a surgeon working with leprosy patients and I was taken by books I read many years ago about and by him. Fixing up patients came to mean more than simply getting the body to work or fixing hands, it was far more intentional, and it was far more than saving souls.

Fixing up a photo simply creates a fake which looks good but deny the people and relationships however irritating as people get in the way. WE are called to care for the whole person. You know what trade Paul Brand taught his patents, carpentry. There is a sort of irony and glory in the same moment.

Convenient food

Being a "locavore" and eating foods grown near where you live may not help the environment as much as you might think, according a new study. Mason Inman National Geographic News April 2008

I was born before supermarkets, before freezers and definitely before convenience and prepackaged foods. I remember when food was local because the economic and food technological machinery did not exist. The last few weeks have exposed a fatal weakness in all human systems, namely selfishness and greed. Human beings have tunnel vision and are essentially reductionist, seeing only what they want to see. Food production is never merely about carbon footprint nor about saving time or about profits.

The last few weeks the media has been filled with listereosis and the sliced meats and cheese contamination. We've known for a long time that ground meats are more prone to bacterial contamination, but assumed that cooked and cured meats would be safe. But of course pre-slicing before sales removes that protection. Prepackaged and pre sliced foods are quick and convenient. It removes food preparation from those eating to others making profits.

Now milk intentionally contaminated with melamine is in the news. 53,000 babies and young children affected in a country with a one child policy! But this is not the action of one person or one company as so far 22 companies have been identified as following this dangerous practice of doctoring the milk. But the effect is not localized to once country but across Asia and even North America because globalization means foods travel the world.

Most food in North America travels at least 1500 kilometres to you in fact In the USA, in one meal ingredients may come from five different nations, and in Australia, that might be 30,000 km from farm to stomach. We want strawberries or raspberries in winter so they travel across continents. We're encouraged to eat more fish except we're a long way from the ocean and of course no more than 2 portions a week because of mercury.

In all of this, whoever we are we assume that our governments and officials will look after us. But it's interesting that the politicians are campaigning like fury and spend more time working on negative talk rather than the role of politicians. I was asking myself what I should have said the other night when the local candidate appeared on my door step. Here's a few questions that came to mind this afternoon "If you're elected who will command your loyalty, 1) your party, 2) those who voted for you, or 3) the people living in this neighbourhood?" or "Would you still stand for election if there were no pension and the salary was half that currently?" or "Why do you exactly want to be a politician?"

No government is ever elected on the platform that "We will spend extra millions on testing and confirming the safety of water and food." No government would voted themselves a pay decrease because they did not fulfill promises. Somehow, at the moment, being a politician seems to be another way to convenient food?

Good government has checks and balances to ensure safety and wise practices. In a democratic system this is normatively found in losing an election. The problem, I see, is that pensions and benefits cut in too early and there are really few penalties for a politician who fails to be re-elected. Furthermore government is no longer agent of the peoples rather politicians are in the same category as a used car salesman, you wouldn't trust anything they had to say. Negative campaigning is always unhelpful and unsavory.

Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue. An unfriendly man pursues selfish ends; he defies all sound judgment. Proverbs 17:28 , 18:1