London: a fine, friendly city_ and not in the least bit dull

The other night I attended a ReThink London event held in the Wolf Auditorium at the Central Library in London, Ontario.

Leaving the event I bumped into an old acquaintance, a woman I've known and admired for years, a woman I met through my former job at the local paper. We chatted briefly, bringing each other up to speed on the changes in our lives since we last bumped into each other. (We do bump now and then as we seem to have interests that intersect now and then.)

I told her about my two granddaughters and how Fiona, the oldest, is now more than three. The woman's eyes lit up, sparkling more than usual. I've got just the thing for a little girl; I've got a great little book. "Have you ever heard of 'A House Is a House for Me'?"

It seems this woman had three copies for some reason and had recently given one away. She said she'd love to send Fiona here last spare copy. She took my address and a few days later the book arrived.

I have a plastic turtle that I was given when I was about Fiona's age. It, too, was a gift from a stranger. I still have that turtle and it still makes me smile. It represents the friendliness of strangers. The world is not a cold place and this truth is embodied in my turtle.

Now, Fiona has a gift that carries the same message. Nice.

London, like most cities, is not cold. London is a friendly town. Just ask Fiona.

Fiona liked this art we made together so much that she took a picture.

Art? A three-year-old could do it!

Flowers: a water colour by Fiona Blair, 3

I love the art often referred to as "modern art." I'm attracted by the splashes of colour, the bold application of paint, paint applied so thickly that the painting has a veritable sculptural quality on the picture plane.

One criticism one oh-so-often hears is: "A child could do it." So? Your point is?

Actually, the chance of a child turning out a Willem de Kooning style work is somewhat hard to see. But, after enjoying a de Kooning one is better positioned to enjoy a child's art on a whole new level.

Rainbow: a water colour by Fiona Blair, 3

You can't pump your own gas in Oregon

Before 1947 there were no self-serve gas stations.

You read correctly. Drivers can't pump their own gas in Oregon. Self-serve gas stations are illegal. I'd forgotten this weird little fact until Sunday when I listened to some folk discussing their recent road trip through the American northwest. They were surprised to be told they could not pump their own gas in Oregon. It's been illegal in the state since 1951.

It was just four years earlier, 1947, that Frank Ulrich, an independent gas station operator in Los Angeles,  opened the first self-serve gas station. His mantra was: “Save 5 cents, serve yourself, why pay more?” He sold half a million gallons in his first month.

It took more than two decades but eventually almost every state and province conceded that do-it-yourself gas pumpers would not blow themselves up. Today, only two states remain solid hold-outs: Oregon and New Jersey. Both have looked at rescinding the prohibition but both ran into fierce opposition. Apparently people in those states don't object to forgoing the pleasure of pumping their own smelly gasoline.

So, are their any advantages or disadvantages of having such a law? One person thought it was a great idea as it provided jobs. And they were right. There are approximately a whopping 8000 gas pump attendants in Oregon pumping an estimated $160 million into the Oregon economy.

Some take offence at the fuel pumping restriction and belittle the job creation claim. The ban may create thousands of jobs but they are working-poor-poor type jobs --- and these jobs are created at a very high cost, or so goes the argument. If gasoline in Oregon costs more than in surrounding states, this extra expense is the cost to society for providing folk with substandard jobs.

The argument sounds reasonable but it may not be true. When it comes to salary, the top 25 percent of gas pump attendants in Oregon earn more than $25,250 with those at the very top of the range are taking home something north of $30,000. Tips from appreciative drivers bump the gas jockey income up another notch.

The median salary for pumping gas in Oregon is about $20,000. This isn't surprising as the minimum wage in Oregon is about $9 an hour. This translates into a full-time wage in the neighbourhood of $18,500 annually. (The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) places the poverty level in Oregon at $11,170 for a single person, $15,130 for a couple and $19,090 for a couple with one child.)

As for the burdensome cost to society, if there is a burden, it is nicely hidden. In New Jersey, the other state where self serve gas stations have been outlawed, the price of gas is consistently less than that charged in surrounding states. In Oregon the cost of gas is not high in comparison with neighbouring states. This fact is confirmed by my friends who recently traveled the roads of Washington state, Oregon and California.

Oregonian reporter Joseph Rose wrote a column on the longstanding law. He recalled an evening from his youth when he and five friends pulled into an Exxon station in need of gas. A lanky figure with a greasy wool cap stood next to the pumps. The man was Rose's dad. Desperate for a paycheck, his dad had taken the only job he could find: Pumping gas.

I read many other similar stories on the Net. Sometimes getting a simple gas jockey job can be a godsend.

When I was in Oregon two years ago, I did pump my own gas. I thought the attendants were worried about spilling fuel on my antique Morgan. Nope. It turns out motorcycle drivers and heritage car owners both enjoy an exemption. I hear diesel drivers are also allowed to pump their own fuel. I fully understand the thinking. I belong to all three groups and can assure you that these are all exceptional people.

Newspaper filler isn't filling

If you take a daily newspaper, you may well have read how awful the returns are on one's investments today. And the poor returns of today are not going to improve in the future, or so we are told. I wouldn't bank on it.

I heard from one reporter who took offence at my position. This reporter had written one of the "investment world is coming to an end" pieces that so offend me. No one knows the future when it comes to investment returns. Frightening people with negative scare stories, making them feel powerless when it comes to investing for their future is wrong. It is just completely wrong.

We should be encouraging people to take an active role in managing their retirement funds. They should know enough to judge whether their investments are performing well or not. And if they are not, and they know it, they can take measures to improve their portfolio's performance. No one need accept three percent growth. No one.

The reporter who wrote me was very defensive about a piece they had written on the diminished returns to now be expected from RSP savings. This reporter told me: "I'm not going to tell you I am some financial whiz or pretend to be. I am a middle-class [person] trying to make ends meet.  I was told to get something together under deadline, the same day." They went on to say, "I was assigned [this] out of the blue."

The reporter seemed to think that it simply wasn't fair for me to criticize. I don't work to a deadline. They told me that I have " months to fume, ruminate, dissect and ultimately write" my opinion pieces. Yes I do. And it is a luxury. I admit it.

Still, what the paper ran was wrong. Quite wrong. And I can prove it. I opened a tax free savings plan some months ago and it has done very well indeed. It has delivered fine gains plus very nice dividends. I am up 18.59 percent

My tax free savings plan is up almost 19%.

And how did I pull off this miracle? I went to the library. I took out some books on investing and read them. And, most importantly, I didn't read the newspaper for advice. Unlike the authors of the books I read, newspaper writers (by their own admission) are pumping out words to deadline to fill column inches. All too sad. When I started in the newspaper business in the early '70s, financial page writers were knowledgeable folk who spent their time ruminating on the stuff about which they would eventually report. (My much larger RSP portfolio, with about 32 different investments (stocks, ETFs and mutual funds), is sporting approximately a 8.8% annualized return at this moment. It rises and falls with the market.)

I have heard from readers who protest that those who opened RSPs in the years right before the massive crash of 2008 and 09 are still struggling to recoup their losses. Earning more than six percent annually on their retirement funds is but a distant dream for these people, I'm told.

Curious, I calculated the outcome for a young person who started saving for retirement on January 1st, 2005. This is just a few short years away from the global financial meltdown to come. A conservative type, my young saver put the money in the TD Monthly Income balanced fund and reinvested the monthly payments. (A DRIP plan) They made annual contributions at the first of every year. Today, less than eight years later, they have earned the annalized equivalent of 6.1%. If they'd have put aside $3000 annually, today they would have $46,301.79. They would be well on their way to a successful retirement.
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Please read this paragraph from an e-mail from a reporter working at a daily paper.

"You quickly forgot the pressures and stress associated with modern journalism. This ain't the so-called good old days. There aren't 150 people in the newsroom anymore. Our deadlines aren't the next day, they're now. We write for the web, produce videos, tweet and ultimately write at the end of the day for the print record. We cover what we can and work with what we have . . . "

They went on to say that they think they do a fine job. I think, when you take into consideration that they are understaffed, overworked and undertrained for the rich mix of professions they must now juggle, that they do do an amazing job. But amazing is not always fine.

Duct cleaning? Is it necessary?

A kitchen renovation results in lots of dust settling everywhere in the home.

I'm having the kitchen renovated. It's my wife's idea not mine, but that is another blog. Walls have come down, flooring has been ripped out and drywall has gone up. Dust is everywhere. Friends and relatives are telling us that we have to have our ducts cleaned when this is finished. Do we?

I have always had strong doubts about the whole duct cleaning business. My experience with dust and airflow tells me that often dust, once settled, is not easily disturbed. There is often a boundary layer of dead air separating the settled dust from the moving air stream.

Laminar flow is the smooth, undisturbed movement of a gas or a liquid. I first came upon the term when studying photographic film development. To promote consistent development of film processed in the television news lab where I worked, the circulation of liquid in the processing tanks was always mechanically disturbed. This agitation of the flow had other benefits as well; It distributed the chemical bi-products of processing throughout the tanks and promoted consistent chemical bath activity. The instructors at Kodak in Rochester taught me that simply having processing liquids flowing smoothly over a piece of film was not sufficient to disturb the boundary layer.

What has all this got to do with the ducts in a home? Well I would think it quite possible that dust in ducts does one of three things: gets caught by the furnace filter, stays in the air stream to be blown back into the home or settles almost permanently in the ducts themselves. The whole duct cleaning operation is predicated on the dust doing a fourth thing --- being disturbed by the air flow, picked up and blown back into the home.

My gut feeling was that the fourth option was the least likely to occur. Years ago I had a chance to inspect a cold air return in an older home. The dust in that return had not been disturbed for fifty some years. There was a thick, felt-like layer of dust that I was able to remove in one solid, long sheet. It was not hard to imagine that some of that dust had been trapped there since the home was built back in the '20s.

Almost 20 years ago, Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) in Canada conducted some research into the benefits of duct cleaning. 33 homes in the Montreal area were selected for the study. Measurements of dust in the air in the selected homes showed no significant reductions after duct cleaning. In some cases, houses showed a temporary increase in dust levels for several hours after duct cleaning probably due to dust being disturbed by the process.

• In most cases, duct cleaning resulted in significant reductions in the amount of dust on the surface of the return ("cold") air ducts.
• In some cases, ducts were not cleaner after the cleaning exercise
• The concentrations of dust were very low in the supply (“hot”) air ducts, both before and after the cleaning.
• Duct cleaning did not significantly reduce the amount of energy used by the furnace fan. 
• Duct cleaning did not significantly increase supply or return air flow rates.

The only positive outcome I could find was reduced concentrations of airborne microorganisms. Of course this may have resulted from the use of a biocide during cleaning.

CMHC concluded:

Homeowners should not necessarily expect significant improvements in their home’s indoor air quality, nor reductions in their heating bills, as a result of having their house ducts cleaned. Furthermore, until the efficiency of biocides are proven and their potential effects established, householders should refrain from having biocides applied.

I must add that to the best of my knowledge, there are no published standards when it comes to duct cleaning in Canada. When I worked at the local newspaper, I worked on a story on duct cleaning. To my untrained eye, it looked as if the workers chopped holes in the duct work with little understanding of air flow and repaired their access holes very crudely. I was not impressed.

For more info on this subject, click on the link to the United States EPA article:
Should You Have the Air Ducts in Your Home Cleaned?

I'm going to take a pass on the duct cleaning. I'll drop the hose of our vacuum down the air vents but that will be it. I may have the fan in our furnace cleaned before winter. I'll certainly change our furnace filter. But, will I have my ducts cleaned? In a word, "No."

. . . but I know what I like.

To paraphrase a famous retort about art knowledge, "I don't know about child psychology but I know what I like (when it comes to raising kids.)

No, I've never actually heard that exact response but I have heard folk claim they don't give two hoots about what experts say about child rearing but they are quite sure how to do it. The opinion of the experts is held in such low esteem that the experts are not consulted nor given even a cursory reading. All this is not all that surprising considering that there is all too often a wall of misinformation surrounding experts and their opinions: Take B.F. Skinner.

The glass wall removed, Deborah enjoys her mother's touch.

Some years ago B. F. Skinner, of behavioral modification fame, wrote a utopia themed book titled Walden Two. I read Walden Two while staying with a far left leaning family in Berkeley, California, in the late '60s. A core theme of the fictional work was the controlled behavior modification of the community children.

A close friend, who was studying psychology, had made me aware of the Skinner box used in the training and testing of pigeons and lab rats. But, Skinner was famous for another box, one used in child rearing. This box is often known as the "Skinner baby tender."

Skinner put his daughter Deborah into a Skinner baby tender in her early years . . . an air-conditioned crib with see through walls. By Deborah's own account, her crib provided her a place to sleep and to remain warm without the rashes involved in being wrapped within numerous layers of clothes and blankets. Deborah slept in her novel crib until she was two and a half years old, and by all accounts grew up a happy, healthy, thriving child and is now a successful artist living in London.

Despite the success of Skinner's Air Crib, false and oh-so-nasty stories circulated about the baby tender, Deborah Skinner and her father. The most damning and most inaccurate stories were spread by author Lauren Slater in her 2004 book Opening Skinner's Box . . .

Deborah Skinner has a website where she talks a little about her childhood and the Air Crib. There are no bad memories. In fact, I believe her sister, Julie, used an Air Crib with both her daughters, Lisa and Justine.

Deborah Skinner also uses her site to showcase her art which can be purchased online. To view her horse drawings follow this link: Horses by Skinner. To view her landscapes click here: Landscapes by Skinner.

If you are interested in reading more about Deborah Skinner and her response to the error filled  stories shrouding her early childhood, read: I was not a Lab Rat.

There is a warning in this tale: Be cautious. Do not be too quick to believe what you read. Furthermore, do not be too quick to dismiss what you haven't read.

Addendum: I believe my wife, without knowing it, is using Skinner operant conditioning to toilet train our granddaughter. Whenever Fiona uses the potty she is rewarded with some M&Ms. Shades of the Skinner box and its food pellet rewards used to teach pigeons and rats to pull a lever, yes?

Koans and the search for enlightenment

I have known a number of practising Buddists. Young people drawn to this Eastern philosophy, I hesitate to call what they were seeking religion, were especially common in Berkeley in the late '60s.

One goal they all shared was a search for enlightenment. One thing I never heard anyone talk at length about was reincarnation.

Last night, at a friend's home, we somehow got into a discussion of religion. My friend said he would never consider Buddhism as he could not get past the belief in reincarnation. I told him how I had had some interest in Buddhism but never got passed the koans. Koans are short, sometimes confusing, stories told by Masters to encourage thinking, to awaken new ways of approaching the problems of life. They are a powerful tool used by Masters to instruct students in the value of creative thinking, of intuitive reasoning, and to move them towards enlightenment.

For me, all this brought to mind the following koan:

A certain monk lived for one thing and one thing only: enlightenment. He worked day and night, endlessly, to reach the fully awakened state. But, his frequent, intense bouts of meditation instead of bringing him closer to his goal appeared to be playing havoc with both his mind and his body. Suffering mentally and physically he sought the guidance of the Master.

The Master taught the monk the theory of reincarnation. He patiently explained that this present life would be followed by many more. If he lived a life sotted by spirtuality, this would be carried over into the next. The Master advised him to ease up, to step back and find the natural order of life. When he was not overstressed by arduous mediation, when he was not trying to drive himself  forcefully forward, he would find enlightenment. Only by looking away could he hope to see.

The monk followed his Master's instructions and rapidly made great spiritual progress. He let go of his obsessive push for enlightenment and stopped focusing on the future and instead dwelt on the moment and enjoying the present. His mental and physical health improved greatly and the monk was very happy with his progress. He was so happy that he shared his Master's teachings with his friend Toto, a man, although also interested in enlightenment, had a much different temperament than the monk. The friend set off to visit the Master.

At the meeting Toto confessed he meditated irregularly, indulged in pleasures of the body and left his mind unchallenged. Toto talked of his friend the monk and how an understanding of reincarnation had turned his present life completely around. Toto said that he understood it was the Master's guidance that had led to the monk's improved state in both mind and body.

The Master frowned, telling Toto flatly, "There is no reincarnation. It is a lie. The greatest sin you can commit is losing focus and squandering the opportunity for enlightenment offered by this life."

The Master came down hard on Toto for his laziness and for his view that reincarnation offered all a second chance. "There is no reincarnation; You are simply lazy; You are wasting a precious life."

Jolted by the Master's words, Toto reacted immediately. He straightened himself up, abandoned his vices, gave up all his indulgent ways. His spiritual progress reached new heights with regular and intense meditation.