Open Letter to Our Dear Neighbour at 1703 Broadway Avenue S., Saskatoon, Saskatchewan:

Dear Neighbour:

First of all, thank you. Your years of vigilant service to your neighbourhood have gone long unappreciated. We owe you a world of gratitude for the daily, dutiful and rapt attention you commit to preventing the public parking chaos which is sure to unfold without your timely intervention. We live on a difficult street burdened with bus stops, snow clearing and alleyways which cause undue hardship. Had we really considered the dire, troublesome and chaotic street-side parking scenario which has unfolded, we would have never subjected ourselves, let alone, our children, to such horrors. We have you to thank, however, for maintaining some semblance of order amid our unfortunate and disastrous street parking situation. But please, let me be more precise.

First, thank you for advising us when one of our vehicles, or the suspected vehicle of one of our visitors, has been parked on the street for “quite some time” or should be "moved ahead so you can fit in behind". Your undying attention to the placement of our vehicles is very much appreciated. Even more so, we appreciate when you take the time to personally attend at our front step to advise us when we are approaching a violation of the parking bylaws, and/or the accepted neighbourhood rules, which you have so wisely developed and enforced at your leisure. Your rules, which resemble all things good and decent in civil society, are clearly superior to the City of Saskatoon parking bylaws, which are entirely inadequate to stem the parking chaos which plagues our block. I have grave concern, and I, like you, scorn the City's constant failure to provide you immediate aid in the enforcement of your neighborhood-specific parking rules. The City is clearly inept, and has no understanding of the sheer misery and suffering that will undoubtedly result from a vehicle which is parked on the street for "quite some time". Won't someone please think of the children?

Furthermore, we welcome your constant scrutiny of the arrivals to, and departures from our house. Far from being at all creepy and strange, your constant perch at your front screen door and front window provide us a sense of security and comfort, knowing that you keep such careful watch on our home, and the people within. When I get home from a long day at the office, or a long run with my infant child, it warms my heart to find you anxiously waiting to explain to me, in your friendliest tone and nicotine-fesh breath, all the ways in which we’ve wronged you. And you're probably right - this was a really great neighborhood until a developer decided to knock down the house beside you, which should have been condemned 30 years earlier, and built a nice new duplex to improve urban density and attract two young families to the neighbourhood. We all know the kind of shennanigans that young families get up to, what with the sleeping and going for walks, and such. And you know what? I’m not even sure how many people live here anymore, and your concern respecting the composition of our household is certainly warranted – I will undertake a census shortly and forward the results for your review. And you’re right – we have a garage back there, and we really should ensure we never park anywhere but within the garage. Of course, I presume your garage is currently dedicated to a holy, decent  and noble purpose which prevents you from parking your car within it. But, of course, that's none of my business.... unlike my garage, which is rightfully subject to your constant scrutiny.

Frankly, I recognize the dire consequences that would result if you had a visitor or service person arrive by vehicle and one of the two spots, which the City has, so far, failed to dedicate to your name, but which you so rightly deserve, is unavailable. There is absolutely no chance, possibility or reasonable expectation that said vehicle would, or possibly could, park on the corner of 2^nd street, nearly 30 meters away: you would never have a visitor, or find a service person to attend at your home. And, judging by the general absence of visitors and service personnel who've attended your home in the last two years, I suspect you've just been waiting patiently to secure one of the front-situated parking spots in order to invite the numerous guests and servicemen to attend.  Considering your cheery and delightful disposition, I can only imagine the multitude of visitors who await a proper place to rest their rides. And in the mean time, it would certainly be reasonable for you to park out front... until your throngs of guests and service vehicles arrive, of course.

Of course, it is entirely reasonable, right  and understandable that our visitors, our service people, my pregnant wife and my infant child should always park at the corner of 2^nd Street, because, frankly, we just haven’t earned our right to public space as you have, and they should all walk the extra 30 meters to understand your suffering. Don't mind that my infant son can't yet walk - I agree that lazy little guy should really just try harder. Frankly, we hould have known better than to pay a premium price for a new home in an established neighbourhood: we can’t buy the kind of credibility and right that you’ve earned in your 12 year tenure at 1703.

I apologize for all the hurt, physical suffering and mental anguish this parking scenario has caused you. I hope the numerous cigarettes you've ingested on your front porch and your back stoop while waiting for us to return from our jobs, so you can inform us of our most recent violations, provide you some comfort and release. Please accept the enclosed package of Du Mauriers as a small gesture of our thanks for your continuing service to our neighborhood. And please do continue to flick the buts onto our lawn - we really weren't using that space anyway, and it's probably time we introduced our infant boy to cigarettes. I'm sure he will find your buts to be delectable as he crawls about the grass.

We think it is very noble that you choose to dedicate your precious time and effort to such a localized cause like street-front parking control, and the logistics of our household. Homelessness, hunger and poverty are so over-done in this community, and are likely to solve themselves anyway. Your dedication to maintaining order in street front parking is saintly. I couldn't imagine suggesting to you that you find a better way to spend your time and effort - that would be absurd.

With much Love and Appreciation,

The Dubois Family in 1707

IF YOU would like to show your appreciation to our Neighbour, please post her a letter of thanks to: Cathy or Kathy at 1703, Broadway Ave, Saskatoon, SK S7H 2B4.

Manitoba should think twice before banning pesticides - Opinion - Macleans.ca

Manitoba should think twice before banning pesticides - Opinion - Macleans.ca

Oh Macleans. How is it that your editorial board, which cares for Canada's most notable weekly news publication, failed so strikingly to understand its subject before making comment? It's not that I have issue with your comment per say - there are reasonable arguments for the use of, and for the restriction of certain agricultural and horticultural chemicals. However, please spend just a measure of time with a dictionary to ensure you understand the difference between a "pesticide" and an "herbicide", because the difference is significant. Sure - they're both organic (ie. carbon-based... not hippy-based) chemicals used in horticulture or agriculture. But one, namely pesticide, is designed to kill animate critters, like beetles, worms and flies, while the other, herbicide, is designed to kill specific forms of plant life, like those unwanted plants we call weeds. You might also use fungicide on your plants which is for... well... you get the idea. While people have all sorts of unsupported ideas and fanciful theories about the effects of certain chemicals on human health, those in agriculture who handle and use all types of chemicals, treat pesticides with a much different protocol than most herbicides. Pesticides present a very different level of risk than do most herbicides.

My concern is that urban dwellers and those who govern them tend to confuse their terms when engaging in passionate but ill-informed tirades respecting what their neighbours are putting on their lawns. The Maclean's editorial staff suggested that a pesticide ban resulted in weeds: that is not likely. An herbicide ban might result in more weeds. A pesticide ban would result in more pests... and, perhaps, certain plant damage caused by those pests. The results of an herbicide ban are very different from those of a pesticide ban. If governments are going to make policies respecting the use of such chemicals, it would do us all well if the politicians and bureaucrats who make the policies, and the journalists and commentators who inform the public debate would all spend five minutes with a dictionary to ensure they understand the most basic information necessary to develop an informed policy. For the weed-worried Maclean's editorial staff, I'm not sure a pesticide ban should cause them such concern. But an herbicide ban... that's something to be feared from their weed-weary perch.

Aside from ensuring no-one suffers an ill-informed restriction on that sack of Weed-N'-Feed in the garage, this particular editorial is, perhaps, indicative of the level of misinformation that informs most public debates. When the editorial board of Canada's most notable weekly can't get the basic meaning of two words correct, where does that leave us on more important issues? Do we really know what we're talking about?

The Paper Chase: When Less is More

I'm a little confused. Or perhaps, perplexed. I thought the world had changed significantly since June 30th, 1975. For starters, I wasn't born yet. But that year saw The Thrilla in Manilla, the first episode of Saturday Night Live, and, perhaps the first ever "school shooting" committed by a young man named Robert Poulin in Ottawa. It's 2012, and we still have professional fighting (although a little more violent), we're still watching Saturday Night Live (although it's a little tired), and, unfortunately, that school shooting wasn't the last we'd see in our lifetimes.

In the deeper annals of history, rest the thoughts and words of a man named George Pake, head of a Xerox research facility in Palo Alto, California. A 1975 Business Week article entitled The Office of the Future, cited Pake's vision as follows:

Pake says that in 1995 his office will be completely different; there will be a TV-display terminal with keyboard sitting on his desk. "I'll be able to call up documents from my files on the screen, or by pressing a button," he says. "I can get my mail or any messages. I don't know how much hard copy [printed paper] I'll want in this world."

It seems that Pake was onto something. While not all of us had a fully functioning network terminal at our fingertips in 1995, we were all using localized systems for word processing, accounting and maybe even a little electronic communication (what ever happened to ICQ?). Today, as I sit at my desk with my keyboard, in front of my TV-display terminal, calling-up documents on my screen, I think to myself, "I'm not sure how much of this paper I want in my world." Yet, here it is, choking me and my shiny TV-display on all sides. Reams and stacks of hapless tree-guts. Colourful folders ripe with file opening sheets, conflict searches, invoices, letter copies, and faxes: it’s all here in its fibrous glory. When will the needless killing stop?

This came to mind recently when a colleague forwarded a copy of some presentation notes he received respecting the ease of going paperless: it was a five page paper hand-out. At a hundred hand-outs for the session, you’ve got one standard package of bleached white paper. It was like David Suzuki drove to a tar sands protest in a Hummer with the doors off and the air conditioner running. Was the handout intentionally comic, or just a tragic commentary on the unending and painfully mythical quest for the paperless office?

Most statistics suggest that the per-capita consumption of paper, at a minimum, doubled between the early 1980’s and the early 2000’s. Statistics Canada found that per-capita consumption of paper by Canadians rose 93.6 percent between ’83 and ’93. This, despite that the adoption of digital technology and digital communication devices rose rapidly at the same time, such that virtually all workplaces were connected to the internet by 2003 when our paper usage reached is highest. I suspect paper consumption is positively correlated with declarations from career managers that the office is "going paperless", and I feel those declarations are on a steady rise.

It seems most likely that Jerven's Paradox is at work when it comes to paper use. You see, the first step in the improvement of our office systems was to improve our production of paper documents, which led to an increase in demand for paper, which led to a subsequent increase in efficient supply of paper, which also benefited from new production technology, and which, altogether, led to a cheaper supply of paper. Apparently, when it's easy and cheap to use something, well, humans tend to use more of it, whether it’s good for us or not. Think Ryan Seacrest, or high-fructose corn syrup.

You see, making such grand paper-reduction declarations ensures you get a round of fancy technology and the latest gimmicks in the name of "efficiency" and "cost savings". Never mind the African children who we enslaved by warlords to extract the rare-earth elements required to power your mighty paper-replacement widget - you're doing it to save the planet, and to save your clients time and money.... except, of course, the money your office spent on your new widget, and the additional time you now spend on Facebook... and shopping for more widgets to improve your current widget. If you could just find the damn charger and a case that was actually practical you really would be able to go paperless... that is, if everyone else would cooperate. If all those other people would just committ to going paperless, you wouldn't have to worry about their need for hard copies and you really would be able to commit to going paperless. And management just isn't following through with a good system for electornic documents - if it was just easier to store them efficiently, peolple would do it - but it takes, like, 5 clicks at this stage. That's a lot of waisted time. And of course, you'd probably need a new widget, because, if you were fully paperless well… let's face it, this one just isn’t working out.

You know what, you should probably just cc your assistant with that email for now and get her to throw it on the file, becaue, well - you never know. Hell, just print it out now and write a little diary date on it - that'll just be easier.... for now… until management gets serious about committing to going paperless. Where was that hand-out on going paperless anyway?: It’s somewhere around here. You should really get a copy for management. Hey - Facebook alert!