Finally

After many years of trying, rugby has finally scored a spot in the Olympics! Anyone who knows me knows I am a huge rugby fan. For years I have been unable to understand why rugby was not an Olympic sport. Now the International Olympic Committee board has recommended rugby, as well as golf, for inclusion in the summer Olympics, starting with the 2016 summer games. Even though it is 7 years off, I couldn't be more excited. The rugby I watch is called rugby union and includes 15 players a side. The version approved for Olympics is a pared down version known as rugby 7s, meaning there are only 7 players a side. Although not as elegant, for a global audience that may not be familiar with the sport, 15 a side rugby can be a little confusing and sometimes slows down. 7s is relentless in its pace, involves a lot of fast running and hard hitting, and has shorter games. I'm just happy it's in.

And my bro will be tickled pink that golf is in too. Word has it Tiger is already chompin' at the bit.

Losing faith

I lost a little faith in human nature today. I'm in Edmonton attending a course and am staying at my grandma's condo downtown (thanks grandma!) with my wife and two boys. It's a good hike from Walmart South Common, where the course is, to grandma's condo, so I have ample opportunity to witness the egregious display of human stupidity that is rush hour in Edmonton.

I consider myself a safe and smart driver and my untarnished driving record speaks for it. I give most of the credit for this to my dad who I consider to be one of the safest and smartest drivers I know. His language is not always PG-rated, but he gets you there safely and, by using his brain, he always arrives in a timely manner, WITHOUT resorting to speeding I might add. Coupled with this and his insistence that you always think 5 steps ahead when driving and always plan your route MILES before you need to, I have picked up some of his great habits. It also helps that he has ingrained in me the assumption that every other driver on the road is a complete moron.

This may sound unfair, but it makes sense. It's called defensive driving. If you assume other people are world class drivers, you could assume that you could cross this driveway entry because that car bearing down on you would certainly be using his signal light if he intended to turn into the driveway. But if you assume he is a moron, you will wait until he has either turned into the driveway without signalling or has in fact passed right by it before you set foot in that crossing. It's just safe.

So it is that I set out on my journey home this evening. Assuming they are all morons. And there was ample evidence to prove my point. Donkey boy in his fancy truck swerving around the road because he was totally oblivious to those around him while he talked about the new sequined Italian shoes he bought at Gucci for $500 on his cellphone he bought to replace the one he bought last week. Or the genius who thinks that driving 20 km/h in a 50km/h zone is safer than driving the speed limit. Or Einstein who spends 20 blocks slowing down at each intersection to check the sign because he didn't plan his route before leaving home. Or Mr. Mensa who cuts abruptly into your lane because the guy in front of him is not driving 100 in a 50 zone and then so courteously flashes his right signal light once after he's already in front of you. Thanks for the heads up. But the prize today goes to a motorcyclist.

Driving down 104 Avenue during rush hour is at the best of times nerve wracking. But no matter how much you hate it, just stay in the lane you need to be in to arrive at your destination, because you can do all the lane changing you want, but you're not going anywhere any faster. Not according to Mr. Motorbike today. I saw him swerving in and out of traffic like a lonely bee in a field of newly bloomed clover. He figured if he just changed lanes fast enough and often enough he JUST might make it there 2 minutes earlier. A block or more before reaching the intersection of 104 Avenue and 105 Street, the walking signal started flashing and doing the countdown, warning oncoming drivers that the yellow light was about to turn. In this case, it makes it real simple for even the dimmest bulbs in the crowd and counts it down. 16, 15, 14,.... So any intelligent driver gauges his speed and how quickly he is bearing down on the intersection. If you know you will reach the intersection right when the light hits 1, you cover your brakes and prepare to stop at a yellow.

Not genius. He figures he can beat the system. In rush hour traffic. In a 50 zone. With 10 cars between him and the next intersection. So I'm in the right hand lane and the road widens to include a right turning lane. Again, demonstrating human stupidity and ignorance of traffic laws, TWO cars are in the left turning lane on 104 Ave eastbound. When the light turns yellow, my group, those of us heading west on 104 Ave, diligently stop to allow these individuals to turn left and clear the intersection. In case you were wondering, the moron here is the second driver because there should only be ONE car in the intersection at once to execute a left turn, despite the fact that most intersections in Edmonton will witness 3 or more clearing the intersection, some of which ENTER the intersection after the red light comes on, as though there is some magical grace period for left-turning drivers only.

So eastbound 1 and eastbound 2 start turning left. Well, Mr. Motorbike is not about to WAIT for the laggards in front of him to run the red, so he takes advantage of this newly found land on the right hand side of the road called a right TURNING lane and passes myself and the gentleman in front of me. And now what?

That's right. Broadside of a barn. Thankfully he didn't appear to be fatally wounded or I could not poke fun at his stupidity without feeling a little bit guilty. He smashed full speed into the passenger side of eastbound 1, a Nissan Pathfinder, and was then treated to a lesson in inertia and careened through the back passenger window. His bike lay in a crumpled heap on the road spewing oil everywhere. Eastbound 2, who should not have been involved in the accident had she been actually accessing the thought centres in her cerebrum, proceeded to rear end Eastbound 1 when he came to an abrupt stop after being T-boned by a human torpedo. As a bit of salt in the wound, her car proceeded to inflict further damage on Speed Racer's motorbike.

Thus ends loss in faith of human nature event #1.

I immediately put my car in park. Guy in front of me as well. At least 10 vehicles witnessed the accident. Total number of vehicles stopping to help and see if everything is okay=3. One gentleman got out, called 911 on his cellphone, and then promptly fled the scene as he likely had some very important meeting to attend at 5:00 on a Wednesday afternoon that excluded him from the commonsense necessity of providing a witness statement to the rapidly arriving police. Car #2 basically made sure no one was dead and then also proceeded to leave. Car #3, me, calmly pulled to the curb, parked my car, and stepped out. Fire and ambulance arrived almost immediately and ambulance took Speed Racer to hospital in a neck brace, what looked to me to only be precautionary.

I stuck around and filed a witness statement with the police. The police officer was very grateful because remarkably, at a VERY BUSY intersection at which NUMEROUS cars witnessed the accident, I was the ONLY driver who stopped to provide a witness statement.

Thus ends loss in faith of human nature event #2.

What has come of us? Our need to succeed and cram every possible last thing into our days, our disregard for others, the rarity of commonsense and our slavery to deadlines and timelines were all contributors to this accident.

The unfortunate thing about the word "accident" is that it implies a completely unavoidable event with no causality attributable to human behavior. Rarely are motor vehicle collisions (a much better word) accidents in the truest sense of the word. Most of the time, except when freak weather is involved, they involve some aspect of human behavior, be it stupidity, negligence, aggression, oblivion, ignorance, or intoxication. So please, for the sake of other drivers and pedestrians, passengers, and families of all the aforementioned, be the smartest driver on the road and assume the rest of us are all morons.

The Grammar Nazi

I've known since day 1 that Sacha is smart as a whip. But he's demonstrated it more frequently since he started speaking. Now, it's official. You can't pass anything by this kid.

I noticed it first the other day when I was reading him his newest "favorite" story. It's about a St. Patrick's Day parade held by ants where they chase a green ant that is a leprechaun to hopefully snag some good luck. I was reading along and said, "'Green ant!' asked Grant." Sacha immediately interceded. "No, no. SAID. Not ASKED. SAID." Oh, yes, how silly of me. "Asked" is used in the next line. He's done this before where he knows a book so well that he'll correct you if you say it wrong. What came later though totally blew me away.

I was reading him a French book about a group of animals that each bring a different part to the party to help build a snowman. It became apparent to Sarah and me that whoever did the translation of this book into French didn't edit it very well because there are a few grammatical errors, one of which went unnoticed until our 3-year old grammar Nazi came along.

A little preamble is in order. In English, no matter whether you have one cat or numerous cats, you would still write "The cat places the carrot as the nose." OR "The cats place the carrot as the nose." The "place" changes to match the subject, but other than that, there is little change. In the case of French, the masculine definitive is "le" as in "the" but only when in reference to a masculine noun (English does not have this gender differentiation of nouns). If it is before a single subject like "chaton" (a single cat) it is "le chaton". If it is before a plural subject like "chatons" (two or more cats) it is "les chatons". You can see how the definitive changes its state to match the quantity of the subject.

So I had read the line "Les chatons place le carrotte pour le nez" numerous times without protests and without noticing anything. Then after correcting me on a few errors earlier on in the book (which I had made due to extreme fatigue) Sacha started to protest vehemently. Previously he had asked me to stop saying "chaton" because he preferred "chat" as he did not feel that this particular feline was worthy of being called a kitten (chaton). I thought that's what this particular protest was about so I said, "Oh, right "Les chats place le carrotte pour le nez"". "No, no, no, only one chat." Then I looked, and sure enough, there it was. The illustration only featured a single cat. Therefore, the phrase "les chats" is grammatically incorrect. And my 3-year old called me AND the editing staff of the book on it. Look out future teachers. You'd better be on your game!

Seniors drug costs

In preparing for a presentation I'm doing at a local seniors home tomorrow, I had to research the upcoming changes to provincial drug coverage for seniors in Alberta. Basically, drug costs are rising, and the new changes will save THE GOVERNMENT $20-30 million per year, so you can imagine where the difference is going. Low income and mid-low-income seniors will benefit as the lowest income will pay nothing for prescriptions and the next step up will pay less. However, the mid-high income seniors will take on significantly more costs of drug therapy. At first, I thought this seemed rational, given that those more able to pay should bear more of the cost. But then I wondered whether this rule should apply to those who have served their country and communities for so long. Shouldn't WE be taking care of THEM and not vice versa by unloading our costs onto them? Then it got me thinking: which country has some of the highest health expenditures in the world? The United States. Who off loads most of their health spending onto citizens instead of covering it publicly? The United States.

I started to wonder whether we might be going about this the wrong way.

I dug up the comparative drug spending for all 20 OECD nations for the most recent years available, that being 2005. The United States has the highest per capita total expenditure on drugs of all 20 OECD nations. However, they have the second lowest % of that expenditure covered by public programs, second only to Mexico. The US only publicly funds 24% of all drug expenditures. The lowest developed Western nations in terms of total drug expenditure are Denmark, New Zealand, and Norway. Their public coverage of that cost ranges from 55.8-66.2%. Where is Canada? We have the second highest total expenditure and fourth LOWEST public expenditure. So much for universal healthcare.

Now, the thought entered my mind: is there any correlation between the following:

1. % of drug expenditures covered publicly and total drug expenditure
2. % of drug expenditures covered publicly and health system performance
3. % of total drug expenditures and health system performance

A presentation I came across concluded that public funding of healthcare does seem to improve health system performance but a good deal of this performance is tied to lifestyle choices and socioeconomic status as well. Furthermore, the WHO rankings of health care systems are contested by many respectable authorities, but they're all we've got for now. So let's test our theory.

1. The correlation is so close to 0, it might as well not exist. So based on the data I have, it looks like the amount of drugs that are covered publicly does not impact total drug spending. Thus, other factors must be at play like lack of price protection on marketed pharmaceuticals, lifestyle, etc. etc.

2. There seems to be a weak correlation that the less a country spends publicly on drugs, the more poorly their health system is ranked. But this certainly does not prove cause and effect and the relationship is weak.

3. Here a weak correlation would suggest a relationship between increased drug spending and increased health system performance. Again, no causation proved, but food for thought.

Taking all these together, it seems we may be headed in the wrong direction. It seems clear that there is no relationship between offloading drug costs to individuals and the eventual total drug costs of a society. And regardless of whether the government pays for them, those costs will be borne by someone. If it is individuals, they will then have less disposable income, meaning less money to "stimulate" the economy.

Maybe we have to rethink our whole approach to controlling costs. Also in the process of researching this presentation, I came across a study that showed that if used properly, pharmacists could save the Canadian healthcare system $103 million a year. That's just one member in the healthcare team. Think of what we could accomplish if we restructured our system to fully utilize the skills of each of our allied health professionals, with the patient in the centre of the team? Think what we could accomplish if instead of only pushing pharmacotherapy we also focussed on healthy living and preventative medicine? Think what we could accomplish if instead of always thinking about dollars and cents, the government put some consideration into the greater factors at play in rising drug costs? Think what we could accomplish if for a moment our legislators and administrators would do just that....think.

Stark contrast

I drive through a beautiful part of the Peace River valley every morning on my way to work. It is a little flood plain set against the hills of the valley in which lies a farmers field, lush forest, abundant wildlife, and a small residential development that, although within city limits, looks akin to country living. In the fall and winter the field is crawling with deer and the occasional moose. In the spring, it is a collection of roadside creeks channeling the spring runoff into the mighty Peace. And when summer comes, it really pops. There is a plethora of wild roses growing along the road that just recently bloomed. The boreal forest abutting the fields is lush with greenery. So it was with some confusion that I read the articles in the Globe and Mail about the catastrophic drought affecting most of Alberta right now, including the Peace River region. If all I had to rely on was my visual input during the day, I wouldn't believe it. But I talk to my parents, still devoted, hard-working farmers, and I read the data. Large swaths of Alberta have received less than 40% of average precipitation in the last 60 days. Peace River has received only 40-60% of average precipitation.

But why do my eyes deceive me? As I drive through this valley every day, all I can see is the lush green forest. However, I noticed something today. Although the farmer's field of canola looks healthy at first glance, a closer look reveals that the stems are sparsely placed and that the vibrant yellow flower of the canola plant is already in bloom. The end of June? That's not right. How could it be in bloom? The drought. And many fields up here look like this. So it got me to wandering about the abundant greenery adjacent to the field. It was a stark contrast. Amidst this environmental devastation that ranks this June as the driest on Canadian records, this forest thrives. How is this possible?

I don't know enough about industrial agriculture to claim that it is a failure as a Western experiment. But the whole contrast got me wondering. Numerous seedlings germinated in this forest during this horrible drought. The canopy is full of leaves and the wild roses are chalk full of beautiful pink flowers blooming right when they're supposed to. All this with no synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides. So is industrial agriculture inefficient? Does it make the very products it grows and sells susceptible to destruction?

What I have found doesn't look good. Consider a forest: it is a self-sustaining ecosystem. If done right, agriculture should at least be sustainable, if not self-sustainable. However, studies have shown over the last many years that the energy efficiency of our food system has drastically declined. The energy output-energy input ratio has gone from around 100 in pre-industrial societies (that is we get 100 calories of food energy out for every 1 calorie of energy put in) to less than 1 in today's agricultural system. And that doesn't even include the transportation of our food which brings this ratio much lower. For example, iceberg lettuce was included in one detailed study that showed we need to put 127 calories IN to produce and ship to source 1 calorie of iceberg lettuce to the consumer. Johns Hopkins University estimates that the average input for 1 calorie of North American food is 3 calories.

How about the farms and crops themselves? A study done in 1989 by the National Research Council concluded that "Well-managed alternative farming systems nearly always use less synthetic chemical pesticides, fertilizers, and antibiotics per unit of production than conventional farms. Reduced use of these inputs lowers production costs and lessens agriculture’s potential for adverse environmental and health effects without decreasing — and in some cases increasing — per acre crop yields and the productivity of livestock management systems.” The article goes on to state that various studies and agricultural experts have concluded that "small farms almost always produce far more agricultural output per unit area than larger farms...[that] smaller farm sizes are 2 to 10 times more productive per unit acre than larger ones...[that] the smallest farms surveyed in the study, those of 27 acres or less, are more than ten times as productive (in dollar output per acre) than large farms (6,000 acres or more), and extremely small farms (4 acres or less) can be over a hundred times as productive."

Finally, the practice of monoculture, row-on-row planting increases the susceptibility of the crop to environmental calamities like drought and, what farmers are now expecting is the next kick coming to Alberta, grasshoppers. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Southern Corn Leaf Blight in 1970 destroyed 60% of the US corn crop. That was almost 40 years ago now, and already it demonstrates the dangers of monoculture farming.

Is it time for us to reconsider our modern agricultural system? I don't know, but it's certainly got me thinking. Any thoughts?

No surprises here

After watching my own waistline balloon ever since meeting my wife, I was completely unsurprised when I read this study. Apparently, "living with a romantic partner for 1 year or more increased the likelihood of incident obesity by up to 3-fold compared to single/dating individuals. This risk became even stronger for couples who lived together more than 2 years." News flash!

What do ants have to do with it?

I just finished reading Gaia's Garden, a great book by Toby Hemenway on home-scale permaculture that I've discussed before. Along with Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food, and Fast Food Nation, it has changed the way I view the world, and more specifically, North American gardening and agricultural practices.

As such, I've been more attuned to the plants around me lately and the interactions of each organism with those around it. When Sarah was playing with the boys the other day, she drew Sacha's attention to the army of ants covering Memere's peonies. Sacha of course asked why. Sarah told Sacha and his friend Jacob that the ants help the peonies bloom, so him and his buddy proceeded to try and pick up ants and place them on the peony to help it. When Sarah told me this story, I was caught completely unaware. I was not aware of this interaction.

So I Googled it and what did I find: myriad requests from individuals who wanted to find out the best way to kill the ants on their peonies. Of course. If they're all over the peonies everywhere you go, they must be pests, right? No, they're not.

Ants and peonies share a beneficial relationship. Ants are uniquely attracted to the peony nectar in the unbloomed buds. By going for the nectar and removing it, the ants help the peony buds to open and bloom fully. As well, by taking over the plant, they protect it from other insects that might otherwise harm it. Once the peony is fully bloomed and the nectar is gone, the ants part.

Why would you want to kill them? They actually make the plant more beautiful. How can we think we can intervene in something that's developed over millions of years of evolution? If we were to think intelligently about it, instead of trying to kill them, we'd do what we could to encourage this interaction and let it be. Nature will be nature, and by trying to intervene too often, we're just fighting a losing battle. Why not learn from it and utilize its patterns and interactions to our benefit?

Take a simple example like the Three Sisters Triad of corn, squash, and beans. From Gaia's Garden comes the following explanation: "The cornstalks form a trellis for the bean vines to climb. The beans, in turn, draw nitrogen from the air, and via symbiotic bacteria convert the nitrogen to plant-available form. These nitrogen-fixing bacteria...are fed by special sugars that ooze from the corn roots. The rambling squash...forms a living parasol that densely covers the ground, inhibiting weeds and keeping the soil moist...[Y]ields of this [grouping], measured in calories, are about 20 percent higher than corn grown alone in an equal-sized plot."

What are the consequences of the antithesis to this approach in modern agriculture? Fifty years ago, loss of crops to insects and disease was around 7%. At the time of writing of Gaia's Garden (2000), that figure stood at 14%. If we've become so much more productive in our agricultural pursuits, how could this have happened? To finalize my discussion of natural interactions I will summarize the authors discuss of the causes of this drastic increase.

First off, soil fertility has declined as we use synthetic fertilizers now and have almost completely eliminated crop rotation, a practice that significantly boosts soil health. The other two reasons are much more fascinating though.

1. Clean Cultivation
As mentioned in the book, hedgerows and natural vegetation along backs of fields were common up until very recently. These oases of nature harbored numerous insects and birds that stood in waiting for any pest silly enough to invade the adjoining field. When they did, the insects and birds had lunch. Along came modern agriculture and the desire to make fields as large as possible and remove any possible source of weed seed. Goodbye natural control.

2. Widespread, ill-timed pesticide use
Insects that munch on plants, like aphids, reproduce rapidly. Their predators, ladybugs, being higher up the food chain, reproduce more slowly. Think of a mouse versus a hawk. So let's say you have an aphid infestation in your field. Now that the hedgerow is gone, you already have a decimated ladybug population. But they kick into gear nonetheless and start reproducing as fast as possible. While mommy and daddy munch on aphids, the little ladybug larvae develop. Just about the time when junior is joining the army, Mr. Farmer comes along and torches the field with pesticide, pushing the ladybugs and the aphids to near extinction. The aphids bounce back quickly as their food source remains plentiful, but the ladybugs need time as they need the aphid population to rebound before they can even think about breeding again. Finally, when the aphid population has reached critical mass and the ladies are ready to start growing another army, Mr. Farmer sees the aphids again and thinks, "Damn, my first bout of spray didn't do the job." Kablamo! He drops another spray bomb. After a few repeats of this vicious cycle all the ladybugs are gone and the farmer is in a perpetual battle with aphids.

All I'm saying, in my typical roundabout way, is that after reading this book, I can't look at a typical North American yard without shaking my head. I plan on designing mine based on permaculture principles over the next few years and hope to document the progress. In the meantime, for the sake of nature, if the ants aren't in your house, just leave them be. Maybe you could plant a few peonies to keep them outside?