Happy Mother's Day: To a sweet old broad!

Celebrating Canadian mothers on their day

Broadcast Date: May 10, 1963

Carnations and chocolates and breakfast in bed – it's become a child's traditional offering on the second Sunday of May, Mother's Day. But what was once a spiritual celebration of motherhood has by 1963 become a big, booming business with florists, restaurateurs, and greeting card companies cashing in. Has Mother's Day become a commercialized scam or is it still a sweet, loving gesture? Panelists debate this subject in this CBC Television feature.

Original: http://archives.cbc.ca/society/family/topics/2495/

Hilarious! .. at 1:58; "I saw one card the other day.. 'Happy Mother's Day: To a Sweet Old Broad!'"..

at 4:20... "Do women deserve the attention they get on this day... "

at 5:15... "Motherhood is just a.. is often an accident.. "

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Anna Jarvis:

On May 12, 1907, two years after her mother's death, she held a memorial to her mother and thereafter embarked upon a campaign to make "Mother's Day" a recognized holiday. On May 8, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a congressional resolution designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.(1) She succeeded in making this nationally recognized in 1914. The International Mother's Day Shrine was established in Grafton to commemorate her accomplishment.

By the 1920s, Anna Jarvis had become soured by the commercialization of the holiday. She incorporated herself as the Mother’s Day International Association, trademarked the phrases "second Sunday in May" and "Mother's Day", and was once arrested for disturbing the peace. She and her sister Ellsinore spent their family inheritance campaigning against the holiday. Both died in poverty. Jarvis, says her New York Times obituary, became embittered because too many people sent their mothers a printed greeting card. As she said,

A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother—and then eat most of it yourself. A petty sentiment!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Jarvis
(1) http://www.wvculture.org/history/thisdayinwvhistory/0508.html

Happy Mother's Day Mom!
...you'll get no card from me! ;)

TVO The Agenda: Sharing the Road

(from www.ibiketo.ca)

At your desk and ready to surf the net for a bit? Push play above and at least listen to the discussion. Nothing earth shattering, but I picked up a few things for sure. All panelists do a great job, and the St. Clair transit construction is discussed near the end as well.

I agree that increased infrastructure is a great step to encourage additional cycling. However, I doubt it will work alone, and there needs to be more done here. The potential addition of road bike availability seems like a natural fit here to me. Going from Parkdale to the downtown core? Nice day out? The logical choice is a bicycle. Now, I can see the argument being made that this only takes away from transit use (and not auto traffic)... hmmm.. and I kind of agree with that. However, I think it could allow (a) more cars coming into Toronto for the afternoon to stop further from the city core and continue the route by bike, (b) make the decision to not own a car in the core a lot easier. I'm still hoping against hope for a downtown congestion charge, and I think these programs would be a perfect triple marriage, that being infrastructure, a DCC, and bike sharing system.

Good morning!: Sarah's photos

Gladstone is throwing a stills motion exhibit and one of my friends (the same one who came on the NYC ride!) is showing.



Still Motions traces the tension between the still and the moving image, presenting works that critique the logic of traditional photography via its successor media, film and video. Each work contains a degree of stillness that is in some way destabilized to disrupt the notion of a photograph as a suspended moment in time. The interaction of the three media allow for hybrid forms of moving images to emerge, generating the uncanny within the familiar while adding a sensorial even visceral dimension to our appreciation of the still image.

The exhibit, along with about 25 others, runs to the end of the month at the Gladstone Hotel.

A day in the existence of Roy Halladay.

5:41 AM: Wake before sunrise. Another day; another victory. You'll never best me, Earth's yellow sun.

http://www.ghostrunneronfirst.com/2008/11/day-in-life-existence-of-roy-halladay.html

Vitamin E and Cognitive Decline

"A study with over 540 patients over three years has found that moderate Vitamin E intake combined with anti-inflammatories was effective in producing a statistically significant intervention against cognitive decline, compared with a placebo, Vitamin E alone, or anti-inflammatory medication alone.

"Our results are consistent for a potential benefit of vitamin E on slowing functional decline and a smaller possible benefit of anti-inflammatory medications on slowing cognitive decline in patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease," according to researcher Alireza Atri.

article

Ok, this is taken verbatim (copy/paste) from http://blog.cognitivelabs.com, which is superb and worth visiting in its own right. The thing I find currious is the anti-inflammatory bit. I take an Aspirin a day. Partially becuase of the anti-inflammatory proporties, and partially because my father, a doctor, has mentioned that the drug will not only lower blood pressure, but there is a property to inhibit a hangover effect. To be more specific, my dad said that there is an inhibitory effect of buildup of 'tired effects' when you have this. It could be due to the anti-pressure (in the tubes - arteries and vessels - in your body), and this obviously extends to your brain. Or, it could be due to something else entirely. That's the beauty of the "black box" that is our body/world/science.

We observe a great deal of things... some work, some don't some have no effect. However, this does, and although (apparently) no one is sure so far, it seems to make sense to take one of these aspirins a day...

Now, Vitamin E? Yeah... just starting to learn about that. Not sure what the 'scientific' / anabolic issues here are, but I'm popping one a day now too... I'll do more research and get back to you...

Food that contains Vit. E

Vitamin E has also shown signs of being good for topical skin application as well. Not sure how that works, but I suspect it has something to do with its fat qualities, as well as it's absorptive character.

Waterloo. Mecca.

So I went down to that random lecture tonight, and it was DEFINITELY worth the drive... so gorgeous! I already knew (as most of us do) most of the things he was talking about, so blah, blah, blah...


but exciting for me!: (a) to hear it charismatically is great and inspiring, (b) to hear it understand of reading it again and have it reinforced is great too, (c) to hear new examples of current lab work is even better. I'm now convinced to keep up with the field a bit more, even at the superficial understanding I am at.

Mlodinow talked about the impact randomness has on everyday events. He brought up some great examples.. For one: a stock broker was congratulated in the New York Times in (Bill Miller, if I remember correctly) 2004 for out profiting the index for 15 years straight. Mlodinow did some quick math - 1000 stock brokers choosing stocks at random for 15 years; how many would do this over the index by random?: 3% of the population. Ok.. pretty cool. Now comes the kicker; let's say a stock broker works for 40 years. Several NEWSpapers tried to estimate the odds saying something like 1:477,000. One even went as high as 1:2.2 billion! The right odds?: i.e. what are the odds that randomly 1000 stock brokers would have a streak of 15 straight years beating the index over a 40 year career? Roughly 3 out of 4. 75%!.. Amazing display of math and faulty "logic". And of a job? Any job?

Another example: Let's say one NHL team (the B&Bs) have a 55% percent chance of beating another team on any given night (Given W-L records in the NHL, this can very well be approximately correct). So, during a best of 7 series the better team has only a 60% chance of coming out on top! Moreover, to calculate the better team coming out on top to statistical significance (a 5% failure rate - the scientific standard being the 95% success rate), the series would have to be a best of 269!.. wow and awesome.

One last great study M mentioned: A group of folks was introduced to several wines in different price ranges and asked to rate them on how they liked them... the catch was that the scientists put the same wine marked as $90 and as $10 in the same batch. Now, it's kinda obvious that most people would rate the $90 bottle better tasting than the $10 bottle of wine (playing to expectations, don't wanna look like a fool, etc). The catch here was that they performed the tastings in an MRI machine. What happened? They weren't faking! More activity and dopamine release was seen in the brain when drinking the $90 bottle of wine! How cool is that! They (we) tend to actually enjoy the wine (or whatever) more than the equivalent when expecting 'worse'! Stuff like that really matters to people, and it's obviously transferable to so many aspects of life! So, so awesome.

Just to leave with a quote (how he closed the lecture): "If you want to succeed, double your failure rate." Thomas Watson, IBM.

Basically, what I got from it was keep trying, motherfucking all the time, because there are always so many unaccounted variables in every situation that the best method to guarantee success, is to keep trying. Awesome again.

Ok, enough gushing. I've let my place get outta control since coming back from NYC. I haven't even unpacked; time for some cleanup.

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UPDATE!: Watch it live here: http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/en/Outreach/Public_Lectures/View_Past_Public_Lectures/

I ask a question that was caught on tape re: clutch hitting at 1:01:49!...

Another baseball article not really about baseball...

Doug Glanville

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/06/opinion/06glanville-tipping.html

Glanville surprised me with this one..

"Where do you go when, having focused your life on that one thing you can be the best at, you realize that because of choices you made things will never again be the same in anyone else’s eyes?"

He kind of spells it out at the end a bit too overtly, but there are a ton of baseball analogies and examples! Not really that well written, but worth the read.

To clarify the Roncesvalles redevelopment (bumpouts) a bit

Here's what a "bumpout" looks like in Portland, Oregon:




Here's what's proposed for Roncesvalles come 2010 - 2011.



Hmmm... good idea? Well, will definitely cut down on car traffic... I wonder how the businesses are doing in the Portland bumpout areas? Now, Portland is a lot more bike friendly and busy than Toronto, but I suppose you have to start somewhere! It'd be interesting to see where the target areas are/were for Portland and these bumpouts. Right now biking along Roncesvalles is impossible as the road is potholed and patched to hell..

Anyway, sounds like Y. Bambrick is on the case, which should make things much more bike friendly than the usual bad, uninformed decisions.

http://torontoist.com/2009/03/roncey_redesign_review.php

http://www.blogto.com/city/2009/05/bump_outs_coming_to_roncesvalles/

oh gawd I love Parkdale. It's the new frontier.

New York; getting there.

Went down to stay with Milan for a few of days in Manhattan... With me, Jowi and Sarah, two bikes, a pickup truck, and a trailer. Jowi and Sarah let me know about Pete Seeger's 90th birthday celebration (what a line up!!!) and were going down for that, as well as the NYC weekend experience. I was going for that, and a little bit more... Here are some pics!









Got to Milan's apartment at Clinton and Houston around 8:30pm, just in time for a cold, waiting beer and to get ready for the Central Park night ride...





btw, I'll be posting these in chronological order just to make it a bit easier to read.

Central Park Moonlight Ride

I ended up taking over 200 pictures as I knew most wouldn't turn out. A surprising number did, and on top of that it was a great experience! Meeting at Columbus Circle (SW corner of Central Park), Hanna(h) led the ride through the park starting at 10:15pm and ending around 11:45pm, with a short break in there as the group waited out a quick tire change. The ride has been going on now for about 14 years(!) and goes down on the first Friday of every month all year around. Definitely worth it. More pics:





































Riding back down to Clinton and Houston from the park was an incredible experience as well. I felt like I was running with the bulls... the way the lights are staggered you can catch a bunch, always racing and pushing for road space with cabs zipping behind, in front and by... Fantastic city to ride in.

New York; Saturday morning.

Went for a short walk and bike exchange while Milan slept in. Here are some of the things I saw over a coffee.








Reminded me of Chris' suggestion to get a polarizing filter.


... hot new montreal band...


Green lanes outside of Milan's.