An Exercise In Futility

I heard on the radio this afternoon that the town of wolfville, NS, was proposing a new anti-smoking bylaw:

The mayor of Wolfville, N.S. says he expects unanimous support Monday when the town votes on a bylaw that would ban smoking in any vehicle that’s carrying a minor.

Apparently there will fines between $50 and $250. At first i thought this was excellent, since i think it is part of the government’s job to protect children — A child has no choice about their parents’ smoking habits, so a child in a smokey car is basically being forced against their will to do something detrimental to their health. After i considered this for a minute i realized that this is actually quite a quigmire - where should the line be drawn? We know that high fat high sugar diets are very bad; should the government fine parents who take their kids to McDonald’s all the time? I have always thought that the government should play the role of educator — make people aware of what is good and bad for them but leave the ultimate decision up to the individual. But what about kids? Either we cannot trust them to make the right decisions (due to age) or they have no power to make the right decisions (parents who make the wrong decisions). In the end, i think this new anti-smoking bylaw is the wrong choice. But unfortunately i have no alternatives to suggest at the moment. In a bizarre twist of coincidece, the documentary “Super Size Me” is on TV right now, which i have never seen before. It demonstrates just how bad high-fat high-sugar food is for your body in a convincing experiment where a man eats nothing but fast food for 4 weeks and puts his body on the fast track to death.

I had been thinking about getting a wetsuit for use at the pool, because i just got so darn cold whenever i’m there. I picked up a shorty at costco a few months back — but you get what you pay for i guess - it just did not fit well and we took it back before it ever saw any water. This weekend we went to the pool again and i decided to try something different — a round of exercises to try and get the blood pumping. It worked! I did not get a chill the entire hour we were at the there. If this is a long term solution i’ll be pleased.

Went to a party last night. Jo and I were the only people not wearing jeans. Felt strangely good to be amongst the more stylish of the 100-person crowd.

Some of us were talking last night about information overload, how the constant bombardment of data is a detriment to our learning systems (among other things). I have decided that it is time to really start getting rid of some of that noise, wherever i can. Starting with computers (mailing lists, and email reporting systems, cutting back on internet ’surfing’ (maybe i can aggregate things for end-of-day reading), then on to physical stuff, like decluttering the house - desks, tables, and other surfaces that seem to just accumulate so much stuff. at the same time i am trying to define a more rigid structure for my weekdays which i hope will give me a little more vitality. To start, i will be doing sanshin and other related exercises before work every day. I tried it this morning, and afterwards i felt awake and energetic. Let’s see how long i can keep this up. I would cut back on TV but i don’t watch much TV as it is. I suppose i could just not watch TV at all, that probably wouldn’t be too difficult.

all over the world, people are doing interesting things with computers, thought provoking things or just neat-o sort of things, and i am doing dick-all. this has got to change.