Life Changing Events

As a Safety person I talk a lot about life changing events on a regular basis. I try to remind people that it doesn`t mean death or dismemberment but covers a range of changes to what you can do. August 1st I had one of those life changing events when I stepped off a curb while walking to to work

 I`ve walked more to work this year than I have for ages and truly appreciate the time and expense companies take in training their company vehicle users in defensive driving to minimize driving incidents. I also realized that this would be the last year I would walk to work. The intersection I have to cross is poorly controlled in spite of traffic lights and a high impact area. All the defensive driving courses in the world will not protect me from 40 year old drivers swooping around in their pick up trucks and SUVs nor school bus drivers who think they always have the right of way.

But back to August 1st. I had walked to the major intersection I had to cross then waited for the light to change. I always stand well back from the road as there are some big trucks travelling on it. The traffic light had changed and cross traffic had stopped. It was clear for me to go and it seemed that the vehicle beside me was waiting. Stepped off the curb and heard an engine rev to move. I thought I turned and exclaimed but..next thing I knew I was opening my eyes while lying on the ground. I could see through one eye - uh oh, nope clearing good. A woman is apologizing and saying she`s putting pressure on the back of my head to stop bleeding; a man is holding my head still with a towel and a third man is calling an ambulance. As soon as the woman saw I was conscious she asked someone to move her vehicle then changed it to turn off. I tried to call work to say I`d be late - I could see my ankle was irregular but thought it would be better by the afternoon. Police came, ambulance came things proceeded.

It's amazing the things you don't know about your health care system. I've used mine for regular checkups and the odd thing but not much. So about the only things I know are show your health care card for services and don't use the ambulance unless you really need to, it's expensive (or so I've heard). One thing I found really interesting is no one looked for ID (which I had) although I was asked my name. I had been to the hospital before so all my Health Care stuff was on file. I could sign stuff like, yes they can do what's necessary to repair my foot, including ambulance me to Edmonton.

And leaving the hospital, again easy. A doctor says you can leave, you say you want to leave. The nurse will ensure home care is arranged, you have a ride and prescriptions and follow up info info is exchanged then, off you go free, don't forget your stuff. No letters for employers or anything - probably the injury is enough

But what about the life changing part. I'm not worried about being laid off but I won't be able to do my full job for at least 6 months I estimate. As part of my job, I walk a lot, climb ladders, etc. doing inspections. I am also very active outside of work, going to exercise classes, walking dogs, snorkeling and such. I will have arthritis in my ankle after it's healed. I will have to learn to be patient.

Month end blues

Many people don't like month end because it involves a lot of extra work - especially since metrics have become so important to business. I don't like month end because it reminds me just how futile my job is and how low my purchase price is.

My position is like house work, never ending and with very little in the way of success markers unless you count no one getting badly hurt or killed. People don't particularly want to be involved as it would take effort and I totally understand since the name of the game for my corporate overlord is circumventing as many labour laws as possible when it comes to paying workers and generally have a disdain for any kind of training that creates skilled employees.

Management would no doubt defend hiring of inexperienced people as giving opportunities except it is *not* giving opportunities to people who have spent time and money gaining experience by getting an education that includes interning. He'd rather hire someone who thinks they "would like to work there" then wonders why they don't do the job well and leave when any standards are attempted. Must be those useless supervisors - that's sarcasm.

Oh well, if no one is going to actually complain about the law not being followed in spite of the Code being posted I guess they are happy enough - or they leave, using their experience to get better jobs. And Management wonders why they can't keep people. As for me, I'll just keep doing charitable donations, working my hours, retire ASAP and pull on the pension as long as I can. Just doing my part to balance corporate expenses.

Crime and Punishment Canadian style

Sometimes you find out stuff from the strangest places.

I was reading an OHS Canada magazine article where they were discussing the increase of inmate and inmate on corrections officer violence. In it they mentioned that double bunking is an indication of overcrowding and increases inmate on inmate violence. That's when I realized my view of prison is very coloured by movies in spite of actually seeing holding cells in my youth. I had to pick my brother up from the cop shop when he was picked up, almost passed out in his vomit, by the police. I saw 2 small cells with one bunk in each. There may have been more cells but I'm sure nothing like the empty cage you see in the movies.

I'm not for omnibus bills but I am for the changes these bills will bring. We need more prison space in Canada. Not because there are so many more criminals - crime is trending downward - but because we've closed a lot of prisons and many remaining ones are aging. People, perhaps criminals more so, need their own space where they don't have to interact directly with others. We also need to stop sending people to prison unnecessarily (which should be an effect of the bill passing). If we can deter people from getting in too deep before they become entrenched, it's worth a try to me; especially youths/young adults.

People are happy to think (if they think at all) criminals become law abiding citizens if they are just thrown in jail as often as necessary, or just leave them there to rot. But that is not the role of the justice system in Canada. After punishment, people have to be re-integrated into society. I don't want jail to be a form of social assistance for the violent or asocial.

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Root cause analysis and human behaviour

I read an interesting article on research into pedophilia and it brought to mind how much scientific root cause analysis can inform social justice. And, from reading the comments, how people really don't think that way in general.

This is not an apologia for pedophiles. Pedophilia is a sexual orientation just like heterosexuality but it is not acceptable because our society prosecutes sex without consent. Children cannot give consent and western society is very diligent in following through on that particular aspect of social justice. Sexual orientation does not imply the "right" to have sexual interaction (from speech to act) with the object of your desires. I can feel sympathy for pedophiles who never act on their desires because, face it, the more you can't have something the more you focus on it. Most of us end up denying ourselves harmless things that don't affect others if we fail. Pedophiles have no choice but to be rapists if they fail in their self control.

Society has to get this resolved somehow because killing people before they act is not a long term solution. People are born that way so there would be an unending supply. This is where root cause analysis comes in. What causes this, what can we do to correct it and/or prevent it from happening.

Research to the rescue. Brain research to be specific. It seems that development in the area that keeps you attracted to people in your age range as you mature to adulthood gets stalled. With further research we may find that something simple like a change in maternal vitamin supplements would resolve this to great extent, much like folic acid supplements help prevent birth defects. Head injuries could also be identified to ensure additional socialization to help the person.

What about existing pedophiles? We as a culture need to value maturity where you don't just say anything or do anything because there is no one next to you to stop you. That creates peer pressure not to act on impulses. Identify men and women who are in their early 20s and attempt to date kids coming into maturity. Get them into addiction counselling before there is an opportunity to act. I would never encourage pedophiles to integrate into anything other than an adult community. It would be horrifying to be surrounded by the subject of your passions and no one needs that test of self control every moment. Hopefully, as our society changes there may be more pools of adult living of all ages similar to the way there are age restricted communities.

We are not guilty because of sexual desire, but we are responsible for our sexual behavior.

Could the artificial uterus finally be on its way? - Canadian Parliament set to define the beginning of human life

There is a private member bill in parliament aiming at defining the beginning of human life. Once a bill has been introduced it must be discussed. I can certainly understand the impulse. Our current definition of life was is 400 years old. But do we have enough knowledge for a new one?

First let's see if we can agree on anything. People have consciousness that allows them think about an action and imagine the consequences of their actions; we are aware of time passing. I would call that consciousness but religious people would probably call that the soul, I'll call it that to for ease of use. If we can't agree on that - stop here.

Can we try for another? No one is currently compelled to provide life saving support to another. Currently, except in Quebec, you can drive by an accident without stopping to offer help. No one can come to your door and demand your blood or an organ; in fact your organs can't be used by other people after you don't need them any more unless you explicitly say so.

One more? I don't get input into your medical decisions or care. I don't get a vote on whether to deny you a lung transplant because you smoked, or are old or anything. That is between you and your doctor.

So on to the defining of human life. This is pretty important because as a society Canadians do not advocate killing others. We don't have the death penalty and do not give up criminals to systems that would invoke the death penalty. We don't have euthanasia because that would violate the other person's right to life. But what about the edges? When does a fetus become human enough for our resources to be committed to it? When is a comatose person not human enough for our resources to be committed? How do we define the beginning and the end?

There are 2 ways (currently) we can explore the beginning. Through scientific discovery or religion. Let's talk science since that's much more of a explicit thing.

Anesthetic is fascinating. When we are under anesthetic we are truly not here. When you wake up it could be moments later or weeks later - hey controlled not-life that doesn't kill people! When better to study when we are alive (mentally) and find out where in our brain we live. Happily there has been research started that has some preliminary results.

If we want to define human life sure the best place to start would be finding where our soul lives and when it can take possession (existing tech). Next up can we make an easy to use, mobile instrument; emergent tech =  research dollars! Then when is that brain structure present - more research direction for emergent tech! If the structure is prenatal, how can we preserve that life while not infringing on the integrity of the host? Artificial uterus!


Okay I know it probably won't go that way. There's be a bunch of hand waving on the part of religionists making up some reason that it would be bad to know this stuff. Much better to overturn the CSC ruling on the autonomy of women and create an abortion law taking away the woman's right to control her medical decision. That happens and I hope I have male kin that needs an organ - like a kidney or lung or even some liver so I can take one of those compassionate folk to court to remove their autonomy.

The changing anti-choice voice

I was reading the fascinating blog by Libby-Anne when she posted this Abortion, murder and smokescreens 2 which was as informative for me about how much the conversation has been changed with respect to abortion. It also makes me wonder if pro choice voices understand the effects of not responding to that change. If people are truly growing up with the idea that a blob of cells is a human (humanity begin at conception so abortion is murder) then any talk of choice is irrelevant. And the crazy trans-vaginal ultrasounds are supposed to show those selfish women that there really is a teen-weeny baby in there that they just can't see.

Libby-Anne had an amazingly consistent viewpoint when she was anti-choice

But even with challenging these inconsistencies, you’re still going to run into true believers. When someone asked me years ago whether I would save a case of embryos or a toddler from a burning building, the question bothered me but I still answered consistently: the embryos. Similarly, I was not okay with any exception for rape or incest. A baby was a baby, no matter how conceived. Pointing out inconsistencies only ever made me resolve to be consistent in my opposition to the murder of babies.

I have also always had a consistent pro-choice view point. It's a personal choice as long as the pregnancy is at a point where the fetus is totally dependent on the woman. The thing to do is prevent pregnancy by education and freely available contraception so women don't have to make that choice. I used to think I would never choose to have an abortion but I did. Twice. Once for a viable ectopic pregnancy (oh did I want that child) and once for a stalled pregnancy.


Will education and contraception rid the world of abortion? No it won't. All contraception has a failure rate although if all parties are using contraception then the probability of both failing at the same time is infinitesimal. In a perfect world we would be able to remove an embryo and transplant it to a surrogate mother or artificial uterus. Even so, not every fetus is able to make it to term and to carry a dead or as good as dead child would be torture if the woman didn't choose that task.


So what would be an effective response to life beginning at conception, I have to admit that is such an alien concept that I have a hard time believing people actually think a blob of cells is equivalent to a human. Agree that every unwanted pregnancy is a tragedy so pregnancies need to be prevented. Use the term anti-choice rather than pro life.