I thought I'd post about soccer since it's right before the world cup of soccer, which starts next week in South Africa.
I've been thinking about soccer quite a bit lately, as I have been playing soccer video games, playing soccer myself (well rec 6 on 6 soccer..) and reading about soccer.
I recently bought John Doyle's new book The world is a ball , after hearing him interviewed on CBC about it. So far it's a pretty good tale of his experience in following the game of soccer worldwide. He's not a sports columnist so it definitely has a different flavour to it. He's the regular TV columnist and I actually quite enjoyed his previous book on how TV changed things in Ireland when it arrived.
I'm looking forward to watching the world cup games. For whatever reason (maybe because they wear my favorite colour orange), I cheer for the Dutch soccer team. I've cheered for them since the mid 1990s. Don't really know how I ended up being a fan of theirs. But I've been loyal to them.
I've been lucky also since the last world cup to have enjoyed watching games with two of my Canadian-born Dutch friends.
I'm hoping they can win it all this year. I think that because it`s the first time the competition is being held in Africa, like the first time it was in Asia it`ll be chock full of surprises.
I just hope it is well organized and everything runs smoothly. The soccer will be beautiful regardless.
June 05, 2010
May 29, 2010
Enviromental Cancer risk
I've been thinking about this recently, as I discovered (courtesy of Mindful Merchant) that the shampoo I use is potentially toxic and has negative environmental impacts.
Being a new home owner as well, has meant looking at ways of boosting the look and feel of our lawn (our backyard is pretty pathetic and weed covered at the moment). The province has a ban on pesticides, but that doesn't mean that it's being respected necessarily (I remember seeing a CBC report about how pesticides were still available).
In the United States the President's panel on cancer (It's well-established body, not specific to any president) mentioned that there needs to be more research into environmental cancer risk, and that not a lot is known about some of these risks.
The fact that there are so many chemicals that are essentially unregulated, simply because there are no resources and way too many of them is quite scary. There of course is also the fact that the chemicals of course interact with each other and so may be benign in one situation but not when mixed with other chemicals or a different situation.
I read silent spring last year as part of an environmental book club and it was really interesting to see how little thought was given to the consequences or just spraying new chemicals every which way. Of course it was easier to do back then, with no environmental movement, no environmental agencies in government and the whole thing feels as if it couldn't happen again, because it was such a different time.
However the chemical industry has both expanded and learned some lessons in terms of its approach to dealing with these issues. I'm most concerned about the U.S. as their regulatory system seems to succumb more easily to pressure and they are a lot more media savvy so it ma be more difficult to oversee and understand what they are really up to.
I'll close this this:
One of the things I remember from the movie I am Legend even though I didn't really like the movie was the fact that they cured cancer but caused something much worse as an unintended consequence of it, and killed lots of people.
Kind of a scary thought.
Being a new home owner as well, has meant looking at ways of boosting the look and feel of our lawn (our backyard is pretty pathetic and weed covered at the moment). The province has a ban on pesticides, but that doesn't mean that it's being respected necessarily (I remember seeing a CBC report about how pesticides were still available).
In the United States the President's panel on cancer (It's well-established body, not specific to any president) mentioned that there needs to be more research into environmental cancer risk, and that not a lot is known about some of these risks.
The fact that there are so many chemicals that are essentially unregulated, simply because there are no resources and way too many of them is quite scary. There of course is also the fact that the chemicals of course interact with each other and so may be benign in one situation but not when mixed with other chemicals or a different situation.
I read silent spring last year as part of an environmental book club and it was really interesting to see how little thought was given to the consequences or just spraying new chemicals every which way. Of course it was easier to do back then, with no environmental movement, no environmental agencies in government and the whole thing feels as if it couldn't happen again, because it was such a different time.
However the chemical industry has both expanded and learned some lessons in terms of its approach to dealing with these issues. I'm most concerned about the U.S. as their regulatory system seems to succumb more easily to pressure and they are a lot more media savvy so it ma be more difficult to oversee and understand what they are really up to.
I'll close this this:
One of the things I remember from the movie I am Legend even though I didn't really like the movie was the fact that they cured cancer but caused something much worse as an unintended consequence of it, and killed lots of people.
Kind of a scary thought.
May 23, 2010
Public Service Renewal
Well for the first time in a while I thought I'd write a post about my work. Now this post is slighlty dated as I had hoped to post it last week when this was fresher but it's still very relevant.
I work for the federal government and one of the things we have heard a lot about is Public Service renewal, meaning the attempt to start hiring so that they will actually have the capacity to replace all the boomers that wll be retiring over the next several years.
I along with some colleagues decided to organize a group discussion on the topic recently and thought it didn;t go quite as I expected it to go, it went really well.
It felt really good to have a forum for discussing these issues and I hope that we can keep the energy going and momentum and keep things moving along. It was really encouraging to see the response in terms of turnout and the energy in the room as well.
It turns out that there is a lot of interest in changing things and adapting to the new forces in the world.
Two things that struck me, the first was how much focus was on management and more particularly the generational divide. I haven't seen as much of this recently in my own work situation, I suppose because I have had bosseson the younger end of things.
The second was the need to really engage on the issue of technology and the impact on how we do things. I was struck by the lack of enthusiasm expressed by some particularly when coupled with the seeming techno-optimism of others.
Anyways it was an interesting event and the first of many in this necessary conversation about renewal.
I work for the federal government and one of the things we have heard a lot about is Public Service renewal, meaning the attempt to start hiring so that they will actually have the capacity to replace all the boomers that wll be retiring over the next several years.
I along with some colleagues decided to organize a group discussion on the topic recently and thought it didn;t go quite as I expected it to go, it went really well.
It felt really good to have a forum for discussing these issues and I hope that we can keep the energy going and momentum and keep things moving along. It was really encouraging to see the response in terms of turnout and the energy in the room as well.
It turns out that there is a lot of interest in changing things and adapting to the new forces in the world.
Two things that struck me, the first was how much focus was on management and more particularly the generational divide. I haven't seen as much of this recently in my own work situation, I suppose because I have had bosseson the younger end of things.
The second was the need to really engage on the issue of technology and the impact on how we do things. I was struck by the lack of enthusiasm expressed by some particularly when coupled with the seeming techno-optimism of others.
Anyways it was an interesting event and the first of many in this necessary conversation about renewal.
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