METANOIA
August | September 2016
METANOIA EXECUTIVE AND STAFF
A NEW WAY OF THINKING
PUBLISHERS
SALME JOHANNES LEIS & ALLISON PATTON
COPY CHIEF
CALEB NG
Assistant copy chief
EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS
Jillian Currie JR LEIS AND HEINO LEIS
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF MARKETING
DAL FLEISCHER
PHOTO ARCHIVIST
GALINA BOGATCH
INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTOR
SUZETTE LAQUA
INTERVIEWER/PHOTOGRAPHER
BRITANY SNIDER
VIDEOGRAPHER
ATTILA KOVARCSIK
CONTRIBUTORS
Gerald Auger Suzette Laqua Maureen Bader Marilyn Lawrie Alex Barberis Hank Leis Andy Belanger Salme Leis Donald J. Boudreaux Chris MacClure Dr Tim Brown Dunstan Massey Kamala Coughlan Seth Meltzer Brian Croft Thomas Mets Miki Dawson Dr Caleb Ng Cheryl Gauld Janice Oleandros Len Giles Stefan Pabst Kulraj Gurm Dr Allison Patton Carly Hilliard Luis Reyes Marilyn Hurst Cara Roth Dr Arthur Janov Dr Bernard Schissel Randolph Jordan Pepe Serna Richard King IV Lisa Stocks Peter and Maria Kingsley Dr Jack Wadsworth Mark Kingwell Dan Walker Rod LAmirand Harvey White
Cover is “The Spirit of Nebraska Wilderness” Bronze, 2002 by Kent Ullberg
METANOIA MAGAZINE is a publication of METANOIA CONCEPTS INC. For questions, comments, or advertising contact by Phone: 604 538 8837, Email: metanoiamagazine@gmail.com, Mail: 3566 King George Blvd, Surrey, BC, Canada, V4P 1B5
METANOIA CONTENTS
A NEW WAY OF THINKING
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY EXERCISE, ANTI-OXIDANTS, DIET, AND PLATELET RICH PLASMA FOR ARTHRITIS
BY DR. CALEB NG
KENT ULLBERG: BRONZE ARTIST
BY HANK LEIS
DIRECTOR X
BY BRITANY SNIDER
STEFAN PABST: STORY OF AN ARTIST
BY STEFAN PABST
FACIAL REJUVENATION WITH CONCENTRATED GROWTH FACTORS
BY DR. ALLISON PATTON AND DR. GALINA BOGATCH
IF LIFE DOESN’T THROW YOU A GRAND ADVENTURE...
BY ROD LAMIRAND
ON KONRAD PIMISKERN
BY HANK LEIS
WHAT A RIDE
BY LEN GILES
CANADIAN EDUCATION
BY DR JACK WADSWORTH
DAN WALKER CHRONICLES
BY DAN WALKER
MISSIVES
BY DONALD BOUDREAUX
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Corpus Christi, Texas has been a treasure trove for meaningful interviews in Metanoia Magazine. Betty Turner and Joe Adame, both former mayors of Corpus Christi, gave insights on civic politics within the city. Pepe Serna, one of the stars of the movie Scarface discussed the evolution of an actor, from the humble roots in Corpus to the bright lights of New York City. Edward James Olmos, who played the father’s role in the movie made in Corpus, Selena also introduced us to Jennifer Lopez during the making of the movie who since has become the well known star of television, movies and entertainment we know today.
Pepe Serna (pink) in Scarface (1983)
The now deceased, Betty Mobley adjunct professor and artist, also built her career there. In this issue we present the internationally renown bronze artist Kent Ullberg, who over the years has presented the world with amazing art that will be both on public and private display for centuries to come. We cannot begin to describe the awesome sculptures that represent the soul of Kent Ullberg. Seeing is truly believing, and yes, he too dwells in this Mecca of great achievers, Corpus Christi, Texas. Since the founding of Metanoia Magazine by three Naturopathic Doctors and the Leis family in 2008, we have produced over ninety issues. We have had over one thousand articles written, including interviews of over 100 actors, 100 artists, dozens of politicians, philosophers, psychologists, and experts in other fields. A majority of the writers have post-graduate degrees or have expertise or knowledge of a special nature.
As well, we have the writing of international traveller and writer Rod Lamirand who will continue to contribute on an ongoing basis to the magazine. He has just completed publication of his novel The Eyes of the Arab Boy. And there is much, much more.
Edward James Olmos in Selena (1997)
We are also cosponsors of the Vancouver Web Fest. Jennifer Lopez in Selena (1997) JUNE 2015
March 2015
JANUARY 2014
VANCOUVER WEB FEST
2015
THE NEW FRONTIER IN ENTERTAINMENT
THINK BE Wellness
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August 2014
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A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING
METANOIA
April May 2013
METANOIA
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A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW OF TH OCTOBERWAY 2013 A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2015
EDUCATION
ARTIST
A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING
MOOCs A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING LEADERSHIP VS MANAGEMENT A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING COMEDIAN JESSICA HOLMES A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING THE PROGRESSIVE ERA A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING A NEW WAY OF THINKING
Eyan Higgins Jones
THE RANT JOHN VAN DONGEN ABBOTSFORD’S CANDIDATE
NEW YORK STATE PREDICTIONS FOR 2013
THE RANT- REVOLUTION
QUESTIONS FOR A PHILOSOPHER interview with professor mark kingwell
updates on the
kidnapping in costa rica
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Actor, Artist & Motivational Speaker The Scarface Anniversary what it was like on set
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2011 Edward James Olmos star of “Selena”, on location with Hank Leis in Corpus
July 2011
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Interview with a Statesman
Daughter of Texas
La lumiere d’une Chandelle
Mayor of Corpus Christi, Texas, Joe Adame Special Fall 2011 Edition
We make your wooden wish come true
MK Carving & Sculpting Abbotsford, BC, Canada www.mkono.net moricarving@gmail.com
Exercise, Anti-Oxidants, Diet, and Platelet Rich Plasma for Arthritis Here are the key points of the presentation by Dr. Caleb Ng, ND given at the Surrey Prostate Cancer Canada Network Information and Support Group on Saturday, Aug. 27, 2016:
Here are the 9 fundamental lessons from the top 5 places in the world that have the highest rates of people living to 100. You can find more details on our Facebook page: www. facebook.com/mvwcentre
Dr. Ng’s Top 4 Super Foods for Prostate Health Stay Active! Aim for 3-4,000 more steps than you are currently taking. A healthy amount of step is 10,000 per day, but 6,000 per day can be a starting goal. Try to include a brisk 30 minute walk.
1. Soy contains a prostate cancer fighting compound called genistein. Aim for 100g of soy protein or 2 cups of soy milk per day. 2. Green Tea has been shown to decrease the rate of prostate cancer in high risk individuals by as much as 50%. Enjoy 1-2 cups of cancer preventing green tea or matcha green tea daily. 3. Pomegranate juice will slow PSA doubling times by as much as 50%! Try a cup of unsweetened or blended with blueberry juice for added protection. 4. Lycopene from tomatoes can actually lower PSA levels! 30mg of Lycopene or 6 tbsp of tomato paste a day is the amound that has shown to help patients with prostate cancer.
Dr. Ng will be giving a full presentation on Highly Concentrated Platelet Rich Plasma Prolozone on Tuesday, October 18 at 7pm at Mountainview Wellness Centre or visit our website at www.mountainviewwellnesscentre.ca for more information on this therapy. For appointments, call 604.538.8837.
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Kent Ullberg Bronze Artist
”Sailfish in Three Stages of Ascending” Bronze, 36 feet, 1991
The truth of the matter is I don’t know where to begin to describe Kent Ullberg. To say he is a sculptor is a beginning, but that would be so, so understated. It would be akin to describing Hemingway as someone who writes. I first met Kent Ullberg in Corpus Christi- when a business partner and I opened an art gallery on Mustang Island in Port Aransas, Texas. But even before that I could not miss the bronze sculpture of a sailfish welcoming me as I crossed the bridge from the city of Corpus Christi, Texas to Padre Island. Ullberg is both a gentle man and a gentleman. He is patient and methodical. It is then surprising that his many works are distributed throughout the U.S. and most of the world. He still retains his Nordic ways- and although he speaks excellent English, his accent is unmistakable. His work as a sculptor is impeccable. There are no mistakes. His bronzes can be small in size or monumental in proportions. His list of projects is unending and the number of awards and the recognition he has received would sustain an encyclopedia. But he is a humble man- willing to take time to explain to admirers and the uneducated, “the art of his art”. He is a mystical man- whose sense of the source of his inspiration lies somewhere in that magical kingdom that delivers to gifted people who are able to tap in to that place where magic is created. He loves nature and when working he is one with nature. And yet he is a practical man- who combines his knowledge of architecture and engineering to produce his gigantic monuments- that from bronze and steel- suddenly come to life. I know no one else like him. He is understated. He is humble. And he is a listener. I love his work and I am always amazed at the infinite detail that captures the moment in movement that breathes life into metal. -Hank Leis
A Scotsman, the What in your background developed your interest to Director of National become an artist? Parks, was starting a First of all, both my parents were artists. My dad was a museum in Gaborone musician in a band- and my parents met while my mom was in and hired me to help art school. My father was also a sailor on ships and tugboats. build it. I stayed in There was always plenty of art around me. I went to art school Botswana for seven in Stockholm and I worked with my father painting outdoors years to work on in nature with pastels. I often found myself being distracted by the African exhibitravens and other birds. Art school taught me techniques used collecting animalsin painting, drawing and making sculptures. Once I got my spending months in hands in clay, that was it. I knew what I wanted to be. Clay the deep bush. A friend was play. from Denver invited me to visit him in the My mother was a fine textile artist- using her art mainly U.S. He took me to for weaving. After her untimely death I found the things she Wild West settings and had saved plus her diaries. I found a sculpture that she made I fell in love with the in terra cotta of my hand as a baby. I still have it. It was an U.S. I was offered a emotional moment and I still feel it. position at the Denver Our home life was not easy. Dad was gone most of the Museum of Nature and Requiem SST time. I left three days after high school graduation on a ship Science, so I became to South America. When I came back, I went to art school in curator of the African exhibit. I could not abandon the exhibit in Botswana so I flew back and hired friends and colleagues Stockholm, Sweden. from Sweden to continue my work there. I returned to Denver I became an apprentice-curator for the National Museum of to take care of what is now known as Botswana Hall. Natural History in Stockholm. My passion was nature. It was I had dreamt of sculpting full time and had completed about in my blood. I was a bird watcher and I raised birds. It was my 15 pieces in Africa. I befriended sculptors in Denver, who own thing. encouraged me. George Carleson in particular influenced me I traveled to Germany and studied in museums in Berlin by bringing me to the National Academy of Western Art in and Münster where I got my diploma in museum exhibits Oklahoma, where I had sales. and also became fluent in German. I found employment in In 1975, I won an award at the National Academy in New the Natural History Museum in Orleans, France. York. That opened doors that got me into the best galleries I loved reading Hemingway’s novels. I dreamt of going to in Denver. This gave me courage to jump off the bridge, quit Africa, and I was fortunate to find a job in Botswana, guiding the Denver Museum, and go on my own. I loved America Germans on safaris. I did taxidermy and worked on trophies. and wanted to stay. An art show in San Antonio, TX made it
Working on the Mastodon
“Running Bison”
possible to drive to Corpus Christi. It was love at first sight, driving over the Nueces bridge. The Padre Island canals- Oh my God: It was beautiful! A realtor showed us a house with a studio (guest house at the top of a garage). We signed the purchase papers after a couple of hours the same day and have been living there for 38 years- raising two boys diving and fishing off shore in the Gulf of Mexico. My son is now a naval architect as a result of this move. Sadly our other son died in a car accident at the young age of 19. I also have a studio in Loveland, Colorado, where they have the best art foundry technology for my kind of large projects. I used to drive back and forth, now I fly. I still spend much of my time working in Colorado. I grew up in Europe and part of my consciousness comes from my experiences there, in particular Gothenburg. There are sculptures in every square. Bawdy songs were sung about secret encounters at the King’s statue and a nude maiden in the fountain. One of my proudest achievements was a commission I got in Sweden to build a mountain shape 65 ft high in a narrow atrium. The space was too narrow for scaffolding so we had to “NSU Underground Shark”
hang from the ceiling for much of the construction. Technically it was a major challenge. Technically, my biggest challenge was in Omaha, Nebraska where it took me 10 years (2000-2009) to build four city blocks of sculptures. This required me to work with city planners, engineers, landscapers, and architects through parking lots and buildings. For this work I won my second Henry Herring Medal from the National Sculpture Society in New York City. A most prestigious award for sculptors. My philosophy is to communicate passion by working from direct experience and not from photographs. Hemingway said, “If you write from knowledge, it can become art.” What are you currently working on? I am working on a large sculpture for the University of Texas, San Antonio, Cancer Treatment Research Center. This is different from other projects I have worked on. It speaks of hope in treatment and help with cancer. The display will be 22 ft tall of two hands in bronze. Stainless steel wings, with stylized reflection of hope emerge from these hands, symbolizing hope in medicine.
Where do your ideas come from? It is a very psychological process. The creativity is mystical in nature. It is often outside myself and it cannot be controlled. In art school, working on a sculpture, I would forget the world. The feeling was strange and I wondered, “Where did that come from?” I listened to a lecture by a Russian painter, who in his heavy accent said, “An artist is like a radio, sometimes my radio plays beautiful music, like Mozart, other times so badly I want to kill myself.” I once had the good fortune of being on a movie set with the icon Ingmar Bergman. He looked in the camera every few minutes even though he had a brilliant cameraman. One time, between takes I asked, “Why the movie title Through a Glass Darkly? He replied, “Well it’s a creative process. You see it, but only faintly.”
“Bison in Wall”, Omaha, Nebraska
What are the frustrations of a bronze artist? So for years I did nothing but work, work, work. I labour because I am from the working class. I used to flatten my sculptures when I thought they hadn’t worked out. One day as I was about to flatten a sculpture my wife grabbed it before I could do it. I found it in a closet much later on. It showed me what it can be, and I won several important awards for it in New York and other art shows. What is your muse? My muse is nature- it has been a mystical experience since childhood. Nothing is more powerful. Also, I have classical music always playing in the studio. The spirit of the composer flows into the piece. When the oil tanker caused havoc in Prince William Sound, Mozart’s “Requiem” guided me in producing a piece of an “Eagle Dying”. When the “Requiem” was done, the “Eagle Dying” was done. For me it is the symbol of the concern and love I have for the environment.
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“Deinonychus- Terrible Claw”
“Sprig’s Landing”
“Reaching Elephant”
“Ring of Bright Water”
AWARDS and HONORS Allied Artists of America 2007 – Members and Associates Award 1990 – Marguerite M. Hexter Award 1989 – Silver Medal for Sculpture
2005 – Ullberg Park dedication on Padre Island 1990 – Proclamation - October 4th: Kent Ullberg Day
“Wind in the Sails” Abstract, Sweden
1975 – Awarded: Barnett Prize for Sculpture
National Academy of Western Art, Prix De West Invitational, Oklahoma Coors Western Art Exhibit, Denver City, OK CO 1998 – Prix De West Award American Society of Marine Artists 2015 – Mary Bell Grant Award 1995 – Frederic Remington Award 1991 – Elected to Fellow 1990 – Gold Medal for Sculpture Denver Museum of Natural History, 1988 – Gold Medal for Sculpture Artists of America, Denver, CO Denver, CO 1982 – Gold Medal for Sculpture 1992 – Designated AOA Master 1976 – Merit Award-Colo. Celebration 1981 – Gold Medal for Sculpture of the Arts Autry Museum of the American West. Los Angeles, CA National Academy of Western Art, Harvey Weil Sportsman Conserva2009 – Southwest Art Award Oklahoma City, OK tionist Award, Corpus Christi, TX 2004 – Wildlife Award 1990 – Gold Medal for Sculpture 2016 – Living Legacy Award 1988 – Gold Medal for Sculpture Briscoe Western Art Museum, San 1982 – Gold Medal for Sculpture Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Antonio, TX 1981 – Gold Medal for Sculpture Wausau, WI 2010 – National Western Art 1987 – Received “Master Wildlife Foundation Legacy Award National Arts Club, New York City, NY Artist” Award 2010 – People’s Choice Award 1991 – The Presidents Award National Academy, New York, NY Briscoe Legacy Award 1995 – Awarded: Ellin P. Speyer Prize The National Museum of Wildlife Art, 2010 – Night of Artist Jackson, WY for Sculpture 1996 – Rungius Award 1990 – Elected to Full Academician City of Corpus Christi, TX 2001 – Featured Artist for Sculpture at 1985 – Awarded: Ellin P. Speyer Prize 2006 – Ullberg Gallery dedication, Art “Western Visions” Exhibit for Sculpture Museum of South Texas 1980 – Elected Associate Member
National Sculpture Society, New York, NY 2015 – Sculpture House Achievement Award 2013 – Margareth Hexter Award 2008 – Henry Hering Medal Award 2002 – Silver Medal & Cavanaugh Memorial Prize 1993 – Henry Hering Medal Award 1989 – John Springer Art Founder Award 1988 – Elected to Fellow 1983 – Gold Medal 1981 – Joel Meisner Award 1979 – Percival Dietsch Award 1978 – Elected Member National Western Arts Foundation 2010 – Briscoe Legacy Award 2010 – People’s Choice Award Prix de West Invitational, Oklahoma City, OK 1998 – Prix de West Award 1995 – Frederic Remington Award Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History 1992 – Moderator - International Forum, Citataqua Institute, NY “Mako”
“Waiting for Sockeye”
Society of Animal Artists, New York, NY 2014 – Liniger Purchase Award 2008-Master Signature Member 2002 – Sponsor Award 2001 – Haller Award 2000 – Hiram Blauvelt Purchase Award 1996 – Award of Excellence 1987 – Award of Excellence 1984 – Dr. Bard Cosman Award 1982 – Award of Excellence 1980 – Award of Excellence 1979 – Award of Excellence
The State of Texas, Austin, TX 1991-92 – Texas State Artist Texas Ranger Hall of Fame, Waco, TX 1980 – Gold Medal for Sculpture 1980 – Best of Show The Maritime Gallery at Mystic Seaport, CT, Annual International Invitational 2009 – Award of Excellence 2008 – Marine Environmental Wildlife Award 2007 – Award of Excellence 1990 – Award of Excellence
“Journey’s End”
“Toro Bravo”
Getting to Know Director X Interview by Britany Snider
When you were filming this movie, did you feel like you had more creative control over this than filming a music video? Director X and Britany Snider No, no, it’s just a different beast. When it came to the creative part of things, like the opening number and the final number it was a collaboration with all the departments. Somebody would have an idea, which lead to another idea. Film making is a team sport.
Do you feel that for music videos you have more of a say in the direction that it goes? It’s just different. Here is the script, here are the dance Director X numbers, maybe we can add something in here or there. There is never anybody lording over me. We are all dealing with the You are obviously a very creative person. What same story and how the story is going to be told in the best kind of environment did you grow up in that helped way. My producer was in there everyday with me, we are all in you develop your creative side? the situation together working. With the big opening act and the I’ve been drawing all my life. I started drawing when closing act in the movie, we were all together because it needed I was a kid, it’s all I wanted to do. When I was young, to be done as a team. I have no need to say that something is I thought I was going to be drawing comic books and all my idea. Some guys are like, it’s my idea, so nobody else superheroes. When I finished high school, I found graphic can say that or other people just steal somebody else’s idea design and thought I would be a graphic designer. From and say it’s theirs. I dont need any of that. I’m the director so graphic design, I found filmmaking and here we are. the average person thinks it’s all my idea anyways. There is no reason for me to go out there and take it or manipulate it When you are going through the creative process, do or do any of that stuff. What I like is everyone being creative. you contemplate alot or do you have a vision that you Here is the direction we are going and setting up a place follow through on? where everyone can be creative but not confused. I always It all depends, just like in anything. Sometimes you want to open it up for spontaneity and creativity within every have to contemplate until you quit. Other times, it just department. You want every department being creative comes to you and you figure out a way to make it work. within their department, from lighting to wardrobe. It’s kind of like being a rancher, keeping your herd moving in the right What do you think has inspired your life? Experiences or direction, not getting distracted by anything or not letting them your education? get lost. I guess you would be considered a shepherd of sorts. What has really inspired my life? Art and my interests. I am a product of hip hop. My name is hip hop, it’s what I What do you think are the major differences between came from it’s where I will always be from. The music making a movie and making a music video? In your and the culture, the way you grow up. All the elements videos you’ve always been able to tell a story a lot of kind of coming at you. It really defines you as a person. the time, which in the case of music videos there isn’t always a general direction. In the movie, Centre Stage: On Pointe you got to A video should be about something. That is the key to a combine your love of dance and directing. What was that good music video. It’s about the lasers, it’s about the breakup, experience like for you? it’s about the lighting. It has to be about something. Whether It was great. When we were working on the script, we the audience understands that or not, it’s about something. were always looking for where dance This is nerd stuff, it’s film making. The difference between could fit, where could we interject dance. making a music video and a film is that people are talking It was always at the back of our minds and you are recording. I’m given a certain length or time, when the script was coming together. one or two days. It would be interesting if a film was pre-
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recorded and the actors lip synced a performance they had already done. That we were just filming the actions to a performance they had already done. The equipment, crew and the structure is the same, its just that little difference.
able to rally behind a flag. Film making is built on military structure, there has to be somebody leading it. It doesn’t matter how great your army is, how great your soldiers are, if they don’t feel like they are being lead, it disintegrates.
Out of everybody you have ever worked with, who is the most interesting and why do you think that? I don’t know if there has ever been one person, they all have their own thing. Usher is very interesting, Drake is very interesting, Iggy Azalea is very interesting, Nikki Minaj is very interesting. The thing is that who I find the most interesting and appreciate the most, are the ones that are very involved on all the levels. That have visions of what they want to do or how they want things to look. Not that there is anything wrong with showing up and just doing what you have to do. If being involved in the process isn’t what you do then it isn’t what you do. The artists that I find most interesting are the ones that have a real vision for themselves and they know what they want to do, what they want to wear and how they want things to look.
What would you like us to know about you as a person? That I’m awesome.
It sounds like from your previous answer, you like working in a team or collaborating with the people you are working with. This is a collaboration game. If you don’t like collaborating, you shouldn’t be a film maker. It’s how the whole thing goes, it’s how you get the best work. You have to be
So more directing, are you looking to doing any more films? I’m a director and I love every part of it. Music videos, commercials, TV, and film. Directing is what I enjoy and I am happiest when it is just me and a camera.
Besides the obvious answer? No, besides that I don’t think I really have anything else. That people need to know. What’s up next for you? I know I read that you just won a Canadian film award for Across the Line. Ya, Across the Line just won a Canadian Film Festival Award for Best First Feature and got some really great reviews. This summer I am going to be shooting the second season of Backstage for the Family Channel which is on Disney down in the States. The show is about the school of the arts.
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Stefan Pabst A Story of an Artist
Stefan Pabst with his iconic drawing “3D Snake”
I was born in Russia (the Soviet Union), in Siberia, Altai Territory. It was a small industrial community called Steppe Lakes. The climate there was very harsh, with winter time temperatures sometimes dropping to -35 °. But I have warm memories of this place. This is my first homeland. I spent the first ten years of my life there. Steppe is a vast grassland with stunted trees (shrubs) that do not exceed twenty feet. It has dry a climate, poor sandy soil, and scorched grass. When I look at some of my photos, I think of how poor and scarce this land is, questioning why people would settle there. There are many other places where the climate is milder and the soil is more fertile. Nevertheless, my childhood was full of adventure and happiness. I think I was much happier than the present-day kids who spend days sitting in front of computers and spend little time outdoors or on the streets, and are more likely to communicate through internet with each other than in person in the real world. We used to go hiking in the steppe for a whole day. We built “halobudy” (huts) out of the branches. We chased field mice from their burrows with water; pouring half a bucket of
water in the hole we then held a hat above it, waiting until the mouse gets out. Once we caught the mouse, we took it home to play for a while and then released it back into the field. We became acquainted with all varieties of the field mice, marmots, gophers, etc. There were no other wild animals in our steppes. There was a pet cemetery, the size of a small football stadium, on the outskirts of our village. Local people would just dump their pets and livestock onto the pile. We, “the boys”, would go there to “tickle” our nerves and to prove to ourselves and others that we had the daring to go in there. I have to admit, it was scary, containing a multitude of skeletons and stench that you could smell from kilometers away. Therefore, we always ran back quickly. My father was a teacher and my mother was a seamstress. We lived modest life. Everybody had about the same standard of living at the time. Some lived a bit more modest, some lived a bit more prosperous. But there was neither very poor, nor very rich. It was in the 80s, the last decade of the Soviet Union. There was only dark rye and white bread on the store shelves; only one variety of butter, only one variety of milk, and long line-ups.
When you are a child, you do not think about how it should be, you have no expectations of what your life should be. You accept everything as it is. We were happy to run to the store and wait in the line-up there when our parents sent us. We used to chew some bread crust on the way back home. Nothing would make us happier. Everything was new, everything was fascinating. We accepted everything the way it was. In other words, we knew how to be happy. However, I remember the feeling of living as a part of a very powerful and well-established system. I remember that all the posters with portraits of Lenin, on the streets and in schools, slogans, state holidays, little Octobrist and Pioneers (Communist kid’s organizations), gave me a sense of belonging to something great, powerful, and sacred. Then again, as a child you don’t ask, you don’t question, you don’t doubt. You just accept it as a game. Once everybody is playing, then you also start to play. Despite the scarcity at the store, I liked the children’s cups. I passed many of them. This interest gave me an idea of what Я родился в России (Советский Союз) в Сибири, Алтайском крае. Это был маленкий рабочий посёлок Степное Озеро. Климат там был суровый, зимой иногда доходило до -35° , но я вспоминаю об этом месте с тёплыми чувствами. Это моя первая родина. Там я провёл первые 10 лет моей жизни. Степь, сухой климат, бедная почва, много песка, деревья низкорослые, не превышают двух этажей. Летом жара, зной и высохшая трава. Если я сейчас смотрю на эти фотографии, то внешне эти места выглядят очень бедно, скудно. Думаеш зачем туда люди поселились, есть же много мест, где климат помягче и почва плодороднее. Но тем не менее детство моё было полным приключений, да и посчастливее, чем детство теперешних детей. Которые днями сидят перед компютером, мало выходят на улицу и чаще имеют контакт с друг другом в интернете чем в реальном мире. Мы ходили в походы на весь день в степь. Строили халобуды (хижины) из веток. Выливали пеловых мышей из нор. Заливали пол ведра воды в норку, над норкой держали шапку и ждали пока она вылезет, ловили и несли домой. Играли с ней, потом отпускали назад в поле. Все виды пелевых мышей переведали, сусликов и т.д. Других диких животный в наших степях небыло. На окраине посёлка было кладбище домашних животных, размером с небольшой футбольный стадион. Туда люди просто выкидывали своих домашних животных и скот на кучу. Мы с пацанами ходили туда “пощекотать” нервы и доказать себе и другим что ты смелый. Но там было страшно. Много скелетов, вонь за километр. Поэтому сразу бежали назад. Herzliche Grüsse Stefan Pabst
existed and what I like. I discovered that I like to draw. I noticed that I was good at it, as if I had already draw before. I found that it felt as if had some kind of mysterious meaning to me. When other kids were drawing dashes or doing coloring, I was expressing myself and my subtle emotions through drawing. I noticed that when I was drawing, I immersed myself into an absentminded state, turning myself into an ultimate observer. I didn’t think, I didn’t judge, I only observed myself drawing. As the time passed by seamlessly, I felt satisfaction, as if I expressed everything I’ve accumulated over to someone through my art. My grandmother told me that I was drawing scenes from the Bible as she was reading it out loud. Our Bible was 250-years old and was passed down from generation to generation. I was mesmerized by its precise and realistic pen graphics. Each page of the Bible had an illustration. While my grandmother was reading the story, I was copying the illustration. For me, it was a priceless book, a collection of pen drawings. I still remember how fascinated I was observing curved lines of the pillars, the projection of shadows, how artists draw palm trees, etc. It was like anatomy class for me. I was studying the art of painting. I think that was a moment when I fell in love with it. Единственное помню ощущение, что ты живёш в какой то крепкой, налаженой системе. Все эти плакаты с Лениным, на улицах и в школе, лозунги, праздники, октябрята и пионеры и т.д. И чувство принадлежности к чему то великому, большому, священному. Тут опять же как ребёнок ничего не спрашиваешь и не оцениваешь и не сомневаешься. Просто принимаеш это как данность как какую то всеобщую игру. Видишь все играют, и ты тоже начинаешь играть. Несмотря на небольшой выбор в магазине, мне нравились детские кружки. Я переходил в многие из них, это дало мне общее представление того, что существует и что мне нравится. Я обнаружил что мне нравится рисовать. Я заметил, что у меня это хорошо получается, как будто я уже раньше рисовал. Я находил в этом какой то таинственный смысл. В то время, когда другие просто рисовали чёрточки, или разукрашивали. Я выражал какие то смыслы, и передавал тонкие эмоции. Я когда рисовал, впадал в какое то безмысленное состояние, в котором я просто наблюдал. Не думал, не оценивал, а просто смотрел как я рисую. Так пролетало много времени а я чувствовал себя удовлетворённым, как будто высказался кому то что у меня накопилось. Herzliche Grüsse Stefan Pabst
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Mo un tai nv iew WELLNESS C Dr Bogatch
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Facial Rejuvenation with
Concentrated Growth Factors (CGF) Now Available at Mountainview Wellness Centre By Dr. Allison Patton and Dr. Galina Bogatch
Facial Rejuvenation CGF is an exciting, natural, nonsurgical procedure for skin rejuvenation. This treatment uses your own stem cells and concentrated growth factors, and is being called “Better Than Botox!� It is only available at Mountainview Wellness Centre in South Surrey, BC.
platelets and stem cells. Stem cells are cells that possess the potential to become different types of tissues of our body. In the presence of certain growth factors, stem cells can be activated to develop into collagen and elastin, thereby rejuvenating the skin.
What is Facial Rejuvenation CGF?
What Issues Can Facial Rejuvenation CGF Address?
The CGF in Facial Rejuvenation CGF is short for Concentrated Growth Factors. Facial Rejuvenation CGF uses growth factors found in specific cells of our blood called platelets. Platelet cells are mainly responsible for the healing of damaged tissue. When an injury occurs, platelets will stop the loss of blood and start to release growth factors to begin the tissue mending process, promoting the growth of functional tissue.
In the case of Facial Rejuvenation CGF, we are rebuilding the scaffolding of your skin in the form of new connective tissue, collagen, and elastin which leads to thicker, smoother and more youthful looking skin. CGF is a powerful regeneration process that addresses volume loss, scarring, fine and deep lines, and puffy eyes. Additionally, CGF targets dehydrated skin, lip and frown lines, sagging skin, thin skin, and uneven skin tone.
Facial Rejuvenation CGF has been commonly described In CGF therapies, the naturally occurring growth factors in the platelets are concentrated with state-of- as better than Botox, which is a fact we would argue is the-art harvesting techniques that create a remarkably true. Using Facial Rejuvenation CGF, we are able to regenerative product that is rich in growth factors, apply the treatment to areas of the skin where Botox is
not appropriate such as the delicate tissue under the eyes. A unique feature of our treatment is that we also use part of the extraction to create a filler that is able to correct volume loss, sculpt the face, thicken the skin, and provide a scaffolding which the new collagen and elastin cells are able to attach helping you to create a more youthful and vibrant look.
How Do CGF Results Compare to Other Methods? CGF therapy represents the next generation of Platelet Rich Plasma Facial Rejuvenation Therapy. Recent developments in cell harvesting have allowed CGF therapies to improve on existing cell-based Facial Rejuvenation Therapies like Platelet Rich Plasma.
After a blood draw, state-of-the-art technology is used to separate the sample into three fractions: red cells, concentrated growth factors/stem cells, and platelet rich plasma. Each of these are pure and potent components of blood that contain anti-aging properties. Once extracted, the CGF, stem cells and PRP are activated and prepared. Then, these activated stem cells and growth factors, are re-injected into your face, neck, décolleté and hands in a few different forms. We also prepare a personalized growth factor cream for you to use at home after the treatment. Once injected, these cells attract other stem cells and growth factors to the area. The injected cells travel to all layers of your skin, stimulating healing and bringing about powerful regeneration to the tissue. Three initial treatments are recommended spaced one month apart. Then, a personalized maintenance program is implemented to continue to turn back time.
Facial Rejuvenation CGF gives your skin a fresh and healthy appearance while not looking frozen or over plumped and without the use of chemicals, toxins or surgery. Over time you will see a fundamental Are There Any Side Effects? improvement in your appearance. Everyone else will notice your transformation but no one will know what Facial Rejuvenation CGF therapy is very safe and you have done. there is no downtime. Occasionally, minor bruising does occur. Please let your doctor know if you are taking any medication or supplements that thins the blood.
How Long Do Results Last? The Mountainview Wellness Centre Facial Rejuvenation CGF Beauty From Within program takes a holistic approach and addresses concerns you have regarding not only your face, but also your neck, décolleté and hands. Our program includes skin focused dietary and supplement recommendations, a facial care regime and a personalized schedule of maintenance treatments. Unlike the temporary effects of Botox and fillers, once the CGF rejuvenation process has taken place over 4-6 weeks, it continues to evolve. The effects can still be seen a year later.
How is Facial Rejuvenation CGF Performed? Facial Rejuvenation CGF begins with a beauty consultation with one of our doctors. At that consultation, the doctor will discuss your concerns and outline a plan to address these issues during the treatments as well as outline a program to optimize the treatment effects. This will include supplements, and a facial care and dietary regime. The process is all about Your Body Healing Your Body; there is no downtime, and the treatment is very safe.
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How Much Does it Cost? Please call us for current pricing at 604-538-8837. For details of coverage with your extended medical plan, contact your health insurance provider prior to your first appointment.
How Do I Begin? Simply call our office at 604-538-8837 to book a 45-minute consult. Please bring any relevant medical information such as recent blood work or medical reports.
Mountainview WELLNESS CENTRE 3566 King George Blvd
Beauty From Within Everything you need to know about
Facial Rejuvenation Concentrated Growth Factors (CGF)
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Dr. Patton’s revolutionary Facial Rejuvenation CGF program helps you be a more youthful you. She will talk about beauty and health and the way to reach these goals. Tuesday Sept 20th at 7pm Seating is Limited For The Talk Call Today
604-538-8837 www.mountainviewwellnesscentre.ca
If Life Doesn’t Throw You a Grand Adventure, Create One
Lessons in the Global English (Gin and Tonics and the Roman Empire) “You can’t swing a dead civet in Bali, a dead street-dog in Bucharest, a dead duck in Beijing, or a dead transistor in Taipei without hitting someone teaching English.”
By Rod Lamirand Rod Lamirand grew up in Burnaby, at a time when the Beatles ruled the radio and gasoline was 35 cents a gallon, to become the first family member to ever graduate high school. After numerous disparate jobs, he worked in more than 30 restaurants from BC to Ontario before attaining his Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Simon Fraser University. Married with two children, Lamirand became a full-time high school English teacher as well as a near fulltime technology and freelance writer (The Computer Paper, BC Business, Canadian Business, National Post Business, Western Living…). After a decade of teaching, the Lamirand family sold their house and left everything to teach in the Middle East in 2001, arriving just as planes flew into the Twin Towers in New York City. Throughout the years, their destinations have included Hsinchu, Taiwan, Bucharest, Romania, and Jakarta, Indonesia. Returning to Canada with a Masters of Education in hand, Lamirand set his debut novel, The Eyes of the Arab Boy, in the evocative landscapes of Muscat, Oman. Setting his teen novel, Escape Jakarta, in the dusty, tropical suburbs of Indonesia was a practical execution of the writer’s directive: write what you know. Thus, Lamirand now devotes his time to carving a successful career out of what remains of the turbulent book business.
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On the outskirts of a large city in Europe, we stand on a sidewalk in front of our new school. It is a hot day in August. Beside us are 16 or 17 other international-teachers, teachercouples or teacherswith-trailing-spouses. They too have the expectant face of New Hires in a New Land. Perfectly aligned in front of us are 16 or 17 identical Volkswagen Polos. The Polo is a peppy, three cylinder wonder, perfect for getting through European traffic or parking in crowded Old World streets. It’s also great on gas. The principal comes Lamirand Family in Egypt forward.‘Choose your car,’ he says. We looked around, then walk up to one. The keys are in it. Its neon-yellow paint and clean black rubber sidewalls predict the odometer reading will be low – it says: 000,024. A man with papers and pen comes over. Minutes later we whiz through the city, ramming the stick through tight gears making fresh tires squeak and chirp. The next day we receive new DELL laptops and cafeteria cards for our free lunches.
We have just returned from a four day bus tour of Romania’s Transylvanian mountains and are settling into our free housing. Our contracts include free annual flights to our home-country, free tuition for our children, and a friendly salary ladder. Three or four times a year the school buys staff free drinks at a local watering hole. During school breaks the teachers desert the city to travel to the Great Pyramids, the Blue Mosque, the Charles Bridge, Cinque Terre, Nice, Paris, London, Malta, Cyprus, and the rest of the Mediterranean playground. Even with travel, we pay our mortgage down by $100,000.00 in four years!
Rome Amazing, ancient, engineering aside, it’s panoply of gods on hold, it’s military efficiency accepted, the true legacy of the Roman Empire is the profound and lasting effects of the Latin tongue. To begin at the end: we reason in words, words are the coin of the realm, but those words have baggage. They have connotation. They have weight and nuance, much of which arrived long before you did and will carry on long after you do not. The simile is not – education rests on language as a truck rests on a road. The simile is – education rests on language as an island rests on an undersea mountain range. The island is innately, existentially, of, the landmass from which it comes. Do you worship Roman gods? Likely you do not. Do you depend upon the military brilliance of a hegemonic state’s absorption of its neighbours. Depending on where you live, probably not. Do you speak Latin? Yes, you do. At least in some circumstances. Look at the word ‘circumstances’. Here’s what the omnipresent Mr. Google says: ‘circumstance’: …from Latin circumstantia, from circum ‘around’ + stare ‘stand.’ In other words, if you said ‘circumstance’ to a 2000-year-dead Roman, were she now living, you would be understood. You speak Latin. That is one telling example of the long tail of the Roman Empire.
Servicing the New Rome And now, two millennia on, the world clamors to teach their young, the tongue of the New Rome. The New Latin of the New Rome: English. You can’t swing a dead civet in Bali, a dead street-dog in Bucharest, a dead duck in Beijing, or a dead transistor in Taipei, without hitting someone teaching English. From Russia to Rome and Prague to Paris, from Bangkok to Borneo and Mumbai to Moldova there are tutors aplenty, language schools by the dozen, more English-language national schools then you can shake a stick
Rod and Desh at Launch
Lamirand family in Egypt
at, and prestigious bilingual international schools on every green sward, premium acre of land you can see – complete with swimming pool and a gymnastics program.
Seeing the World on a Budget Americans and Aussies, Canadians and Brits, Kiwis and Scots, Irish men and women, the world’s elite are being raised by your neighbour’s fresh-faced son or daughter. And they’re smart to take advantage of their native tongue and fortunate birthplace. The world is an expensive place and young hearts still yearn enough for adventure and travel that some eschew the virtual world and go out into the dirty reality to experience first-hand what is what, who is who, and where truth lies. And what do they find? They find themselves, of course. A parable comes to mind: In medieval times a gateman of a walled city stood every day allowing entry to the innocuous, the industrious, and the wealthy. But before entering the city visitors would sometimes ask, “What are people like here?” “What are people like where you come from,” the gateman would reply. The visitor would say they are great or he would say they are awful, he might say they are kind or they are murderous. To which the gateman would reply, “They are the same here.” Of course, the expat teacher finds whatever he or she takes with them. You may leave your country to escape your demons but they will be waiting for you when you arrive. But what about those who go to find something rather than to escape something? They do find something. They find many things, some bright and shiny, some of darkness, some incomprehensible and some
street-smart but what they invariably find is a new perspective. To truly understand your country you must leave it, is an old truism.
Speak like a Roman, Think like a Roman? Teachers are often idealistic individuals motivated by a sense of spreading the humanitarian gospel of literacy. For good reason. Every human deserves the opportunity to make their way through life armed with a basic competency. But the expat teacher brings more than addition, grammar, and scientific principles to the classroom. Teachers teach moral assumptions too. Cultural givens are taught, they infuse the atmosphere, knowingly or not. But then teacher Mr. Smith or Miss Sidhu discover parents want the graduating certificate, and grade point average, but not his worldview, politics, and environmentalism or her focus on equity, gender, and community. And when she realizes that naming the classroom teddy bear Mohammed could become a bank-draining, international incident; praising the Tiananmen Square demonstrations could mean a quick ticket home, without shipping or end of contract bonus; and off-the-cuff comments about the Thai royal family could mean the end of beautiful weekends on Koh Samui beaches. Then a new thoughtfulness fills her. And too, he sometimes sees his students take only his skills, not his morality. Fundamental national worldviews, fair or not, endure, of course.
Selfies Over gin and tonics the international teachers plan exotic holidays when beautiful selfies will be posted to social media complete with water-spouting, Tanzanian elephants; skinny, Shanghai rickshaw drivers or betel-nut-juice-afflicted, redsmiling, Taiwanese policemen. Yet, in the humid night of their school-provided apartments they hold up cultures and compare, they seek justice and meaning, identifying pawns and kings, and, of course, many hours balancing dollars and sense. Then, when the school director mentions the importance of a healthy number of ‘A’s and ‘B’s, he or she wonders whether teaching a country’s elite for the highest pay offered is the right thing to be doing when a few metres down the lane the village school has no supplies, overcrowded leaking classrooms and untrained teachers. Educational prostitutes is an unkind and unfair phrase which they put out of mind by volunteering two hours on the weekend.
What Curriculum? Whether it comes from god’s will or Allah’s kindness, whether it is evolution’s newest variant or merely society’s enhanced daycares-of-economy, the lessons and language of
schools underpin each society’s fundamental paradigm and create its ethos. All can agree: a student must be able to understand enough math to manage their future money. None can argue: understanding cause and effect is an essential skill for each child. Beyond that, education is a forest which grows or withers across biomes large and small, dry or wet, either vigorously controlled or ill-defined and usually poorly understood, sometime the whipping boy, sometimes the anointed, but always awash in tides of politics, ideology, and money.
Overseas Teaching When we returned the Volkswagen to the school, gave up the little house, exchanged our money back into our home currency, we left happy and conflicted. Do not think you can sort and label a country even if you have a decade. It is a life’s work to understand your own country. We got on a plane, flew to Venice, took a cruise to the Greek Islands, then flew to South East Asia to start it all again. Heavy rain soaked palm and banana trees in the yard of our schoolsupplied house causing the gardener to come inside and sit with the maid. Another adventure began. So, what do I know? What have I learned? Which pedagogy is correct? Which curriculum is the best? I offer only two things. Between them lies fertile ground for whatever lessons you chose to teach your children. The tenants are simple: rigor and kindness. Whether International Baccalaureate or Advanced Placement, whether IGCSE or Canadian curriculum, in Finland and in Japan, if asked, I suggest, rigor, and I suggest, kindness. If you remember to start with the basics of intellectual rigor, then cling to that underfed spirit Human Kindness, then you begin with a stout vessel and clear skies.
Rod Lamirand is a Canadian, high school English teacher who has worked in international schools in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and S.E. Asia. He is author of The Eyes of the Arab Boy, an adventure novel about overseas teachers who run afoul of Sharia Law. His Life Priorities List is as follows: wife, children, beer, world peace, literature.
www.rodlamirand.com
On Konrad Pimiskern By Hank Leis Konrad Pimiskern was born at Horseshoe Bay- when “born free” was a term that could still be described as a way of life for those who lived just outside the immediate Vancouver area of British Columbia. Horseshoe Bay was a place where he and his siblings could explore the coast line and climb the mountains, as part of their journey into adulthood. Wildlife still invaded backyards and fishing in the lagoon was all about the daily adventures of life. Konrad lived the full life of someone who enjoyed the outdoors. He and his brothers were of strong stock who would grow up to be powerful, big men, all well over six feet tall. And when it came time to go to University, for Konrad, the importance of sport became an issue in general and his desire to play football in particular. Konrad learned the importance of being a team player at Washington State University where he had a full scholarship and excelled in the sport. Even today in his quest to become leader of BCCP he uses terms and analogies in his explanations often used in sports.
After Konrad Pimiskern graduated in Business Administration (Finance) he became an investment advisor for a major brokerage firm. There his ability to strategize and have an overview of world economic conditions and their impact on local events ensured his success as an investment advisor. He enjoys the thrust and parry in evaluating and predicting how financial instruments will respond to the virtually unpredictable storms of world chaos. He is a man who loves the challenge of understanding world events and narrowing them down to local issues, because he is a family man, his mind is constantly aware of how even the smallest event in the opposite side of the world, will have consequences in their lives. As a parent, he has the natural characteristics of one who wants to protect his family and community; as a leader he understands the power of persuasion, by articulating his thoughts clearly and choosing his words meticulously to convey the seriousness with which he takes his role as leader. Although there is a playful side to Konrad, he never forgets his responsibility to “every man” whether it be in the financial or political world. Above everything else – Konrad is a protector and people feel safe around him and trust his judgements. These are indeed rare attributes. Most importantly Konrad is a man of new ideas for new times. He relies on his intellect and the intensive research he does on things that matter. He is indeed a man for all seasons and all reasons. Konrad Pimiskern is a married man with three children. His wife has always been a strong supporter of his undertakings and trusts that he will succeed in all his endeavors. Today Konrad takes on some of the greatest challenges in his life; first to become leader of the British Columbia Conservative Party and eventually to become Premier of the Province. In the next few months Konrad will become a major player in B.C.’s political system. World economies will change everything. Konrad believes he knows the future and has the ability and knowledge to assure B. C.’s economic future as a positive one. He believes there are options that are real and sustainable. Indeed, Konrad Pimiskern believes in leading from the front, like MORE, the character in the play A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS, who states: “Well… I believe when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties ..... they lead their country by a short route to chaos.”
The Conservative Party, on behalf of the Board of Directors, and with recommendations from the Candidate Review Committee, is pleased to announce the names of four contestants for Leader of our Party, as shown below.
Dan Brooks Dan lives in Vanderhoof. His experience as a former Leader of our Party ensures that he is already known by many members. He is a business owner and a leader in his community. Website: www.danbrooks4leader.ca
Dr. Jay Cross Jay lives in Vancouver. He has a PhD in Sociology from Columbia University, and numerous other degrees from various institutions. He is a researcher and statistical analyst, and he has extensive experience in political fundraising.
Konrad Pimiskern Konrad lives in Kelowna. He attended university on a football scholarship graduating with a B.BA (Finance). He started his career in finance in Vancouver in 1993 and moved to Kelowna in 2000 where he continued Website: www.konrad4bc.ca to practice.
ChloĂŠ Ellis Chloe lives in New Westminster. Her experience as a former federal candidate for the Conservative Party of Canada and as a television political commentator have engaged audiences across the province. Website: www.freshstartforbc.com
More information can be found at:
http://bcconservative.ca/candidates/
What A Ride A book by Len Giles
PART I
The Decision It arrived in a Government of Canada issue, plain brown, manila envelope. The letter was dated September 23, 1957. The most important sentence said, “you have failed to obtain a pass mark…no further consideration can be given your application for engagement." The Canadian Mounted Police Force Accordingly, personnel file PK57-164 in "K" Division Headquarters, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Edmonton, Alberta, was “now closed.” The finality of “no further consideration” made it clear that a career in the RCMP was gone. In my disappointment, my mind drifted back to my visit to Banff, Alberta early that summer. George Reid was an old school friend of many years. In our teens we belonged to the Royal Canadian Sea Cadet Corps “Warrior” based within H.M.C.S. Nonsuch, the naval establishment in Edmonton. On completing high school, George fulfilled a long time dream to join the RCMP, had completed basic training earlier in the year and had been posted to Banff. He was excited about that posting as it was rare, in those days, for a member to be posted to his home province. As George was less than 300 miles from Edmonton, I had driven down for a three day weekend visit. I arrived in the early evening, found a motel and called the detachment to let him know where I was staying. He returned my call shortly thereafter to advise he was on duty from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. and would come around when he could. Shortly after midnight, there was a knock at the door and on opening it there was my old friend, George. It was the first time I had seen him in his police uniform and he looked every bit the part. His highly polished high brown riding boots were a hold over from training days, for sure. Smartly turned out, his appearance and deportment made a clear statement that he belonged in uniform. I was not surprised as he was always very well turned out in Sea Cadets. After the enthusiasm of seeing each other again and a brief interlude to catch up on each others well-being, he offered to take me on patrol around the outskirts of town. It seemed strange sitting in the front seat of a police car for the first time, with a uniformed officer, even though he was my friend. After all, like many teenagers, I could identify more readily with being checked
as I had once been invited to sit in the back of an Edmonton City police car. Fortunately, that was for an event which amounted to nothing more than a talking-to over a minor misdemeanour. So now, sitting in the front, gave a whole new perception to being in a marked police car. Perhaps to anyone looking on, I was a policeman as well, only not in uniform. That I found, presented a degree of exhilaration which, to my surprise, I found appealing. In over an hour or so, George stopped two or three vehicles while I watched from the car. He was looking for open alcohol or impaired drivers. Saturday nights, he said, were sometimes chaotic as Banff became the week-end party centre for tourists and visitors from Calgary, a mere 80 miles away. From the front seat, I sensed excitement in the anticipation of the unknown, when each vehicle was stopped. I viewed George’s deportment as he methodically examined each vehicle and its occupants. He was in control of the situation. The presence and the distinctness of the RCMP uniform, not necessarily who was in it, instilled respect. It was inspiring and the seeds of a career in the RCMP were sown. George dropped me off at the motel sometime after 2 a.m. and we agreed to get together for lunch. As I relaxed in bed, still feeling the exhilaration of the experience, my thoughts turned to the possibility of joining the RCMP. After the long drive from Edmonton and the excitement of the evening; it did not take long to drift off into a deep sleep. For the next two days, I spent a considerable amount of time with George while he was off-duty. He gave me a tour of town, citing incidents that happened in various locations which added drama to the tour. As well, we went to the Detachment where I was introduced to several other members of the Force. All of this added to the budding deliberations I was having about joining the Force. Later, while driving back to Edmonton I considered my position knowing that leaving school after grade eleven limited my options. I had several months experience working in the parts department at Northwest Industries, an aircraft repair facility at the Edmonton Municipal Airport and was currently working in the shipping department at Premier Steel Mills in Southeast Edmonton. Northern Industrial Carriers was the primary carrier for Premier Steel and on week-ends, some of their seasoned drivers were––unofficially––teaching me how to drive their large eighteen-wheel tractor-trailer units. I realized that neither the steel, nor trucking industries, offered a glowing future; but, I was not convinced that I wanted to wear a police uniform either. The later concern however, was erased by the realization that I could buy my way out, or “purchase” my discharge at any time. Force policy allowed for a set fee to be charged for each uncompleted month of service as per the five-year engagement contract. This seemed to provide an acceptable option in the event I did not like the Force. Subsequently, on that four-hour drive back to Edmonton, I made up my mind and applied for the Force shortly thereafter. As I reviewed that September 1957 rejection letter, I knew that it was the only response to my application that
27.
could have been expected. I had failed the mathematics portion of the examinations due to rushing through to leave early, while explaining I had to be at work by four o’clock. I also failed the medical examination as I could not meet the required difference of two inches between the expansion and contraction of my chest. In reality, I was not prepared academically or physically and I had not taken the application process seriously. I had not taken any steps to determine what was necessary to meet the engagement criteria and now was paying the price for that lack of initiative. A career in the RCMP faded in my consciousness and I fell back into the occupational pothole that I placed myself in by leaving school prematurely. For a time, after receiving the rejection letter, the doldrums set in. The position I held in the shipping department at Premier Steel Mills provided an excellent opportunity to learn the complexities of steel production, stock control and shipping. It also allowed me to witness the dangers of a hot rolling mill and a steel smelter in full production. Roughing machines in the mill broke down ingots into various lengths of reinforcing bar, depending upon the size of the bar required for the production run. The smaller diameter bars, sizes three or four–– described as “spaghetti”–– were very dangerous if mishandled or if they jammed at the roughing machines. The fast-moving ribbons of uncontrolled red hot steel could suddenly thrash about wildly throughout the work area. Under those circumstances, the men known as “roughers” working the machines had to scramble to avoid severe burns before the equipment could be shut down and the chaos halted. Fortunately, I did not work there. Those that did worked 30 minutes on and 30 minutes off due to the excessive heat and were very well paid. Notwithstanding, the danger of that job did not appeal to me. In the smelter, scrap steel, converted to molten metal in blast furnaces also presented real danger when the furnace contents were emptied into large ladles for filling ingot moulds. While working an extra shift on a Saturday to assist in the short-handed smelter foundry, I observed absolute panic when a stopper in a ladle let go and a three-inch stream of near white-hot molten metal surged out the bottom. Everything nearby was splattered with the searing liquid as the crane operator sounded the alarm bells and quickly moved the rapidly-emptying ladle to a predetermined dumping area. On that occasion, no one was hurt, although the panic it caused until everything was under control created an adrenalin surge for anyone near the site as they scrambled to get out of range. My job gave me variety and some excitement yet I opted to leave it over a minor dispute and difference of opinion with my supervisor, Tom Ough. It was an irrational decision on my part, taken hastily in the heat of our differences. Tom’s brother John––a good friend––recommended me and Tom gave me the opportunity to work in the shipping department. When I quit, I did not consider the underlying principle that comes with such a recommendation which was the obligation to do a good job. As a nineteen year old teenager, the concept of appreciation was not
something that loomed large in my mind nor did the potential impact of unemployment. I left knowing that A.I.M. Steel, a steel fabricating plant located adjacent to Premier Steel was often looking for staff. A day or so later, I approached Andy, the Production Supervisor, whom I knew and accepted a position that looked promising; however, I soon found it was temporary. When the economy began to decline that fall, contracts ran out and I was let go after two months in December 1957. That was not the time to be unemployed as I soon discovered and realized. I was about to find out what real unemployment was about. By the end of January 1958 I was feeling the financial pressure. I had enough money in the bank for one more payment on my new 1957 Chevrolet two-door sedan. My father made it clear; if I could not make the payments I would have to sell the car. He was not going to carry my baggage as that was my responsibility. With this threat hanging over my head, I stood in line at the unemployment office in downtown Edmonton. That hour or so I spent in line to receive a small amount––about $17.00––was extremely humiliating. I vowed never to return to such a line and never have. Finally, a temporary part-time office position with Schlumberger Oilfield Services was offered at a rate of $1.00 per hour. There, I was taught how to make long printed copies of sounding logs of oil well formations. The log was produced as a long negative that was used in conjunction with rolls of paper. Both were fed into a machine which transferred the log results from the negative onto the paper for a printed version. These were reproduced and distributed to various engineers who studied the formations to determine the potential production capabilities of the well. As part of the process, the machine used ammonia, which had to be refilled. The ammonia was stored in forty-five gallon barrels in a separate building and I had been cautioned to be extremely careful when refilling one-gallon jugs as the fumes could be deadly. On one occasion, there was insufficient ventilation and I took in a breath of the strong fumes which nearly knocked me out. I was very lucky and my supervisor, although exceptionally concerned, chastised me accordingly. At that time, masks for such work were unheard of. While working at Schlumberger my job hunt continued and it took me until April before I found employment with the Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Company in Edmonton. They were looking for personnel for their operations in Drayton Valley, Alberta, a booming oil town 90 miles southwest of Edmonton. As I had experience driving eighteen-wheel tractor-trailer units, to my surprise, I was hired on the spot. After several months of unemployment, I was very thankful of the job offer and was determined to do it well. Although I had never lived away from home, I readily accepted the working conditions which meant I had to be on call twenty-four hours a day for a fixed monthly wage, to live in a bunk house and to work long hours for twentyeight straight days before getting four days off. There was no such thing as overtime or working benefits. I had to show up for work when required and then work as long as necessary in all kinds
of weather conditions. Within a week, I left for Drayton Valley contemplating the thrill of working in the “oil patch.” Quitting my job and unemployment taught me valuable lifechanging lessons. With a renewed attitude, I was determined to re-apply to the RCMP. I was going to work hard to build up my body to meet RCMP physical requirements and I was going to study for my planned second attempt at the entrance examinations. Therefore, I took all of my, little-used, high school books and put them to good use studying in the bunk house in my off-hours. The Halliburton bunkhouse complex consisted of 10 or 12 four-man units. One was converted into a washroom and shower facility but a visit required a long, cold trek in the winter months. I shared a unit with Peter Niven who had been with the company for two or three years. He was an exceptionally good mentor, very knowledgeable and intent on cleanliness in our work environment that often immersed everything in mud and crude oil. Years later he went on to be one of Halliburton’s senior managers in Edmonton. We worked long hard hours and it was not unusual for our day to start at three or four in the morning and to end late in the afternoon or early evening after the trucks were cleaned and maintenance done so they were ready for an early start the next day. Within six months––much to my astonishment––I was given full responsibility for the operation and maintenance of an eighteen-wheel tractor-trailer unit, one of two in Drayton Valley. This was a powerful hydraulic fracturing unit for pumping a mixture of sand and oil down the oil wells, at high pressure, to increase production. The trailer carried two 600 horsepower, V-12 Cummins diesel engines and two heavy-duty pumps with transmissions connecting them. These were the largest and most powerful units in the shop inventory and everyone looked up to the operators. My assignment may have been in recognition of my earlier experience driving trucks of that size. Some workers, who were hopeful of being assigned to one, had been with the company much longer. I knew they were annoyed and disappointed that I got that unsolicited opportunity. What I did not realize at first was that I was given total responsibility for the operation and maintenance of the truck and the equipment thereon. At one point, the main bearings on one of the V-12 diesels required changing and I was told to do it albeit under the supervision of a diesel mechanic. Sometimes, Halliburton working conditions were extreme but there was never a moment that did not generate a feeling of camaraderie and a sense of belonging to a company family. Some of my experiences, from April, 1958 to the end of December, 1959, included: an on-site fire for which several of us received company commendations in recognition of our response; a V-12, running at full throttle, that pushed a piston rod through the side of the engine; trucks being pulled through mud to the well site by D-9 Caterpillar bulldozers; trucks that had to be left running all night in minus twenty degree F temperatures; an on-site Shell Oil gas well blowing in, which sounded like a jet engine at full throttle; and, a scalded arm caused by an overheated V-12 radiator.
More challenging events were the requirement to move heavy equipment through bush roads into the Swan Hills region northnorth-west of Edmonton to isolated drilling rigs. Heavy, tandemaxle cementing trucks had to be moved into the rigs before spring break-up or there would be no chance to get them in until the dirt roads dried up sufficiently to carry their heavy weight. On my first trip, I was driving the cement truck while Ron Jones––one of our supervisors––followed in a company pick up. We left the main highway at Fox Creek for a 90 mile journey in winter conditions on a narrow, icy, bush road. It was a clear, cold, brilliant sunny day and we wanted to be at the rig by dark. As the truck had all-wheel drive, we felt that we would not encounter any major problems. However, after several hours of driving, we came to a small valley where we had to cross a log bridge over a creek and climb the other side. I did not anticipate the effects of the afternoon sun on that south facing hill. As I crossed the bridge, I geared for maximum power to take me up the hill on the opposite side. Immediately after crossing the creek, the road curved sharply to my left and then the climb began. There was no opportunity to gain any significant speed to take a run at the slope. I soon realized that even though I had lots of power, I was not going to make it to the top of the hill. It was very slippery, like a thin coating of water on a skating rink. By the time I was about three quarters of the way up, even though all wheels were going forward the unit started sliding backwards down the hill. There was nothing I could do, I had no control. I was gaining momentum downhill even with full power forward. As it gathered speed, it entered my mind to jump from the vehicle and let it go but I could not bring myself to do that; I was not inclined to give up and was determined to try to stay on the road. The vehicle was starting to slide slightly sideways to the left at a fifteen to twentydegree angle which placed me, on the driver’s side, on the inside of the slide. To jump meant that I had to jump clear of the long nose of the vehicle; otherwise, I would have been under the left front wheel. I stayed with it and managed to keep the truck on the road. Ron fortunately was at a safe distance on the log bridge. Watching in alarm, he thought that I would loose it for sure. Once stopped at the bottom––with an accelerated heartbeat––I was very thankful that I was still able to enjoy the beauty of the day. That slide, of about 150 yards was frightening. However, I put on the chains which I knew would take me up the hill with no problem. With the chains on and with the powerful engine and gear ratio at my disposal, that icy hill never knew what hit it as the truck chewed and tore its way to the top with chunks of ice and snow flying. At the summit, I actually enjoyed the chore of removing the chains. After driving several more hours, I became overconfident as we neared our destination. I entered a corner a little too fast and slid off the road. Fortunately, there was about three to four feet of snow plowed to the side of the road which cushioned the entry of the truck into the ditch so there was no damage to the vehicle. Ron had been very happy with my driving at the icy hill earlier
in the day; however, he was not pleased with this latest incident. It took us over two hours to dig the unit out, using an improvised shovel, so the chains could, again, be put on. Once they were in place the truck easily “walked” itself out. The chains stayed on for the remainder of the trip, another 5 miles to the rig.
of the detachment invited me to join their curling team that winter. That gave me some insight into life at a rural detachment. In August, 1959, I was advised by the RCMP that I was on the waiting list for engagement. That was exciting, even though they had not given me any hint when I might be called.
On a second trip two weeks later in the same region, the distance was much shorter and the road conditions better. That was an easy run compared to the first trip and the bonus was to be flown out to Edmonton in the Halliburton Beaver aircraft, from a small airstrip in the bush, located near the drilling rig. As one of the company supervisors had taken the opportunity to accompany the pilot on the trip to pick us up, neither had considered the consequences of taking off from a short, rough, bush strip with four passengers. Flying a Beaver for an oil company, the pilot had bush-flying experience and knew the perils he might encounter. However, tell that to a young man, who at that time had very limited flying experience and none from a small airstrip cut out of the bush! It was a harrowing experience for me as we left the ground and cleared the treetops by what seemed to be inches.
In September 1959, I was transferred to Red Deer, Alberta. Although it was a promotion, I did not enjoy the new position as much as working on the pumping units. I operated a “blender” which was a large tandem truck with the capability to blend sand and crude oil at a pre-determined ratio which was then fed to the pumping units under pressure. Those units then pumped the mixture down the well at a much higher pressure. I settled in to my work in Red Deer and in early December the RCMP offered me induction into the Force in mid-January. That was unexpected; I had no indication an offer would be forthcoming so soon. Although the offer induced considerable excitement, I still felt somewhat anxious accepting. As a result, I spoke with the Halliburton manager in Red Deer, Walt Louden, for two reasons; first, to seek his counsel as he had served briefly in the RCMP and second to advise him I would be leaving Halliburton. He was very kind and expressed his disappointment although he understood my desire. He told me that should I become disgruntled with the RCMP and wanted to return to Halliburton, I was to call him collect and I would be placed on the payroll from the day I made that phone call. That comment was very much appreciated and gave me a good feeling about how I was perceived by the Halliburton management during my brief tenure with the company. As a small memento, he gave me a souvenir pocket knife with the Halliburton crest on it commemorating Halliburton’s years of service in Canada.
On the evening of December 31, 1958, we were a convoy of six trucks attempting to get back to Drayton Valley for New Years Eve. It was near 8:00 p.m. and we were driving in a blinding snow storm with about 60 miles yet to go. I was assigned to a large tandem-axle, all-wheel drive truck with permanent heavy equipment mounted on the back. It was a heavy, yet powerful unit. The edges of the prairie road were difficult to see under the conditions and I made the mistake of moving too close to the side as I met an oncoming pickup truck. Even though we passed by each other at a snail’s pace, the right side of my unit edged into the unseen ditch and pulled itself into a deep snow drift. The vehicle was leaning about 60-degrees and stayed there due to the deep snow packed along the side. The whole incident occurred in slow motion. My supervisor was not happy. His reprimand was to state that I should have forced the pickup off the road as I had the bigger vehicle and could have pulled him out but there was no way he could pull me out. To add insult to injury, I was the last heavy unit so there was no unit following which was big enough to pull my truck out of the ditch. Without any means of communication, other than to chase down the trucks ahead, the supervisor finally caught up to the fleet and brought one back. Finally, we arrived back in Drayton Valley near midnight. These were exciting times, although it was not the life style I could see myself in over the long term. We worked hard and we played hard. As I was intent on re-applying for the Force, I made sure that I did not place myself in any position that would jeopardize my application. On more than one occasion, because I was underage, I waited in the truck when older crew members visited small-town beer parlours. In those days, to be caught in the pub under age would have ended my hopes of joining the Force. By the fall of 1958, I had made contact with the local detachment of the RCMP in Drayton Valley to discuss and submit my new application for recruitment. Subsequently, one of the members
The “oil patch” paid off both academically––through my studies in my bunkhouse classroom––and physically, from lugging “pig iron”, the heavy, high pressure steel piping, valves and connectors. Mentally, it had been impressed upon me that hard work, determination and dedication were key elements to success as was loyalty to the team without which, people could get hurt. In every way, I was ready to take on police training. To be continued in the next issue of Metanoia
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The Institute is pleased to publish this exploratory approach to the analysis of Canadian educational policy. Mr. Wadsworth brings to his subject the point of view of an observer outside the organized structure of education. From this vantage point he examines policy in education from three distinct but overlapping viewpoints, which he describes as the rational, the pragmatic, and the research approaches. Such an analysis is of particular consequence today. Education costs have reached the point where the taxpaying public is questioning the entire educational structure, and at the same time, many within the structure have expressed profound discontent. The need for fresh analyses of our schools and school systems is paramount. Mr. Wadsworth’s study is being published in order that his ideas and recommendations may receive attention. R. W. B. Jackson, Director. The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education Toronto, June 1971
Continued from previous issue Constraints in Education The view that the growth of educational systems is constrained within narrow financial limits, because of the impossibility of expanding significantly the tax base in anything less than a generation and because of competing demands on tax revenues, narrowly assumes that private financing of education is nonexistent, and that the educational process will continue to be carried out formally within the existing highly labor-intensive institutional framework. However, by accepting the possibility of more private financial support for education, by accepting the possibility of a greater reliance upon education as a nonformal activity, and by broadly introducing technology to lessen the labor-intensiveness of the educational process and therefore increase its productivity, it is possible to construct the following taxonomy of decreasing constraint. Education as a tax-supported, formal, labor-intensive process. The view of education as a tax-supported, formal, laborintensive process provides the greatest condition of constraint to growth. It assumes that education can only be carried out within the existing conventional institutional framework. The barrier effect to entrance to professions is at its strongest and the whole educational process is rendered inflexible and incapable of adapting to a changing environment. Education as a tax-supported and privately supported formal, labour-intensive process. Although the addition of private support allows greater growth than under a solely tax-supported system, the educational process is still highly constrained.
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Education as a tax-supported and privately supported, formal, technologically assisted process. The introduction of technological assistance to the former labor-intensive process is, of course, a very simple means of increasing the productivity of the system. In fact, it is simply a means of multiplying teaching staff. Technological assistance is, of course, envisaged in the form of visual aids, closed-circuit TV, computer-assisted instruction, etc. (See Appendix A for the necessary caution regarding an over-enthusiastic view of the widespread introduction of technology into the formal educational process.) Whether the introduction of technology will render the system more flexible, and therefore more capable of rapid adaption to a changing environment, has yet to be convincingly demonstrated, but there is an exciting possibility. Education as a tax-supported and privately supported nonformal, technologically assisted process. The addition of nonformality to the process results in the growth of education being subjected to the least constraint. The nonformal aspects of education include on-the-job training, learning by doing, leisure-time pursuits, the mass media, etc. Indubitably, the impact of the pocketbook has been to increase the nonformal prospects or education enormously. If the nonformal aspects of education are emphasized, the higher educational levels will be widely assisted, and the barrier effect to professional entrance lowered; and if the lower levels of education concentrate upon rendering the student educable, the whole of the educational system through its new flexibility will be able to adapt rapidly to the changing environment. There will be a greater emphasis upon selection rather than qualification- in fact, perhaps a tendency toward mediocracy. The fact that the conventional constraints to educational growth can possibly be removed by greater reliance upon technological assistance and by a wider embracing of the nonformal aspects of education make it imperative that these two aspects be subjected to further intensive study.
Statements of the Objectives by Educators Castle implies that modern education might be described as a series of splendid expeditions towards the wrong goal or towards no goal at all, led by men who have all the gifts of leadership except a sense of direction, and every endowment for achieving their ends except a knowledge of ends worth achieving. If our main aim is to educate for democracy, one would ask what sort of person a good democrat ought to be; if for creative freedom, one would ask, to create what; if for social equality, what is meant by equality; if for social change, change into what; if for a technological age, what one intended to do with one’s inventions; if to form character, what should be regarded as good character. It is disconcerting to realize that nearly all aims are really means to ends that one has failed to define- that the thinking was begun at entirely the wrong end.
Typically, educators evangelically demand that the recipients look not at the educator but where he is looking. Today, it is common to resort to Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations: Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, a least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technological and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedom. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children. Hall-Dennis adds further evangelism: The underlying aim of education is to further man’s unending search for truth. Once he possesses the means to truth, all else is within his grasp. Wisdom and understanding, sensitivity, compassion, and responsibility, as well as intellectual honesty and personal integrity, will be his guides in adolescence, and his companions in maturity. This is the message that must find its way into the minds and hearts of all Ontario children. This is the key to open all doors. It is the instrument which will break the shackles of ignorance, of doubt, and of frustration; that will take all who respond to its call out of their poverty, their slums, and their despair; that will spur the talented to find heights of achievement and provide every child with the experience of success; that will give mobility to the crippled; that will illuminate the dark world of the blind and bring the deaf into communion with the hearing; that will carry solace to the disordered of mind, imagery to the slow of wit, and peace to the emotionally disturbed; that will make all men brothers, equal in dignity if not in ability; and that will not tolerate disparity of the race, colour, or creed. MacKinnon has advocated that education badly needs protection from humbug in the form of high-sounding aims and sloppy sentiment that may lead some people to expect
too much from the schools and then, disappointed, to become hostile to the schools and education itself. The evangelism of Hall-Dennis continues: In a democratic society, it is not the task of education to stress the thousand influences and labels dividing man from man but to establish the necessary bonds and common ground between them. The great weight of education lies in providing learning experience which meets the needs of each, and which at the same time foster that feeling of compassion among human beings which is the greatest strength and bulwark of democracy. The above surely provides substantiation for Illich’s contention that the school has become the established church of secular times: ...the begowned academic professors... [evoke] the ancient procession of clerics and little angels on the day of Corpus Christi. The church, holy, catholic, apostolic, is rivalled by the school, accredited, compulsory, untouchable, universal. The power of the school to rescue the denizen of the slum, is as the power of the church to save the Moslem Moor from hell. The difference between church and school is mainly that the rights of the school have now become much more rigorous and onerous than were the rights of the church in the worst days of the Spanish Inquisition. The incredibly evangelical, mystical, and maternal statements relating to the objectives of education, which educators themselves produce, abound to the extent that some serious interpretation of their intent must be attempted: -Is there a desire to render the education process mystically esoteric for the retention of political power? -Is there a desire to render the education process mystically esoteric to retain professional status (e.g., as in law, medicine, pharmacology)?
contemporary society, their sincerity is equalled only by their lack of evidence. In the above quotations, the word educator could be substituted for scientist. This is a fascinating area of sociology (political sociology), for which no reading has come to hand.
The Perspective of National Goals Because of the problem-revealing rather than problemsolving nature of the analysis so far, which has been aimed at a derivation of objectives of Canadian education, the consideration of Canadian education from the perspective of national goals only raises a further series of substantive questions. Cause or effect. Is education an instrument of government policy, or is it an objective or a goal of government policy? Is it both? If it is both, how much is instrument and how much is goal? What are the Canadian national goals? The need for national goals and a possible approach for their derivation has been discussed. How can education affect the national goals? Naturally, the answer to this question depends upon whether education is treated as an instrument, a goal, or both. How may education be controlled so that it can be used optimally from the perspective of national goals? Any attempt to answer this fundamental substantive question involves the whole concept of federalism, the division of sovereign authority, and the essential interdependence of and mobility between regions that a modern state requires. While the existing constitution forbids any direct federal government control of education, the overriding considerations of interdependency of regions and unrestricted migration demand that the central government assume some advisory or coordinating function. The need for some umbrella federal royal commission review of education in all its aspects in Canada cannot be overemphasized. Such a review should be carried out with a minimum representation from the professional educators.
-Is there a desire to render the education process mystically esoteric to disguise the ignorance and lack of direction of the field? The same sort of mysticism prevails in the field of pure science and has been well documented by Greenberg: Let this be observed by scientists: greater chauvinism, xenophobia and evangelism hath no professional. When the statesmen of pure science proclaim that their pure science is the locomotive of
Left: The late Dr. Jack Wadsworth Centre: Julie Yap Wadsworth with daughter, Jackie Wadsworth Right: Hank Leis and daughter of the late Jack Wadsworth, Jackie Wadsworth Jackie Wadsworth was born on Jack Wadsworth’s birthday, 70 days after Jack Wadsworth’s passing.
To be continued in the next issue of Metanoia
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The Dan Walker Chronicles Mt. Changbai to Qiqihar Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Hank and the driver picked us up at 9:30 to go to a museum, most of which was closed for renovation, and to St. Sophia’s Russian Orthodox Church. The original wood church was built in 1896 for the railroad workers and the Russian soldiers protecting them. It was torn down and in 1932 replaced with the existing stone one. Inside was a gallery of old photos dating from the beginnings of the city until the Japanese left. The artwork inside the church and all ornamentation was destroyed during the cultural revolution, however it was one of the very few church buildings to survive. Beside the church was a large plaza with jets of water shooting two or three feet into the air. It was crowded with parents and their kids getting wet to beat the heat - a photo op Marilynn couldn’t resist. Lunch was a local specialty called pancakes. It is a plate of large crepes and many dishes of different foods that are placed inside along with sauces. They were delicious and filling. The first thing on the table is a teapot full of hot water, which people in north China drink. Hank says it is to clean the palate between dishes. We had nothing on our program for the afternoon, so Hank brought his own car to the hotel and took us to the Siberian Tiger Park. Here we boarded small busses with the tires and all windows covered with very heavy wire mesh and went into the reserve through gates remotely controlled from a high control tower. Inside are various areas cut off from one another - for adult tigers,
for breeding pairs, etc. Hank says they have 1,200 of this endangered species, many of whom are in a wild state. We witnessed a feeding, done from an armoured bus with a round chute out the back. Food is dropped from the chute as the bus passes through each area. The reason for the armor was evident when some cats attacked the bus. Next stop was Sun Island Park, where electric carts circulate on a hop on, hop off basis. It is a big park, with artificial waterfalls, an island with a unique population of squirrels, boating lakes and other sites, but nothing could compare with a huge, high freezer facility filled with ice statues, buildings, columns, and so on. Hank warned us to rent a heavy coat before going in, and at first we declined not understanding exactly what it was about, however he insisted and we were glad he did as it is maintained at about 30 degrees below freezing. By the time we finished exploring the complex my ears were freezing. It was indescribably spectacular, done on a huge scale, but Hank says it gives only a tiny idea of what the city and area are like Dan Walker is an adventurer, a businessman, and raconteur. He has every country in the world. in winter. Dinner was beer and visited His trusty Rolls Royce has taken him across many continents. He includes popcorn, with a shared bowl of his grandchildren in some of his travels allowing them to select the nation. Originally, he hails from noodles. We were still stuffed desti Victoria, British Columbia, but now resides in Costa Rica. We are pleased from lunch. to present the Dan Walker Chronicles.
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MISSIVES FROM DONALD J BOUDREAUX I have no patience for the presumptuousness of nanny-staters. Don http://www.cafehayek.com Mr. Jay Lott:
Dear Mr. Lott: Commenting on a Facebook post of mine - a post in which I ridicule arrogant people who distrust individuals to make their own private choices - you say “What you want, and what’s good for you, are often not the same thing. We are all human, after all.” True. But it’s also true that what others want for you, and what’s good for you, are even more often not the same thing. None of us is a god, after all. Contrary to the presumptions of most behavioral economists and other nanny-staters, the fact that Jones and Smith are sometimes deficient when choosing for themselves in the market does not make them less deficient when choosing for others in the voting booth or in some government office complex. One more point: even if I’m terrible at making choices in my own best interest, a fundamental truth is that I own me. No one else owns me. No one has a moral right to tell me what to do as regards my own well-being. I, like any other self-respecting person, would much prefer even to ruin my life if I do so through my own choices than to be to be saddled, bridled, and steered by some pretentious do-gooder to his or her notion of utopia. Sincerely, Donald J. Boudreaux Professor of Economics and Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center George Mason University Fairfax, VA 22030
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