EclectEcon

What's in a Name? I've been "Gramps" for over 21 years

The Globe and Mail reports that younger couples (and, presumably, their parents) are scrambling to come up with creative names for grandparents. There are several reasons for this.

• So many of the younger couples come from blended families that their children have more than the 'standard' four grandparents, and they need to find additional, distinguishing names for all the different grandparents.
• Many grandparents and their children look for unique or chic monikers. Others use names which reflect a blended culture. Indeed, Ms. Eclectic usually just goes by her first name with our grandchildren but for one family the use of first names for older persons by children is deemed inappropriate, and so to that family she is "Nana" in keeping with that portion of the grandchild's heritage.

In my case, I selected "Gramps" because it makes me sound old, grumpy, and doddering, characterizations that I found amusingly self-deprecating 21 years ago. They seem so apt these days. As the article says,

 Names like Granny and Gramps “give off a vision of being old,” explains grandfather John Dawson in The New York Times.

Indeed, I recall as a teenager referring to old men auto drivers (typically any male who drove at, rather than over, the speed limit) as "gramps", as in "Come on, Gramps. Get that heap moving."

But having selected the name "Gramps", I love it. And now, given all the newly devised names that others are coming up with, perhaps "Gramps" will become the new retro-chic, as forecast in the article for Grandma and Grandpa:

Before long, good ol’ Grandma and Grandpa will sound retro chic.

The only problem I ever had with using the name "Gramps" was when our first grandchild had troubles pronouncing it as she was learning to speak, and it came out "Dumps". Fortunately, that name didn't stick!

More on Decision Rules for Valuing things

Prompted by the comments here and on Facebook to my previous posting about valuing things, I thought I would try to clarify a few things:

• I realize that my guesses about what things my children might value are imperfect. Some of the things I'm saving or passing on to them are things I think they ought to value, things I hope they will value eventually, even if they might not value them now. Family heirlooms, booklets of memories, etc. fall into this category. 
• My daughter made the mistake of telling us they might have a yard sale with the things they don't want. That information could have made us more reluctant to pass things on to her, but in fact it had the opposite effect: if we thought an object might be of value to someone in a yard sale, off it went to my daughter.
• We haven't held a yard sale ourselves, nor have I listed anything other than our cat (FREE and LOVABLE! Please let me know if you want to adopt her!!) on Kijiji. In response to Ironman's question, I think the transaction costs of those types of disposal are just too high for us, especially since all the disposal, packing, moving, etc. must take place fairly quickly. 
• We began by giving most of our yard equipment and supplies to some friends.
• Things we don't want, and that we think our children won't want (and won't likely want to try to sell themselves) are going to various charity shops. Some will take only clothing; others take household items as well. Also we've had pretty good luck disposing of large items by just leaving them on the curb (e.g. big sheets of foam insulation, a not-perfect coat tree, a couple of desk chairs with taped-up arms). 
• Alex's problem, mentioned in his comment, is one that has plagued me over the years: "Whaddya mean nobody wants this computer? I paid over $2K for it!" etc. I think the only floppies we've saved are for the textbook I did many years ago. But we also shredded tonnes of them (let's hear it for tough shredders!). Also, we just put two keyboards, two portable tape recorders, etc. in the garbage. And even though I can't imagine anyone will want it, I put my super-duper expensive Panasonic portable CD player into a charity bag. 
• I'm not at all keen on Rick's partner's solution. That solution implies a value of zero or less for all the items in both piles. Even with fairly high shadow prices for storage in the place we're moving to, there are some things I value enough that I'd like to keep them. Examples here include my old scrapbooks and photo albums, conductors' scores, old family letters, etc. Many of these I'll eventually photograph so we can get rid of the originals, but I haven't been able to get to that yet.

Decision Rules for Valuing Things

As we prepare to move from our present house to an apartment condo, we must downsize, purge, get rid of stuff. Parting with many of the things is actually a joy (no more yard work! no more snow removal!) but parting with other things has required me to think carefully about my decisions.

These seem to be the rough rules that have evolved in my mind as I have been going through the process:

• Is there any chance I will use or want to have access to this item ever again in my lifetime? e.g. old files, books, tools, equipment, etc.  If the answer is no, then the object is a strong candidate for disposal, subject to the next question.
• If I think the probability is low that I will ever want the object, is there much of a chance that my children and grandchildren might find it of any interest or value when they go through my stuff after I die? If so, I have tried to pass it on now rather than wait for them to have to go through everything then.

If the answers to both questions are no, then it goes. Here are some examples:

• Tools? almost all are gone. I'm keeping a few basic hand tools and my latest power drill. If I ever need any of my other power tools, I'll borrow them back from my son or daughter (and actually try to use their places to do any work!).
•  Hardware? I have tonnes of cabinets with little drawers of screws, fasteners, door knob sets, hinges, etc. Gone. If I need them, I'll borrow them or buy new ones. 
• Books? Ms. Eclectic and I mostly read e-books these days. Nearly all the books are gone, including copies of those I have written. More difficult decisions involved old books (and other old items) that have been in the family for generations. I finally realized my children and grandchildren won't want to be saddled with them, so I have found good homes for them.
• Old files. What a thrill to be forced to go through all my old files and clear them out. And it was so much easier once we realized that nearly all the files we use are on our computers.
• Old slides? We have 2800 slides (five boxes worth!). I took 'em to a photo shop and am paying through the nose to have them put on DVDs for us and our children. The memories will be fun, but setting up an old slide projector to look at them wouldn't be worth the effort. Gone.
• Alcohol? We're doing our best to get rid of as much as possible so we won't have to move it. 8-)

We still have a long way to go over the next several weeks, and parting with memories is always a bit painful. But for the most part, this cleansing is both physically and emotionally cathartic. 

Having had to sort through and make decisions about so many things from my mom's house after she died 16 years ago helped me develop these decision rules. There were so many things in her house (she had lived in the same house for nearly 50 years) that I didn't even look at but just threw out or donated to local charities. But I also kept a bunch of family memorabilia and enjoyed looking through it as I packed it up. I'm hoping I've kept mostly similar types of things for our progeny.

Digression: several years ago I apologized to my older son, David Ricardo Palmer, for having so many boxes of stuff that he'd have to go through after we die. His response, "My only hope, Dad, is that you go in a house fire." I think our downsizing will have been a satisfactory alternative.

Cellaring Fine Beverages - It Doesn't Work with Soft Drinks

A number of years ago, I was dismayed when I learned that Coca-Cola had ceased production of my then-favourite soft drink, Diet Vanilla Coke. I immediately hunted down a couple of supermarkets that had some in stock still, and laid in a supply. 

I had no idea that you can't cellar soft drinks the way you cellar wine.

During the past few weeks, in preparation for moving to smaller living quarters, I decided to sample and maybe polish off the supply I had laid in. But I was sadly disappointed.

As I had expected, the two-litre plastic bottle had lost its fizz. What was worse was that even allowing for it's being flat, it tasted horrible. So down the drain it went. A day or two later, I found a twelve-pack of cans that I had also "cellared". With some hope and expectation, I cracked open one of the cans and was delighted to discover the carbonation was still near its peak. One taste, though, and I threw the rest away. It tasted pretty much like the discarded stuff that had been in a plastic bottle (albeit with fizz). 

At that point, I wondered if maybe the problem was me, that I had maybe lost my taste for Diet Vanilla Coke; I wondered whether the beverage would cellar just fine in cans but maybe I just didn't like it any more.

Then I came across a twelve-pack of Diet Vanilla Cherry Dr. Pepper that I had laid in about five years ago. I tentatively tried one of those, and it tasted just as bad as the Diet Vanilla Coke had tasted. That led me to conclude that it was the pop, not me.

I guess this means it probably isn't a good idea to try to cellar soft drinks. Too bad.

Digression #1: Apparently Diet Vanilla Coke was revived in 2007. I haven't seen it on the shelves anywhere in our area, though I see that Amazon carries Vanilla Coke Zero. I eagrely await its arrival in our area.

Digression #2: It appears from this site that Diet Vanilla Cherry Dr. Pepper is still in production, but as with Diet Vanilla Coke, I haven't seen it for years. Importantly, this site says that the shelf life of soft drinks containing aspartame is only 3 months. I can understand this now.

Update: A number of years ago, someone who was a knowledgeable (and a bit snooty?) wine afficianado was discussing proper conditions in his wine cellar, etc. etc.. At one point, with a straight face, I asked him the proper way to cellar wine that has a screw cap instead of a cork. 

More Concerning Huron College and Questionable Funding

As I hope you all know, and as I have made clear in the past, I do not oppose the inclusion of Islamic Studies at Huron University College at The University of Western Ontario. At the same time, as I have indicated in my previous postings, I have some concerns about the source of the proposed funding for an endowed chair in Islamic Studies (see here and here). As a followup, a number of those who signed the original letter (including me) have signed the following letter to Campus Watch:

To: Campus Watch

Re: Funding of Chair in Islamic studies at HUC from questionable sources

We thank Campus Watch for  publishing the excellent essay of Barbara Kay on the establishment of a Chair in Islamic Studies at Huron University College in London, Ontario funded mainly by the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC). Your coverage sparked quite a bit of media interest in Canada and, at last, this matter is getting public attention.

 This report is coming to you from a number of the individuals who signed the original letter of concern to Huron University College. (It is not signed by all of them because we want to get the information contained in this communication out quickly and we do not have the time to contact and receive a reply from all the signatories.) As the message is too long for a letter to any editor  we hope you will publish this on your web-site as an update to Barbara Kay’s essay.

  To every argument put to them, Huron University College through its acting principal, Dr. T. Fulton, responds that Huron College has done due diligence, examined the issues and that it is ethically acceptable to take the $1 million dollar matching grant from the  IIIT because no unindicted co-conspiritor from the IIIT  has been convicted in a court of law and  nor have any other donors..

  We would like to add some new information on this matter. The signers of the letter to HUC learned of the funding  of a chair in Islamic Studies on March 8 from the London Free Press, the local newspaper. A sentence from the article says: ″The chair is backed by $2 million in private funding, with support from the Islamic Centre for Southwestern Ontario, the London Muslim Mosque and the Muslim Association of Canada". There was no mention of a matching grant of 1 million dollars to be provided by the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). On HUC’s website, which has an appeal for funds for this project, there is a reference to a matching grant from a “major North American foundation″. Through web searches we discovered that the provider of the matching grant was to be the IIIT, which is not even a foundation, let alone a major North American foundation.

 We then did some research on the MAC and the IIIT and wrote to HUC & the University of Western Ontario, (UWO) with our concerns. However, knowing that what we had to say would not be welcome news to HUC, we did not just send the letter but also provided a large package of documents and articles backing up all our contentions. The MAC and the IIIT are Muslim Brotherhood related organisations. The founders and executive officers of the IIIT have been involved and cited in numerous terrorist related investigations particularly in the provision of funds to the military wing of Hamas. (We will be happy to supply the document package to any interested party.) On this topic it is fair to say that HUC has simply not paid attention to the materials supplied by us to them. Their argument seems to be that short of a court conviction, anything goes.

 When we looked for information on the IIIT  & the MAC we didn’t look into the Islamic Centre for Southwestern Ontario (ICSO), located in London, Ontario although it was mentioned as a financial contributor in the LFP announcement described above. Something has happened in the last few days, however, that makes it necessary to bring this organisation into the story now. Ten days ago there was an article in the Ottawa Citizen entitled, ″Gadhafi charity in Canada linked to terrorism. Government revokes status of World Islamic Call Society". (May 7, 2011). In that article we learned that a Gadhafi charity was sending money from Libya to the personal bank account of a gentleman named Assem Fadel who then transferred the money from his personal account in to the bank account of the only branch in Canada of the Libya-based WICS which also happens to be located in London, Ontario. Money was then transferred from the WICS account to terrorist organisations outside Canada.  This was the reason the government of Canada removed the charitable status of the WICS. Question: Why is this relevant to the funding of the Chair in Islamic studies at Huron College? Answer: It just so happens that the president and director of the Islamic Centre for Southwestern Ontario is none other than Assem Fadel and he is also the president of the Canadian branch of the WICS. Here we have a clear and indisputable link between Gadhafi sponsored terrorist related activities involving the president of the Islamic Centre of Southwestern Ontario, a funding organisation of the chair in Islamic Studies. This link can not be denied by Huron College even if Assem Fadel claims an innocent explanation for what transpired. This didn’t happen years ago. It happened just over a week ago.

 Assem Fadel is not the only local promoter of the Islamic studies project with links to the World Islamic Call Society. At least 2 other major proponents of the chair in Islamic studies have attended conferences of the World Islamic Call Society in Libya. They are Faisal Joseph, a prominent lawyer in London who is closely involved with HUC  and Munir el-Kassem a dental surgeon who is also the ex-Muslim chaplain of the University of Western Ontario.

 This new information needs to be put before the public so that HUC be asked to take it into consideration and once again examine the question of whether or not they should accept funding from these sources. We recommend highly that they do not.

 

 

More On the Weak Due Diligence at Huron College: Barbara Kay Takes up the Cause

Huron College, which is affiliated with The University of Western Ontario, is in the process of accepting $2m from questionable sources to fund a chair in Islamic Studies. I wrote about my concerns, including a copy of my letter about them, last month (here), saying

I'm concerned about the source of the funding. I would hate for Huron College to fall into the abyss populated by the LSE or Hartford Seminary. 

Barbara Kay has written recently about this situation in a lengthy piece in Campus Watch. The Acting Principal of Huron College is Trish Fulton, whom I have known for nearly 40 years and for whom I have great respect. But I am disappointed, to say the least, that she and her colleagues have voted to accept the funds. Here are some excerpts from Barbara Kay's column [be sure to read the last paragraph of this excerpt]:

Fulton replied to Palmer's letter two days letter. She wrote that the "funding was approved by our Executive Board after a thorough due diligence process...[which] included reviewing the outcomes of the various decisions that were before the U.S. District Courts dealing with IIIT and its members...."

Curious to know what in this case constituted a "thorough due diligence process," I arranged for a telephone interview with Fulton, which took place on April 27. At the outset of our conversation, to make it clear that I was not calling with any motives of entrapment, I informed Fulton that I was not speaking to her in my capacity as a weekly columnist with Canada's National Post newspaper, but as a freelance writer engaged to write an article for Campus Watch, a media organ whose mandate was known to her.

I asked Fulton if Palmer's letter had given her pause or in any way persuaded her to review the decision to accept IIIT's and MAC's funding. She said that the letter did not come as a complete surprise, but that "we were not naïve" about the issues, and had no regrets.

I asked her what constituted "due diligence." Fulton said they had "reviewed the court decisions on allegations" against IIIT and its principals. They had also reviewed the experience of Temple University (alluded to in Palmer's letter). To my question of whether she felt the beliefs and principles of MAC and IIIT were "compatible with your values," she replied a prompt and firm "yes." I asked the question again, stipulating that by "your," I meant "Huron College." Again, she replied, "Yes, they are."

Elaborating, Fulton explained that for Huron, due diligence extends only to the "activities of the donors," adding, "We don't probe deeply into values held by donors." Huron, she said, is "concerned about the legitimacy and the civic presence" of donors, but "not the views they may hold on a wide variety of cultural issues." In Fulton's view, it is only a group's "actions" that would "compromise the academic pursuit."

As reported elsewhere, Canadian lawyer and Huron University College Executive Board member Faisal Joseph appears to have played an important role in the due diligence assessment. This role may have included the making of determinations about the pertinence of related US legal proceedings and the significance to be attached to an absence of such proceedings. Joseph, a noted member of Canada's Muslim community, is a controversial figure who participated in a January 2008 conference in Tripoli, Libya, a gathering sponsored by the World Islamic Call Society (WICS), a creation of Libya's Gaddafi regime. (In early May, its Canadian branch, WICS-Canada, saw its Canadian charity tax-status revoked over concerns of radicalism and possible financial links to the foiled 2007 JFK International Airport bomb plot.)

 

Geert Wilders Visited London, Ontario, Yesterday: some quotes and photos

Geert Wilders, outspoken Dutch critic of Islam and producer of the (in)famous film, Fitna, spoke in London, Ontario, last evening, under a cloak of secrecy and surrounded by a wall of security. 

Wilders is a well-known public figure who sees Islam as more of an ideology than a religion. During his talk, he lambasted multiculturalism. Two quotes:

Multiculturalism is the biggest disease in Europe today.

And the reason for that?

Multiculturalism would not have been such a catastrophe if it weren't for Islam.

Because of his views, his public statements, his film, and his policy proposals, Wilders' life is constantly in danger. The organizers of the evening event, the International Free Press Society, refused to advertise the dates and locations of his talks while he is in Canada. Instead, we found out about them through word-of-mouth and then had to register before receiving the information [he does have two more talks planned while he is in Canada, in case you are interested; the information is available at the IFPS website]. 

Accompanying Wilders were about 10 security personnel from The Netherlands; also the RCMP had a large security contingent on hand. We all went through a security check before being admitted to the place where he spoke.

This is just plain wrong. People speaking about religion and ideology should not live in fear for their lives and the lives of their friends and families. 

Geert Wilders:

The warm-up act for Wilders was a dialogue between Ezra Levant (of human rights and freedom of the press fame in Canada) and Sam Solomon, a noted scholar of Islam and Sharia Law; it was mostly an interview of Solomon by Levant. During that interview, Solomon (who converted to Christianity and was at times quite coy about his past) proclaimed,

If you do not hate, you cannot be a complete Muslim.

Both Wilders and Solomon are very outspoken critics of Islam.

Here is a photo I took of Solomon and Levant ( all my photos from the event: twelve-times optical zoom, no flash, from about 50 feet away):

The session was introduced by Bjorn Larsen, who recently filmed a documentary about Caledonia, freedom, and property rights and who heads up the IFPS:

One more photo of Wilders, who was extremely engaging and compelling as a speaker:

Modern-Day Rip van Winkle: What have been the most dramatic changes during the past twenty years?

Prompted by a remark in an e-mail message from MA, I began to wonder what would amaze me and puzzle me the most if I had gone to sleep 20 years ago. Here are some of the changes over the past twenty years that seem to me to have been the most dramatic. Aside from the first two, most of the rest seem to be the result of major changes in electronic and communication technologies.

• My family: all three children married (sort of, in one case) and five grandchildren. 
• Stock market indices and commodities prices. Oughta sight!
• Cell phones? nah, Ms. Eclectic and I both had one back then. But what cell phones, and especially smart phones, will do is pretty amazing.
• The explosion of the internet. Back in 1991, I was reading and contributing to tonnes of newsgroups (fun, and I made friends along the way with whom I am still in contact). But I hadn't even heard of "the web" back then. 
• in that same vein, Google and Wikipaedia: want to know something? It is so much easier to find an answer these days. 
• Real incomes. What I mean here is that there seem to be so many things that are so much cheaper these days than they were 20 years ago. I know, I know: food and energy and commodities prices have jumped a lot lately, but overall, prices for so many things seem not to have risen much, if at all, but incomes have.
• The size of gubmnt, especially in the US. 
• How much cleaner the environment seems, especially regarding industrial pollution. 
• CDs and DVDs? They were just barely breaking into the consumer markets, and now they're nearly passé. 
• Ceramic knives. I'm sure they were around before, but I'd never heard of them.
• any others? 

How Much of a Turn-Off is a Skunk Skin?

I have a skunk skin. It doesn't smell at all. I have had it for over ten years. I have kept it hanging, unobtrusively, on the wall of my study in each of the last two places we have lived. 

I am totally mystified and terribly disappointed to learn that realtors are saying I have to put it away because it will detract from the saleability of our house. 

What is going on? Don't other people have a sense of humour??

No Reason to Worry

My older son, David Ricardo Palmer, sent me this flow chart. Makes sense to me:

 

Islam's Predicament: Perspectives of a Dissident Muslim

Salim Mansur is a well-known columnist and political scientist who often writes about the Middle East, about Islam, and about North American politics. His book, Islam's Predicament: Perspectives of a Dissident Muslim is a collection of some of his more poignant writings, with the addition of longer essays that have not been published as his weekly columns in Canada. 

If you are not familiar with Mansur's writings, you might want to take a look at his columns as they become available on line with Sun News. Better yet, buy his book. 

Here are a few excerpts that particularly caught me. On Palestine:

 At best Arab claims to Palestine and Jersusalem were based on squatters' right ... Palestine was "liberated" from Ottoman Turkish rule by Britain towards the end of World War One and then partitioned twice. In 1922 for the first time when Britain demarcated the land on the east bank of the River Jordan as Transjordan (later to become the Kingdom of Jordan); and then for the second time in November 1947 when the United Nations divided the remaining territory on the west bank into two states, one Arab and one Jewish.

On the impact of 9/11 on his Muslim faith:

The events of September 11, 2001, ... made me rethink the basis of my thinking and living, writing and teaching regarding the politics of the Middle East, the world of Islam and its relationship with the West. That morning of 9/11, I along with so many of us, was overwhelmed by the horror of the evil we witnessed. That night I went to bed unaware of how greatly changed would be my sense of the world on awakening. I soon realized that I was beginning to reclaim a history and meaning for my faith -- Islam -- that was obscured, if not deliberately erased by those in authority and those aspiring to replace them. 

Salim Mansur and I have known each other for many years. We have met in the hallways at the university, we have met frequently on Saturday mornings for coffee at Starbucks in Masonville, we often socialize with our friends Ben, Eva, and Rory. His emergence as an intellectual leader, promoting and encouraging a Muslim reformation is inspiring. 

Judging from the reactions of many Muslims to his work, he is in a small minority. But his influence is growing.

.

Disclaimer: Salim gave me an autographed copy of his book.

Side note: For once it looks as if the Canadian price is roughly the same as the US price.

Geert Wilders to Visit Canada to Speak

Actually, click here.

The truly sad aspect of his visit is that because of concerns about safety, the organizers are not willing to advertise the dates and locations of his visits. However, by clicking on the link above, you can find the cities he is visiting and you can register to attend the talk. From that site,

Since 2004, Geert Wilders has been living under 24-hour police protection because his life is threatened by extremist Muslims. In 2008, Mr. Wilders gained international attention when he wrote and commissioned Fitna, a short documentary that explored Koranic inspired motivations for terrorism, Islamic universalism, and Islam in the Netherlands.

Mr. Wilders travels the world in defense of liberty and freedom of expression.

I'm planning to attend the session, which will also include a presentation by Ezra Levant. The get-together is organized by the International Free Press Society. 

Even if you don't agree with Wilders (or Levant, for that matter), I hope you agree they should be free to say the things they say. Competition in the marketplace for ideas is both valuable and powerful.

My Obsession with Pens

I didn't realize until a few years ago that I have an obsession with ballpoint pens. I expect this obsession stems from early childhood experiences. 

When I was very young, my aunt gave me a Reynolds ballpoint pen, one of the earliest ever made, as a gift. My parents were quite excited for me, but I wasn't all that thrilled. What did I care, and what did I need with a pen? Besides, its ink was blotchy and smeary.

Several years later, pens that were quite cheap were available in the downtown five-and-dime stores for twenty-five cents. Twenty-five cents back then would be the equivalent of maybe $3 - $5 today. Those pens were retractable, but they were plastic and cheap-looking. Nevertheless, they were special, and my friends and I were thrilled whenever we had one (which was rarely). Ballpoint pens back then were comparatively expensive and were treasured.

Over the years, of course, pens have become outrageously inexpensive. Bic and similar stick pens are about a dollar a dozen (see this, for example). But for some reason, I still see pens as something very special, something even to be hoarded. 

Because I grew up believing even the cheapest pens were of great value, when I was in a hotel or business, I would often walk off with the complimentary pens that were available. For the past decade or more, I have not bought a pen; I just use the pens that I have collected from various places.

In the past year or so, though, I became aware that I was accumulating far more pens than I could possibly use in the remaining 82 years of my lifetime. As a result, I stopped picking up stick pens in hotels and businesses. It was quite a wrench. Whenever I was in a hotel that had "free" stick pens, I had to fight the urge to take the pens as I left. But I conquered my obsession. Nowadays, I take only pens that are retractable.

Today I was cleaning out some desk drawers and boxes. So far I have collected over three dozen stick pens with various hotel and business logos on them. I don't want them, and I'm not keeping them. 

It has been a long struggle, but I have conquered at least that portion of my obsession with ballpoint pens. These are going to some charity box. I hope they can use the pens.