Robert Paterson's Weblog

Gustav - All Coming together on a Ning Site

Social Media came of age after the Tsunami. It showed its power to provide vital information very quickly when the official channels could not.

With Gustav a day away from landfall many of the most experienced people in the field are coalescing on a Ning site that will aggregate as much information as possible in one place. Wiki, Tweets, RSS feeds from Blogs, Video - everything.

Here is the address of the site

Gustav - A "perfect storm?" - Gas prices

It is now reported that Gustav is a Category 4 Hurricane and could build to Cat 5. Mere miles can make difference in intensity and also what stands in its way BUT there is a real chance that there could be severe damage to the oil installations in the Gulf. It is also likely that New Orleans could be severely tested again.

The threat goes beyond price to supply itself. keep your fingers crossed - The best coverage bar none is via The Oil Drum

It's worse than one storm - there are 4 lining up with Hanna just behind

PEI's Declining School Enrollment - An Opportunity?

The PEI Government has just released an excellent report on the School Enrollment Question. You can find the link to the PDF here.

As the chart shows, we are at a Tipping Point where the enrollment drops below numbers that can sustain the infrastructure.

A simple way out is to consolidate even further ending up with a few large schools and very very long bus rides. But as the report says very large schools do not often produce the best results. Closing many smaller rural schools may also spell doom for the community and drive yet more people to Charlottetown. The politics of closing local schools are tortuous.

I would like to offer up a few ideas for having our cake and eating it too.

• See Schools as the Hub of a  Distributed local local economy - To cope with the new energy reality - it will be best to push work and activity out to the communities - telecommuting - local local food, local local power etc. In this context, the school expands its role in the community and becomes the hub of all local social and work activity

• Use the web to gain diversity and resources - In the era of the one room school literacy was far higher than today but the price paid for more cohesion at the school - where children walked to school - where parents did work for the school - was that the social world was very very small. The web can extend the walls of a school not only to the next community but to the world. The one room school was also very dependent on the quality of the one teacher - again the web can open up the school to thousands of teachers

• Change the Model of teaching to facilitation - The industrial model of grade by grade and teaching at pupils is a product of the industrial school design that we have made the new normal. Have a look at this picture by Harris of the One room School: See how the teacher is not trying to teach at the entire room. See how the pupils have organized themselves into learning groups. see how some are teaching each other - see the interaction that is going on - see how some are on their own!

If you look into the "pattern" here - you will see a very different philosophy than the mass market model. I see a model very much more attuned to our own times and needs. I see the Web attached to this old/new idea. I see much lower costs but much better results.

I think what we are facing in schools is the same that is facing newspapers, TV, Car making etc. The industrial mass market process of building a very expensive Factory no longer works. Those that rely on the mass market factory - the printing press, the Studio, the production line and the unions and the work habits are dying. They can't maintain an ROI that will keep it going.

Instead - the web and the idea of a network is coming  up with a new more organic and distributed model that does make economic sense and also fits the people better.

I doubt that trying to keep the mass market factory model will work for our kids. After all it is a mass model.

I suspect that we can all win by exploring a network model. Please let's acknowledge that the factory model is failing everywhere and that we can best look at the alternative. Here are some suggestions

1. Let's experiment with a New Type of One Room School in one or 2 places. Here is more on why this will be worth while
2. Let's pick a community - why not Kinkora! - and test the idea of the school becoming the centre of the community and the buses the core of a new public transport system

Governor Palin - In Vogue - A Real Celebrity Candidate?

So Obama is only a celebrity - Until today I knew nothing of Governor Palin

This is a photoshop of Governor Palin - Here below is her official picture

I fell for the ruse! Update: Here is a report of what was the real Vogue Picture:

I still know nothing really - but I bet that it took a lot of character and drive to raise a family, raise a son with downs and become governor.

Here is Governor Palin with Charlies Rose and Gov Janet Napolitano

So a truce everyone - mere celebrity is not enough and no one running for the highest office is merely a celebrity

Obama - Going to the Moon - Energy Independence!

I can see how this promise could "energize" the nation and the world. A project of projects that addresses the problems of our age

Listeria - The Health Regs Drive out the small and the local - Wonder why?

All over Canada, small food processors are being shut down. Why? Because they cannot afford to install the Health Regulatory Environment that is now being demanded.

This is all part of a deliberate process. The large producers have the money to lobby and influence the regulators. It is in their interests to have a system that is so complex that no small producer can cope. This is not confined to meat. Try and make Yogurt or cheese locally on a small scale now.

Here is the debate in a nutshell (CBC):

Smaller meat producers such as Dave Smith, owner of Glen Farm just outside Ottawa, said people can reduce their exposure to such risks by buying meat from small local farmers.

"I think in terms of safety, we can reduce risk by having fewer hands in the pot," Smith said.

He raises his Aberdeen Angus cattle in his own pastures, where they feed on grass, hay and apples. They are slaughtered and butchered at a small abattoir in nearby Smiths Falls, and the beef is sold directly to Smith's customers.

"I'm responsible and my butcher is responsible and that's it," he said.

Smith said the simple process contrasts with the specialized industrial process used by large producers, which could involve up to 10 steps.

Bigger is safer: meat council

Jason Miskelly said he has been receiving a lot of calls from customers wondering whether his meat is locally sourced.  (CBC)But Jim Laws, executive director of the Ottawa-based Canadian Meat Council, said large meat producers are more likely have the resources to operate more safely.

"Bigger establishments maybe have the ability to hire better-quality control staff, that can be on staff to check what's going on, and they also have some pretty incredible refrigeration systems that allow them to quickly cool the meat, which does extend its shelf life," said Laws, whose group represents federally registered meat producers.

So who is Jim Laws and who pays his salary? No guesses really. He is paid by the large processors - that is my point. They have the voice and the small don't.

And where is the risk? It is not from the small. It is from the large.

With a small distributed system one problem will not affect the nation as it is now. Secondly with animals being raised in better conditions, killed locally - the system risks drop. It is the way that the animal is raised, fed and killed that set up the conditions for disease.

All the "safety" issues at the plant are downstream from that.

If we want to move back to a local food system we have to start to come to grips with these underlying issues raised by the Maple Leaf Crisis. (CBC)

Despite a demand for local meat, some owners of stores that sell it say they are struggling.

Simone Sauvé, owner of the Glebe Meat Market, said safety rules the government introduced a year ago, driven by the meat industry, are part of the problem.

"We face possibly having to close this store because we can't implement their rules," she said, adding that retailers have been given some extra time to come into compliance.

The new rules call for separate tables for each type of meat, a disinfection schedule that would require the store to close twice daily for an hour at a time, and many separate coolers.

Sauvé said there has never been a problem with meat sold at her store, so such regulations are unnecessary.

But they could drive meat shops that sell local meat out of business, she said, leaving behind only the large national distributors.

"It will be controlled by large companies such as Maple Leaf. [If] there's a problem, it goes from B.C. to Atlantic Canada."

Time to understand real food safety.

More Thoughts on Food Safety

As the days go by - the scale of the problem gets worse. (Globe & Mail)

Listeria is deadly only in high doses, Dr. Warriner noted.

"A big outbreak like this, definitely something went wrong," Dr. Warriner said. "The fact is listeria needs a very high dose ... How did such meat products get contaminated with such a high level of listeria in order to cause so much illness? It needs over a billion cells to actually cause illness."

By the numbers

29 Confirmed cases of listeriosis

across Canada (22 in Ontario,

four in B.C., two in Quebec

and one in Saskatchewan)

30 Suspected cases (16 in Ontario,

10 in Quebec and four in Alberta)

6 Confirmed deaths caused

by the outbreak (all in Ontario)

11 Suspected deaths (Six in Ontario, two in Alberta, one in B.C., one in Sask. and one in Quebec)

It is becoming clear that there was an event at this plant that had to be so big as to be detectable with a good inspection system. The Globe suggests that this plant had been "testing" the new Harper self regulation system.

At the Maple Leaf plant behind the listeria outbreak, a single federal inspector was relegated to auditing company paperwork and had to deal with several other plants, the manager and the union official said, contradicting the impression that officials had left last week that full-time watchdogs were on-site.

Under the new system, federal inspectors do random product tests only three or four times a year at any given plant. And meat packers are required to test each type of product only once a month.

Under the old system, inspectors had a more hands-on role on the plant floor, did more of the tests themselves and had more freedom to investigate, said former CFIA inspector Bob Kingston, who is national president of the Agriculture Union, a branch of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

I think that this story has a lot more to come both about our food system and about the philosophy of the Haper Government.

4 things pop out for me.

First is, for a person that never buys or eats prepared meats, I am amazed how how ubiquitous they have become. It seems that very few people cook meat anymore. They simply buy prepared meats. Maple Leaf has become their meat kitchen.

Second, we also see that there is no one Brand anymore. As happened in the pet food crisis, we see that one processor makes all the core products for all the brands both low end and supposedly high end. This calls into question the Schneider's adds which suggest that this is a family business of caring family members - whereas in reality Schneiders is a relabel!  Centralization is complete.

Third, understanding that only  handful of plants do all of this - the Harper plans to hand over control of inspection to the industry makes no sense. All of Canada, except it seems for me, eat this stuff. Maybe 6 plants make it all. With this concentration, a really tight inspection regime is both essential and not too difficult.

Which brings me to my last point. Why have we given up the centre of every family and home since the beginning of time - a real meal? "Oh we are too busy" may be the answer. Busy doing what? "earning the money we need" may be the answer. Money for what? " Money to buy food" may be the answer.

But you can trade time for money. How long does it take to roast a chicken? Also a meal is more than food - it is the glue and the oil for relationships.

Jane Jacobs defined a Dark Age as a time when societies forget how to do important things. Cooking and sharing a meal is surely a keystone of being a human being. In fact it is central for all living beings. What does it mean when we are too busy to know how to do the most fundemental thing that all other living beings know how to do?

Giving up our kitchen to a processor and to an industrial food system is surely one of the most stupid things we have ever done. But there may be a correction along the way.

The industrial food system is itself unhealthy - more of the outbreaks are inevitable. The core of the health issue is of course not refrigeration, or heat or being clean - it is the systemic dis-ease of a mass industrial systyem where animals are kept, fed and killed in a system that drives the problems. There will be more and more of these outbreaks and over time trust will erode.

By the way I have to commend Michael McCain who is doing his best. I write this not to condemn Maple Leaf but the system.

Then the products of the system are unhealthy in themselves. High fat, high salt, high nitrates. As the links betwen our own poor health an industrial food get stronger, like smoking did, most of us will I think pull back.

The end of cheap energy will also attack the low cost advantage of this mass and centralized system and will drive up the trend of returning to local and distributed systems.

It looks like there will be an election soon in Canada. We have a clear philosophical choice. We can choose a Nation given up to an oligarchy of a few corporations in the guise of "The Market" or we can choose a more decentralized, more human and more natural system.

What will gymnasts be wearing in 100 years time?

I am a big believer in trends. As I watched this Olympics I could not help myself, as a man, from noticing that we seem to be approaching the original Olympic ideal

So here for fun is the starting point for Women's Gymnastics

Here is where we are now

I will be long dead in 100 years.....

More twitter Feeds for the DNC

Andy Carvin is running a wiki on Twitter "Correspondents" Here is the current list for the DNC

DNC, Denver

http://twitter.com/ashoupster

http://twitter.com/gallafent - Alex Gallafent, reporter, PRI's The World

http://twitter.com/totn

http://twitter.com/MMStewart

http://twitter.com/JustinKaufman

http://twitter.com/myrnatheminx -

http://twitter.com/laura_pbs - Laura Hertzfeld, PBS Vote 2008 producer

http://twitter.com/sgleason - Susan Gleason, media & outreach, YES! Magazine

http://twitter.com/pbsvote2008

http://twitter.com/DNCjournalists Poynter Institute project to aggregate journalists twittering each convention. e-mail Steve Myers, smyers at poynter.org, if you want to join and have your tweets re-broadcast through this feed. Or send Twitter IDs of journalists you know will be Twittering. Steve will be twittering too: http://twitter.com/myersnews

http://twitter.com/Chuckumentary

http://twitter.com/WBEZpolitics - WBEZ Chicago Public Radio convention coverage

http://twitter.com/jasonbarnett: Executive Director of The UpTake

www.twitter.com/noahkunin: Senior Political Correspondent from The UpTake

http://www.twitter.com/theuptake: Citizen journalism media organization out of MN and CO

http://www.twitter.com/silbatron -- Michael Silberman, EchoDitto, and 1Sky campaign

http://www.twitter.com/AskYourLawmaker -- Ari Mukherjee, AskYourLawmaker.org

http://www.twitter.com/CNCNews -- Ari Mukherjee, Capitol News Connection

http://www.twitter.com/AriMukherjee -- Ari Mukherjee, Multimedia Manager, Pundit Productions

 

http://twitter.com/creepysleepy - Dan Patterson, UN Correspondent, Journalist

Maple Leaf Recall Info

The meats that are suspected were "made" at one plant Bartor Road. Any pack with the code 97B is from that plant.

The full range of products form  the Bartor Road plant is in this pdf.

These kind of problems are surely now systemic. With all the centralization of meatpacking and all the cross branding - bad meat can and does get very widely distributed. With the volumes of meat going through the plants - infection is inevitable.

The only way to have safe meat is to have a local system - where the animals are raised and then killed in a low stress environment. No amount of inspection, refrigeration, hand washing etc is going to work so long as the design of the system drives problems.

Of course Food Inspection has been driven by the lobbying power of the big guys - nearly all small and local has been shut out by design. Now we also know that the Harper Government want to go one step further and have "industry" do the inspection itself - So Maple Leaf will be in charge of the system!