Banning Bans and the Banners They Rode in With....

I got invited to a Facebook group this morning that wants to ban plastic/paper bags in Saskatoon. Seems like a worthy cause, yet I can't help wondering who gets hurt. Oh well, as usual, the only ones that get hurt are the poor. People for whom an extra few dollars a year makes an actual difference in what they're eating tonight. People who don't have the luxury of driving to the grocery store. People who will have to to carry their reusable bags around all day in case they get the chance to pick up some groceries.

It's all well and good to say we don't need to use them, since there are alternatives. Yet none of those alternatives are as cheap or as convenient. We already have about two dozen reusable canvas bags around the house. I make an effort to use them, keeping a couple in my back pack for stopping at the store on the way home, and trying to keep a dozen in the car for the next trip. Even then, I forget regularly. That means if I'm shopping at one grocery chain, my choice is to pay a few cents per bag or haul them out in the cart and toss them loose into the vehicle. I have choices, I have options, we all do. But now one group wants to take way those options and force us all to do what's "right."

Why isn't it good enough that there are options? Why can't we do out best to educate a generation into adopting methods that will work? Why is the right approach found in working to ban something that is perfectly legal? One of the nice thing about living in a democracy is that as long as the law doesn't forbid something, I can do it. But that's not good enough. Instead of trying to fix real problems, people like to go around applying band-aids then patting themselves on the back because they're "part of the solution."

The most annoying part is that the bags aren't even the problem. The problem, once again, is us. As with almost everything that goes wrong with the planet, the problem is our carelessness and our self centered impatience. There's nothing inherently bad about plastic, or paper, bags. They're useful, they're recyclable, they're compact, they're inexpensive to manufacture. But we don't have time to recycle, recycling is too inconvenient. Despite the fact that many grocery stores have bins for recycling the bags, we toss plastic bags aside immediately, and not in one of those places.

The other part of that problem is that we can't be bothered fighting the real problem. "I'll just drop this wrapper here, or this cigarette butt. It's only one tiny thing and million other people are doing it, so it's not worth while to take it to a proper disposal place. I'm just one person and I can't make a difference."

It's bullshit and we all need to face it.

Every single one of us makes a difference, every single time we take the shortcut to save a second of time or a small inconvenience. Every one of us makes a difference every day. The problem is, it's usually the wrong difference. If we all decided to just make the one change of no longer treating the planet like one giant garbage can, a lot of our problems would go away.

Who am I to complain? I'm the creator of the Facebook Group "Ban Bans", for the all the good it may do me.

Minding my bus-ness.

It was January (2008), and I have a temper see. Victoria will attest. I know it's not good for me and I wish I had the fortitude to fix it. I remain uncertain if I am proud or humiliated about my action.

Anyway, I yelled, or maybe shouted is a better term.

My first bus ride had arrived downtown at 7:57 by my watch and the transfer bus's driver had already parked and left the vehicle, closing her doors. She showed up at the bus at 7:10 by my watch. 13 minutes is a long time to stand around unexpectedly at -25C.

Before she got there, at about 8 after, There were 6 of 10 buses still sitting with no drivers and people waiting to get on. I walked into the transit building (where you are not allowed to "loiter") and shouted at no one in particular:

"There are a bunch of people standing outside in minus 25 because there are no drivers on the buses 5 minutes after they are supposed to have left the terminal." then left.

All of our routes were shifted last year and it takes me about ten minutes longer to get to work, and 20 minutes longer to get home (on a good day). At the same time, they made a deal with the University students union that all Students get a bus pass for the 8 months of classes unless they can prove they have to drive. Those bus passes cost them $120.00, which appears to be less than 40 cents per trip if they use them for nothing but going to classes. meanwhile, last fall they told city council that the cost of service is nearly $2.00 per ride, so they have to increase the fares. Council has approved the request and now I pay an extra $8.00 per month. If I never drive, and never miss any days, I will pay about $1.60 per trip.

In return for this, we are granted that with all buses now passing through the university, transfers aren't really important any more (sorry, "We are reducing the importance of transfers by having more buses pass where they are needed more frequently"), so the buses are no longer scheduled to meet at regular transfer points. Also, "there will be another bus along shortly" so drivers will no longer watch for frustrated, freezing, people running toward them, and even if they do notice them, they will no longer delay departing (apparently unless that will cause them to miss the next transfer, in which case they'll happily make an exception, but that's a rant for another day).

Laundry Literacy

Who am I to complain? I ruined one of my wife's shirts today. Again. I mistakenly thought that a yellow circle on the laundry tag meant that I could dry it safely at the very low temperature I normally use before hanging to finish. Actually, that would be a circle inside a square. The circle means that it is OK to dry-clean. Not put in the dryer. At any temperature. Apparently. Oh, the shirt is fine. perfectly fine. Unfortunately, all the embroidery shrank, causing some rather psychotic puckering across large stretches of the front and bottom.

Like many North Americans who grew up during the second half of the 20th Century, I made it past grade eight. A large part of those first eight years of schooling were invested in learning to read. A core requirement, I have been told, in order for me to be able function in our advanced, technology based, society. Twenty five years later, I am probably in the top 20% or so of the continent literacy wise since I spend a significant amount of my time reading and writing for pleasure. Yet I am (or more often my wife is) occasionally bereft of some item of clothing because I can't figure out the little series of symbols that are used to on laundry tags communicate the appropriate washing instructions.

I can only assume that the relentless drive for cheaper and cheaper clothing means that companies can't afford the extra 1.2 cents per garment that it would cost to put the washing instructions on the clothes in the language or languages appropriate to the region where they will be sold. I suspect I know what the answer would be, if the average householder were asked "Would you be willing pay an extra 5 cents for each article of clothing buy, if it meant ruining one less item per year?" But I believe we'll never be asked that question. If we are asked that question, we might start to think about what exactly we are getting in exchange for everyday low prices.

Who am I to complain?

I sell books for a living. That's normally a pretty good job. I get to see new books, I get to review books before they hit the street, I get to hang out with generally friendly customers that like to read. Of late, there have been times when that job isn't so good. Two words, book prices.

If you aren't North American, or if you're head is stuck in the sand, you may not have noticed that the American Dollar is having a rough time. There are a variety of things involved there, but the important part is that the Canadian Dollar is NOT having a rough time. That's good for some people, bad for others, indifferent for many. For those of us that make a living selling books, It's not so good.

For any given book, there are three significant sources.

1) Canada
2) United States
3) Other

1) If a book is published in Canada, it is likely made with Canadian pulp, and the author and publisher are being paid their cut in Canadian dollars, as are the workers, shippers, couriers, booksellers. You may have noticed that none of those people have offered to take pay cuts now that the dollar is doing well. Imagine that. No real reason on earth why the price should change at all.

2) United States. Yes, the C$ is worth more, yes, prices are dropping, no, they are not dropping as fast as customers would like. Lets do a little background work. A) The North American Free Trade agreement has zero effect on this. Even when/if there was a duty on books, it was minimal and a long time ago. But there is still G.S.T. Any book crossing into Canada must have G.S.T paid, and, most likely, a brokerage firm is taking a couple of percent for calculating that G.S.T. The publisher pays shipping to the broker, pays shipping to the Canadian warehouse from the broker, pays to maintain a distribution warehouse in Canada (either their own, or a percentage to a Canadian company) all to get the book to the equivalent spot where it would have started in the U.S. Before the book gets near a book store, it has cost the supplier 10-20% more than it did to ship from the U.S. warehouse to all U.S. stores.

Canada is a smaller market than the U.S. Books have to be shipped large distances in smaller quantities. Publishers' Reps have to cover larger territories to sell the same number of books to make a living. Canadians have higher minimum wages. Freight costs here are higher, Gasoline is more expensive (like it or not) Everything from window washing to snow removal costs are higher per hour (and more frequent in the case of snow).

3) Most non North American books are Commonwealth sales that have been imported from the U.K. The U.K. Pound is worth C2.01. A year ago, the pound was worth C2.10. Two years ago the pound was worth...hmmm, C2.10. Three years ago the pound was worth...C2.30. Ten years ago, in Sept 1997, the Pound was worth C2.20, so in the last 3 years, the Canadian dollar has moved a bit less than 15% versus the pound, half of that in the last week. It remains within 10% of where it was a decade ago. Much the same is true of the Euro. Since it settled a few months after introduction at C1.60, it has dropped less than 20% in 7 years. There has been virtually no movement over 2 years ago.


Add to that the legislation. Most countries have some form of protectionist legislation to preserve local jobs. The government of Canada says that a publisher may charge the U.S. price converted to C$, plus 15% to cover excess costs. As long as they do that, it is ILLEGAL for a book store to import the book from the United States.

Next time you take a chunk out of some bookseller's day, consider the origin and whether you, and every truck driver, warehouse worker, and postie you know, would be happy to take a 10-20% cut in pay so that your books can cheaper.

Credit Card scams

Not criminals stealing cards, or making fake cards, but credit card companies scamming their customers on a daily basis.

Credit cards have limits. Usually put there by the company that issues them, sometimes at the request of the card holder. Of late, there has been a trend towards "Over limit fees" Over limit fees are when the bank says "We're really just a bunch of nice guys, so we won't decline your purchase if it only takes you over your limit a little bit and is at a business we think is worthy, we'll just allow it, then at the end of the month we'll tack on a charge of $15.00 because you went over your limit."

If you try to go over your limit somewhere that the bank doesn't think is worthy, (say your local porn supplier) they'll simply decline it. But not at the gas station, or the grocery store, oh no. "That's what our customers want." the "manager" at CIBC Visa said to me. "They don't want to be embarrassed by having a purchase declined if it would only take them over by a couple of dollars." So, instead, they'll ignore the limit when they feel like it, and charge us for privilege.

All I asked was that they guarantee they wouldn't authorize purchases if it would take my account over the limit. I understand that if I'm careless, interest could take me over my limit. Or that if I buy something at Ma and Pa's Knick-Knacks in Puketawagan, they won't have electronic authorization and then The Bank wouldn't know I was over my limit. But I wasn't asking for that. Every single purchase I made this month was electronically preauthorized. The bank knows exactly how much I've spent up to the minute. They knew when the $12.00 at the grocery store took me over my limit. They knew when the $21.00 at the other grocery store took me further over my limit. If I had tried to buy something at a store they consider non-essential, their machine would have declined me in a flash. But they "can't" do that. This isn't 1950, this is 2006. But in the year 2006, The Bank "can't" stop me from making purchases that would take me over my limit.

Who am I to complain. I made the only complaint open to me and no longer have a credit card.