Toward the end of his life and last of his published books, Francis Schaeffer began to argue against the attitude of “personal peace and affluence.” A man who had dealt with the hippie culture head – a culture of rebellion against ‘the system’ and plastic culture – lamented over what he saw occurring in the 1970’s. He believed that many of the young people of the 60’s were giving in and joining the system in the 70’s. He feared that this way of thinking would only continue into the 80’s. Schaeffer, in an interview with Colin Duriez even said, “As long as they [Americans] can have these things [personal peace and affluence], they will give up anything!”

In our modern society, especially post-9/11, we look at these words and think that Schaeffer might have been a little off. After all, what is wrong in giving up some freedoms or giving up some moral ground, so long as we can live free of controversy and make money? I happen to believe that what Schaeffer feared did occur in the 80’s and early 90’s and has led to the nihilistic culture that is arising, a culture of empty selves.

Personal Peace

When Schaeffer used the term “personal peace” he was not referring to just living at peace with everyone while holding onto your convictions. He was stating that people will become so willing to live free of controversy or struggle or inconvenience that we will give up certain convictions.

A perfect example of this is how we deal with alleged terrorists that happen to be US citizens. Assuming the US government jailed suspected terrorists who were US citizens indefinitely and without charge. Though this would be a clear violation of the Constitution many citizens would applaud the government for its actions – by securing personal peace, even at the cost of freedom, the citizens are happy.

Another example is that of gas prices – Americans have only become ‘green’ and shown concern for the environment en masse because of the extraordinarily high gas prices. If the government discovered a way to bring gas prices back down to the $1-$2 range, the entire ‘green’ fad would quickly fade. People don’t really care about God’s creation (because they don’t know God) or exercising proper Biblical domain over it – they merely care about what makes life convenient.

We can also look to the abortion on demand even though that abortion is the taking of a human life. It simply is not convenient to look at that human life as human – it makes it easier to kill a baby when we think he is just tissue. After all, with the need for a job or to get through high school or college – not to mention how pregnancy can ruin one’s sex-life – a mother may feel the need to kill the child within her. In order to feel free of the guilt the doctor will tell her that the baby is just a mess of cells, not even human yet. In the pursuit of personal peace, we have completely devalued human life.

This is the cost of pursuing personal peace; we eventually devalue the human being. As long as we can gain what we are after, we tend not to care what happens to others. As long as I can live free of inconvenience then I don’t care about the rest of the world.

Affluence

Schaeffer also said that we should fear the spirit of affluence, which has recently been interpreted into being the American dream. When one turns to E!, VH1, MTV, Bravo, or other stations, they are often displaying what a life of affluence can look like. Students in high schools are told to get a higher education because it can help increase their earning potential. I remember seeing a poster displayed that had a picture of a mansion on a cliff overlooking the ocean with half a dozen luxury vehicles in the garage, with the saying “Justification for a higher education.”

This, of course, passes off the idea that the chief end of man in life is simply to accumulate as much wealth as he can regardless of the consequences. We bow down to the all mighty dollars (though it is not so all mighty as of late) and make it the chief end of all that we do. The consequences are staggering.

In order to save money we buy from “big box” stores, such as Wal-Mart (which I admit, I find myself there buying food at a cheap price at times). We, of course, willingly ignore and even attempt to justify their actions over seas. We turn a blind eye to the low wage conditions the Chinese workers have to work in. We simply disavow that Wal-Mart is practically using slave labor in order to get these cheap prices.

We celebrate ruthless CEO’s that buy out companies, lay off people, and use cutthroat tactics in order to make as much money as they can. We make great Capitalists, but horrible Christians when we lend a voice of support to such people.

In our pursuit of affluence, we inherently desire to show off the amount of money we have. How sad that a billionaire will spend far more money on a yacht than he will on helping those in desperate need. How pathetic that a person will spend $40 on a bottle of water simply because of how it looks (and up to $450 in some cases) quicker than they will help out a child in need of an education. In our pursuit of affluence, we have lifted up ourselves while devaluing others.

A Christian view

Now neither one of these things are inherently bad. Often times a person living in the Will of God and pursuing Him alone will somehow come across personal peace – a life of near inconvenience (though, if he is truly a Christian, his life will be inconvenienced at many points). He will also come across affluence at times. The danger, as Schaeffer argued, was the pursuit of these things. One can thank God when personal peace and affluence are attained, but one should not pursue these things.

Under the Christian view, the glory of God is first and foremost in all that we do. This means we must pursue the things of His Will, not our desires. It means that God may lead us into a life of poverty or into a life full of controversy. As Christians the only thing we should expect is that God will lead us where He desires and be with us the entire way – we are not promised anything more than that.

Secondly, we are to value the rest of humanity. We do not value humanity because it can create a witnessing opportunity, we do not place value on the human because he could be saved, and we do not do these actions because it might lead to the propagation of the Gospel – we value humanity because it is intrinsically valuable being made in the image of God. Though we are not humanists (placing man at the center of everything), we are humane in that we place the value of a human being above personal peace and affluence. This means that if we own a business, we should double check where our product comes from and make sure no humans suffered in the making of our product. It likewise means that we should stand up for what is right regardless of the personal cost it will bring to us. If we value humanity then we will de-value our own selfish wants and desires.

The ultimate cure for this social disease is Christ. It is only when we fall in love with Christ and His mission and Will that we can overcome our desire for personal peace and affluence.

Fifteen years or more down that Highway, I still haven't been able to navigate to the dusty piles of important items from the Founding Fathers. Instead, I seem to be stuck between off-ramps, jammed in the midst of a bottleneck of what is known as a wealth of information.

That's got me thinking about what is wealth. Does abundance equal prosperity? I remember a silly conversation at an old job where we were discussing affluence, and what made us feel affluent. Each had a different idea, and Jean's was having a good supply of pecans in her freezer! I think mine was having just finished laundry day with all the newly washed and folded piles still warm and ready to put away.

We are inundated--literally! with rip tides of headlines and sound bites and banners and animated whatevers all ripping and tearing as they rush by. Yes, the sheer volume of it all qualifies as an abundance, but are we wealthier in any way now compared to the pre-Internet Dark Ages of the late 20th century?

When do you know you are prosperous? What makes you feel affluent? When can you finally sit back and say, "Now, I am wealthy."

First, there's a strong link between major or clinical depression and heredity. Depression runs in families, as does bipolar disorder, so if your parents had a history of clinical depression, chances are that you (whether you are a princess or a pauper) will have inherited a vulnerability to that condition. It's simply a possibility, not a certainty, and it's to do with your genes and not the condition of your wallet.

This leaves the range of mild to acute depression that most people experience from time to time but is not devastating enough, normally, to warrant medical attention. You probably know what I'm talking about, feelings ranging from a mild case of the "blues" right up to persistent sadness, muffled anger or a pervasive sense that life has no meaning.

It's true that difficulties with money can lead to depression. A survey in the UK by the National Depression Campaign found that 88% of people rated money problems as a likely cause, 1% more than the number of people that linked depression to a death or illness in the family. And that was back in 1999. With the credit crunch and spiralling personal debt often in the news in recent times, I would not be surprised to find this percentage even higher now. It's no wonder that for many people finances seem to be inextricably linked to anxiety and gloom.

And yet... Even without studies and surveys, common sense tells us that money troubles are not the only reason why people get depressed. Despondency often sets in when we feel helpless and unable to avoid the setbacks life sends us. Thus a bullied schoolchild, a harassed employee, a convict in an overcrowded gaol, a bereaved husband or wife and a long-term invalid all may well suffer depression as a result of adverse life conditions.

Each of them might succumb to despair and helplessness, but it would have little or nothing to do with the state of his or her bank balance, and a lot more to do with relationships and physical circumstances.

So much, then, for depression caused by not having enough money. Could it be that having too much of it is also a problem?

The Happy Planet Index, introduced in 2006 by the New Economics Foundation, makes for some interesting (if controversial) reading. Basically, it is a ranking of the world's nations, based on happiness rather than GDP, and, for what it's worth, some of the world's poorer countries have high scores the top three are Vanuatu, Columbia and Costa Rica - while the wealthiest nations such as Japan and the US come in at 95 and 150, respectively. While these scores are not purely measurements of people's levels of happiness, as they are partly based on environmentalists' ideas of sustainability, they are nevertheless intriguing.

Is it possible, then, that being rich, or indeed living in a rich country, can tend to make you depressed?

There is some truth in that. Economist Richard Easterlin proposed in 1974 that once people have attained a certain level of financial security, their happiness does not grow in proportion to any future increases in wealth. In other words, if I have one loaf of bread I am a lot happier than if I had none at all, but if I become richer and can afford to buy two, three or four loaves, there is no great gain in happiness with each addition.

The pleasures of the consumer society also seem to be fleeting. "Hedonic adaptation" sets in, which means that the thrill of acquiring a new widescreen TV, iPod or Mercedes-Benz diminishes swiftly, as the object of desire becomes merely another thing to be stored, insured and worried about. It can make us happy only for a brief moment, and after that, we always need to strive for the next acquisition, the next temporary pleasure.

This might be why "retail therapy" only works for a while. The excitement of buying something new gives way to the muted pleasure of ownership, then perhaps to ennui and depression once more, paving the way for another repeat of the cycle.

But is the root cause of this problem money, or is it the absence of something else?

It seems to me that we are happiest when we have a purpose in life, and there are quite a few attributes and activities that can help us keep us engaged and have a meaningful existence. Positive psychologist Martin Seligman has broadly identified some of these, including being sociable, married, self-disciplined and having religious convictions. From personal experience, I have also found that creative tasks, and any absorbing activity be it gardening, writing, playing tennis, doing volunteer work - that generates what is now called "flow", can add meaning and purpose to my life.

I suggest that it is not so much that affluence is the causeof depression, but that we have a need for meaning in our lives that money simply cannot, by its very nature, fulfil entirely. Like the man in the story, who searched for his keys under the bright streetlamp, rather than in his dark house where he had lost them, we are simply looking in the wrong place.

(I would add that being an entrepreneur and building a business are meaningful activities in themselves, which can bestow an authentic sense of purpose. The hunger to fill an inner void by acquiring money and material possessions is not the same thing, in my opinion.)

So, back to the question as to whether money and depression are invariably linked, I would answer that they are not. Our genes may give us (just) a tendency to clinical depression, no matter if we are rich or poor. Lack of money might help to make us depressed, but then so might a lot of other things, such as bad relationships or failing health.

Lastly, those of us who live in affluent societies have a choice, either to remain on the hedonic treadmill and become disappointed and depressed when money and consumer goods do not deliver all they promised or to look within ourselves, find out what fires us up and fills us with purpose, and forge a meaningful life for ourselves.

That's the thought I would like to leave you with. When we are depressed, life seems hopeless and without meaning, but once we make a decision to find a purpose, a reason to go on living, things change. Something shifts within us, and the grey hand of depression begins to loosen its hold.

And that would seem to be true, whether we are rich, poor, or somewhere in between.

Alex Cull, 5th March 2008

(This was another article I submitted to Helium.com, adding my two cents to the debate: "Is money invariably linked with depression?" Obviously these two things are not invariably linked but there we are.)

"Global warming at its finest," I muse while gesturing with a can of Dr. Pepper to the sky above. I look like I'm giving a toast to our environmental state of affairs. Cate Blanchett as Irina Spalko seems to give her steely glare off at the sky before being brought back down.

"Whatever happened to April showers bring May flowers?" Someone I don't know chimes in as she clutches tightly to her boyfriend's arm.

"That's Colorado for you," an older man adds.  It's the age old answer to the perennial question of Colorado's schizophrenic weather.  Today might be considered a brisk summer day.  The reality reminds me: It IS almost Summer.  It seems Spring has no more place in our lives except for the mild inconvenience daylight savings brings when a good chunk of the United States must 'spring' forward.

Spring has passed us by.  The revelation doesn't shock me so much.  Another day, another dollar has been the mantra which provides me enough willpower to survive the retreat of the cold.  Most Saturdays I am chained to one of the numerous computer stations at the office - logging, digitizing, QC'ing, assembly editing, hunting for b-roll on shows about people enjoying the great outdoors.

The irony is not lost on me at all.

Balloons and party decorations explode in bright, obnoxious colors to announce the celebration for a birthday boy and girl.  A deflated penguin wearing a beanie struggles to stay afloat.  Family, in-laws, cousins, friends all congregate in the courtyard under the sun for the party.  Most of this second family I have not seen since the baby shower but I'm greeted as if only a week has passed since I last saw everyone.  The grill spews out a steady plume of smoke as hamburgers and hot dogs sizzle on the rack.  The light breeze puts the taste of the food in everyone's mouths.  People are chatting with each other only stopping when the birthday toddlers' curiosity brings them to the conversation.

Mason, the godson, sits in the surprisingly large plastic pool and splashes water about.  His great, partially toothless smile beams as he throws water at his mom.  Despite the enjoyment, his teeth visibly chatter.  He's probably the only one keeping cool for the moment.  His parents lift him out of the pool and wrap him in the safe confines of a navy blue towel.  The teeth still chatter but he flashes a big smile for all to see.

I set about my trade taking still photos and operating a video camera of the day's proceedings.
The toddlers spend time with the various relatives and friends.  Mason and Julia seem to enjoy themselves as only children are able to.  Time moves generously, eroding the crowd a little bit as various friends depart from the party.  Lucas and Megan urge the gathered crowd to come together for a screening of something Lucas put together in the apartment's movie theater.

The hallways of the complex look like a modernized take of the hallways Danny rode through in The Shining.  High vaulted ceilings with a simple repeating beat of colors extends deep through the hallways almost to infinity.  It's easy to get lost within and even easier to become disoriented.  Everyone travels in groups lest they disappear within the apartment condos depths.

The screening room is a small theater with nice chairs arranged in front of a projection screen and an in-room speaker set-up.  Various posters for sub-par pictures add a little decor to the mostly black room.  Lucas starts the video displaying the past year of Mason's life.  It's pretty much a slideshow of Mason's firsts interspersed with a handful of video clips of the same.  Underlying the whole proceeding was a choice selection of Lucas' indie-rock favorites.  I'm sure in 15 years, Mason will be utterly horrified at this revelation.  Today's child will be 10x more embarrassed because there are more photos and more videos of them than there ever were before and it is much easier to share them with friends and family.  Still, the video was cute in the self-indulgent way.  Parents always must have moments of self-indulgence when it comes to their children.

Some of us got a brief tour of the pool area, the lobby kitchen, and internet and magazine room in the apartment complex.  Seeing all of this makes me understand what a young executive lifestyle truly is all about:  All me, all the time, right now.  Indulgence to me fits more along the lines of an expensive pint of ice cream - this complex is the expensive pint of ice cream all the time.

The party moves back into the courtyard.  The sun has started to retreat westward and the shadow of the complex buildings grows longer.  A Backyardigans decorated cakes sits in the center while two smaller cakes  sit off to the sides.  Once photographs are taken, the crowd rouses to sing Happy Birthday becoming somewhat at a loss as to who they are singing for.  Both Mason and Julia dive into their respective mini cakes.  Julia picks at her cake cautiously eating only a fourth of the cake.  Mason demolishes his cake by putting all of the frosting on his arm and then sucking on his arm to take in the frosting.  Once he has devoured the frosting, Mason decides to play with the cake turning it into an explosion of chocolate cake crumbs.

While the toddlers are cleaned up, the rest of the party partake of slices of the main cake.  This leads into the present opening side of things.  Lucas and his sister sit with the kids and open presents, reading cards.  Mason seems more interested in wanting to investigate his new toys while Julia has more interest in charging around the courtyard.  At this point, the party has wound down all the way.  Everyone seems a bit more exhausted and a little more ready to move on with their day.  The party packs down and everyone packs up and retreats back to their various corners.

I hang around for awhile.  Mason sits with his great-grandfather while some of us play Mario Kart on the Wii within the apartment.  It's funny watching Mason look at his great-grandfather and seeing the room occupied by four generations of one family.  It's surreal to me because I don't even have this kind of living history within my own family.

I turn to look at Lucas and then his wife.  Their bodies don't show it but their demeanor and the way they sit betray the toll of parenthood.  I can see the enthusiasm and energy of life begin to disappear, replaced by the certain type of apathy being a parent fosters.  My best friend's aged twenty years already and he's got a long road ahead of him.  Still, when I see how he looks at his wife, how she looks at him and how they look at their child I can understand the reward for the sacrifices and the challenges ahead for them and I believe they will endure.

Eventually, I call it a day and drag myself back into work.  It's the latest I've been at the office on a Saturday night.

===

I don't remember much about my first birthday or tol.  It's a pretty big deal in Korea especially for a male and so my mother put out all the stops with the food and the location.  I even remember the photos of my in the traditional birthday attire.  At one point in the celebration, a bunch of items were put before me and whichever one I select will influence the path I take in life.  I picked the pencil.

My parents both love to remind me of one of my odd cherished treasures.  We have this old VHS cassette of my second birthday party.  This one was a more typical American bbq in the backyard of the old house we used to live in.  At one point right before the candle blowing moment, the little band for the party hat slid out from under my chin and snapped me in the nose and I started to bawl as the candles burn on.  On subsequent viewings, the two or three year-old me would look to the television set and tell the younger me recorded onto the magnetic tape, "Don't cry.  It'll be okay."

A good memory tied in with another.

I think what I really like about the video tape is the way it showed my family.  There's vibrancy and life and youth in my parents they no longer have.  Back then they seemed less burden by the uncertainty of the present and seemed to billow with optimism.  Now they are worn down and weary.  My sister was more innocent, less embroiled in her teenage rebellions and less involved in the life which drove a wedge between her and the rest of the family.  Now she's worn and tired, much older than the number reveals.  My aunt and uncle were less marred by the ravages of time.  My grandmother was still alive.  Home still had some meaning to it.

I wonder if the VHS still exists in the maze of our basement, locked away in a box somewhere.  I think I'd like to watch it again before I go.

Let's accept that population reduction is desirable, for the sake of argument. If we simply limit every couple to one child we are not going to accomplish anything. People are living longer than ever, and increased longevity is being actively pursued by science as a Good Thing. But something has to give: either we stop having babies or we start killing people. In order to reduce the numbers, we would have to kill enough people that the total death rate, natural and induced, exceed the birth rate -- this is simple arithmetic.

The question then becomes: who do we kill? Surely not the elderly, not after all our efforts to keep them alive. That would fly in the face of pretty much the entirety of modern medicine. Babies? I doubt that would go over well... but wait! We could sterilize enough women so that even if all the rest had an unusually large number of children -- let's say a baker's dozen, just to be safe -- the birth rate would still be lower than the death rate, even with people living to, say, 150 (for starters). OK, this seems at least plausible; let's examine this option further...

The question now becomes: who do we sterilize? The obvious answer is: whomever is having the most babies. According to the CIA's World Factbook, those tend to be poor brown people (birth rate/fertility rate). Well, isn't that just lovely? No, I think we better move along before we start entertaining ideas that would reverse several hundred years of hard-won progress...

OK then, if euthanizing the people we all hope to become (old people) is no good, and if sterilizing (and thus exterminating) the most downtrodden people on Earth is no good, then what are we left with? It might be argued that since the most affluent nations are the biggest polluters, then eliminating the upper and middle classes of Europe and North America would be "as good" as sterilizing Africa -- but that will not reduce the number of mouths that need feeding. The real problem from the environmental standpoint is that hungry people are too worried about their next meal to care about cloth grocery bags and compact fluorescent light bulbs. No, I'm afraid the question simply cannot be ducked. If the population must be reduced, then we must choose who is to be cut: old people or brown people.

But surely it can't be so simple; isn't there some other alternative? Well, one does come to mind, but it's pretty far out there: we accept that the best we can hope for is to slow population growth, and that we are unlikely ever to reduce it without becoming something less than human. If we accept that, then the question becomes: how do we slow it? One proven method is to increase affluence -- but that's crazy talk, right?

just how do we measure our self-worth? how do we know how much we're worth? what we're worthy of? what we're not worthy of? as a part existentialist, i believe that no humans are unworthy of anything. not unworthy of any opportunities, any rights etc. i don't think "worth" is something that we need to prove. in all honesty, "worth" is just a word in a language made up by humans for humans. it holds no meaning unless we give meaning to it. yes? quintessentially, (in terms of humans,) i do not think that humans hold "worth" in their essence.

like, we can't just say "oh! i'm worth (for example) a four-room HDB flat in Singapore because I've got long hair." and in the same way, neither can we say "oh! i'm worth (for example again) forty gallons (or some form of quantitative measurement) of your respect because i earn $25.00 per hour more than you! (or because i stay in a bigger house or in a house nearer to a "prestigious" estate)". true?

"worth", if it IS "quintessentially human", is not quantitative in any way. at least, not in my amateur view.

in all due respect, who are we to say how much a person is worth just by the things he/she has/owns? it is pretty impossible to imagine fish pointing at each other and saying : oh we must respect that fish over there with two white dots over its head because it lives in a coral that is 1cm larger in diameter than ours! (ok, why fish? because it is almost the only animal i can think of with no religious connotations/links unlike pigs, cows or lambs. and do correct me if i'm wrong about that yea? =))

if people do essentially have their own "worth" (assuming tt diff ppl haf diff levels of "worth"), how would we define it? would it be judged by their monthly income? level of education? things they own? house they live in? country they were brought up in? accents they spoke in? religion? race? how good-looking they are? how slim? how blemish-free their skin is?

or will it be defined by how we will be remembered when we have left (the place, or the world)?

i'd rather it be the last. for selfish reasons of course. since i would NOT describe myself as
* high income (i dont really have an income - i'm a student), not highly educated (still pursuing my education), I
* do not own a lot of stuffs that others in a relatively affluent society as ours would hanker for (very ordinary everyday stuffs. but, i already have a lot. i'm lucky that way. that i'm able to have stuff. to own stuff, and to live in a safe and relatively stable environment),
* do not live in a huge house (tho it's already bigger than a lot of others'),
* been brought up in Singapore and tho it may look relatively good in the international academia or workforce but it doesnt necessarily reflect superbly well when it comes to image of Singaporeans overseas,
* speak in a truly Singaporean style accent (with not very good English nor Chinese and still claim to be bilingual - i.e. i can speak and read and write),
* am a Buddhist and have been ostracised for that reason and that reason alone, but i still stand by my religion (and at this point in time, i don't see myself converting in the foreseeable future to any other religion),
* am Chinese (but don't speak Chinese too well and don't do very well in my Chinese specialisation course either - and oh, Chinese don't exactly have very good reputes to my knowledge. and yes, i can be a Singaporean and be a Chinese at the same time. one is my nationality, another, my race),
* am not particularly good-looking (just average, maybe less),
* am not the size 0 standard of beauty, and
* have pock-marked horribly ugly complexion.

so yes, pretty much selfish reasons. but, i still do feel that it is almost the only one true way to measure or quantify a person's true "worth" (again, working on the assumption that everyone has a different worth). Would you rather be measured by how many physical assets you have? or how well you did as a human in thsi life on this world? If we saw life as a course or a module or subject, would you rather be examined by how much money you have? or by how fulfilling your life was and how you lived it?

money is definitely important in this world. but is it so important that we have to view it as a priority above many others? view it as a gauge of worth? something to quantify us by? something to define us by? i'd seriously prefer to be a person spending money than a person being spent by money. i guess for me, i try not to judge people.

essentially, there are two kinds of people in my dictionary : 1) likes 2) not-so-likes. very subjective, i know. likes are people i click well with, i can totally get them, and we're mostly in the same league and come to a general (meaning we still have irregularities here and there, maybe a little conflicts and argument, but on the whole) agreement on most stuffs. well, not-so-likes doesnt mean i hate them (i try not to hate people, and as of now, there's only 2 ppl i despise and none that i hate), it just simply means that i dont necessarily agree with their perspectives on things i view as important in a human's life (for example, their priorities that involve money, family, friends) and we're not on the same wavelength most of the time.

so thats it. (i'm undermining everything i've said above by saying this:) i don't know if this is just a way to convince myself that it's alright if i dont make as much money as ***, or don't own *** or ***, or don't stay *** or ***. but, i just don't feel like anyone should be defined by all those 身外物.

“身是菩提树，心如明镜台，时时勤拂拭，勿使惹尘埃。”
“菩提本无树，明镜亦非台，本来无一物，何处惹尘埃？”

Yesterday was Whit Monday. Or at least it used to be. The Day of the Holy Spirit, the day after Whitsun, now best known to some of us because it reminds us of a poem by Philip Larkin. It's the spring holiday, a big day in the Retail Park calendar. I'm not sure that many people choose to marry at this time of the year now.

It was sunny and dry, although there was quite a strong north easterly wind. It felt cold. I went out walking, down along the harbour and up the river to Kitty Brewster and through Bebside. I made my way back by the Plessey wagonway track. The usual shirt-sleeved gaggle of chirpy locals was standing outside smoking at door of the Willow Tree.

When I got home I went out into the back garden and cut back the laurel. Big fat flower buds have suddenly appeared on the flag irises, one of my very favourite flowers. The French lavender is beginning to flower too and the lilies are stretching a little higher each day.  Golden yellow buds are swelling all over the climbing rose and the tight little reddened nodules of the honeysuckle tell me the garden will soon be full of its swooning scent.  Summer is all but here now.

I went back into the conservatory. Margaret was reading. A pair of fluffy maroon mules sat on the coffee table beside her. I should have bought the chicken wire when I had the chance.  I went through to the living room and put on the Decemberists and stared for a while at the painting of Rowhope I've been working on since I was sick a couple of months ago. I've slowly taken a lot of the yellow out of it, yellow being in my mind the most sickly colour. The painting is unusual for me in that it has no sky. My paintings depend upon their skies most of the time. The painting of Rowhope is an attempt to do without a sky. I also want it to look as much like a map as a representation of the scene, although not more so. That's tricky, I found. The painting has some good angles and pleasing lines and it's certainly a lot less nauseating than it was. Perhaps it's time I let it go.

In the early evening Hugo and Mrs Hugo came home. He unloaded some spiked railings from his van. A little while later I heard him drilling the walls outside. He was installing CCTV. The loss of the swing has obviously made him more insecure than I'd first imagined. Hugo's world is being fortified. Sometimes you can't help thinking that even a little affluence is dangerous in a world where needs are constructed by spending. When money is burning a hole in your pocket it's easy to imagine there are dragons in the world that only shopping will slay. Before too long I imagine Hugo will have battlements and a drawbridge - just as soon as Argos get their stocks in. And why not? He can afford them, the Daily Mail says he needs them, and they will make his property thoroughly modern and highly desirable even in a difficult housing market. This is the future. Electric fences, gun turrets, guard dogs, searchlights and sirens, laser trip wires, beartraps among the lupins, landmines among the gladioli. This will be the ordinary life of the ordinary aspirational man.

When I came in tonight I glanced up at Hugo's cameras. He has two and they seem to be positioned to ensure they cover not only his whole front garden but the footpath in the street too. In fact I would guess that he has wide angle lenses and that our garden path also appears on his monitors. I wanted to give him a nervous little wave. I wondered if under the Data Protection legislation I had the right to ask him for copies of any video recordings of me. It's a little disconcerting to think that Hugo will know all my comings and goings. He'll know if I'm on foot. He'll know if I'm carrying my old umbrella. He'll know if I'm wearing a red woolly hat. But I guess this is a price worth paying if it ensures that never again is a broken blue swing purloined by a kid in a polyester suitlet.

The Crane Wife is a fine album, at times quite overwhelming.

In her youth, she must have made the train ride into Penn Station hundreds of times. Today was different; New York is now a stranger to her, but her dreams of New York had rekindled her fire, and given her the strength to escape to a new reality.

She stepped into the crowd; now, she was just one of thousands. Another anonymous body, carried away by the tide of humanity. Here, she was a nobody, instead of back home where she was the bastard’s pitied wife. She let herself be moved along, part of the current, swimming on dry land to the escalators that would raise her to the street level. Coming from the hot, dry air of Penn Station, the winter weather of Seventh Avenue caught her off guard. She drew her coat nearer, wrapping the long scarf once more around her neck.

She walked up Seventh and crossed over. She elbowed her way across the street, then smiled as she caught her long unused City skills back in her immediate memory. She paused in front of Macys to watch the people as they spun through the revolving door, almost as though they were dancing their way in to throw money at the salespeople.

Continuing onward, something different was in the air. The smells of The City were treasured memories come alive – chestnuts, pretzels, exhaust, hot dogs and sweat. But there was something new she couldn’t place. Turning her head, she found the source; men tossing peanuts in sugar syrup. The enticing scent of caramelized peanuts was immediately added to the perfume in her head.

She had forgotten how cold the wind could be as it whipped up the Avenue. She rubbed her nose with her gloves and walked more briskly, hoping to make it to Times Square without the need for amputation of her facial features. She pulled the scarf up over her mouth and a bit of her nose, so that the exhale would warm her lower face.

As she walked along Seventh, she passed the statue of the tailor and his sewing machine. An unbidden smile crossed her face. On their first date, they walked this path, taking turns posing for silly photos. She remembered gleefully swinging around the giant sewing needle like a child on a maypole. So long ago; years before his brazenness had sacrificed her on the pyre of public humiliation. She shrugged off both the happy memory and the anger, focusing only on vengeance as she continued her journey.

As she drew closer to the heart of New York’s tourist mecca, she recalled how much it both excited and exasperated her. There is something about Times Square that caused adrenaline to rise in even the calmest of souls. All the neon, all the drama, all the energy that bounced back and forth between the corridors thronged with humanity. Her pulse raced and her heart beat faster as she entered the magic kingdom.

She marched purposefully through the crowds, destination fixed. She glanced around, everything seemed so clean and sanitized, particularly when contrasted with the recollections of her youth. So much had changed since Greg had forbidden her to visit the City eight years ago. She had been young then; at least she was not yet old.

Looking left, she expected to see the store where, as a teenager, she had bought her first fake ID. It was now yet another fast food store, serving imitation food where imitation adults were once created. Back then, twenty one seemed so far away; now it was just a pleasant, long ago memory.

She found her path blocked by a horde of teenage girls. Movement halted, she followed their gaze upward and connected with the MTV studios. As a teen, she would have killed to hang out here. Now, she just wanted to kill these wide eyed, text messaging teens for interrupting her stride. She shook it off; inhaled deeply, enjoying the little rush she got from the combination of icy cold air and exhaust fumes. Regaining control, she made a wide arc around the girls, avoiding eye contact. She escaped their trap unscathed, heaving a sigh of relief.

She stopped where the TKTS booth should be. It was missing. How could that be? She looked around, but saw no sign. Where the trailers once stood, she saw plywood. Perplexed, she crossed the street, hoping to solve the glitch in her plan. She had spent far too much time and energy on this plot to be sidetracked by the disappearance of a landmark.

Music blared. She looked in its direction and saw a sign for ‘The Charmin Bathrooms.’ As good a place as any to gather her thoughts, so she moved in that direction. The sound of the Charmin Cha Cha Cha blared at decibels reserved for heavy metal concerts. It startled her, but she kept moving. She pushed the door open and quickly stepped onto the escalator. It stretched three stories high; she felt the air thinning as she neared the top. Finally, the ride ended and she joined the line, winding around velvet ropes attached to metal pylons.

As she worked on plan B, her brain was numbed by the repetitive sound of the cha cha cha. Time passed slowly and the music looped endlessly. After what seemed like an hour of water board torture, but was actually seven minutes of cha cha cha torture, she closed the door to her stall. Thankfully, the music was muted due to dozens of rolls of toilet paper. Business handled, she sat quietly. In the muffled silence of the stall, she cleared the extraneous thoughts. Almost immediately, a plan became clear. She rearranged her clothes and prepared to descend into the frigid December air.

Stepping out of her comfort zone, immediately, she was asked to dance by a costumed bear, dancing alongside a woman wearing short shorts and a tank top. She brushed the bear off and asked the woman, “What happened to the TKTS Booth?” “Renovations. There’s a temporary booth over by the Marriott.” She nodded her thanks. The woman reached into her tiny back pocket and handed over a toilet paper coupon, all without missing a beat of the dance. Coupon in hand, she shrugged off the clip board equipped, poll taking, model wannabees who guarded the downward escalator, and headed back to the street.

Stepping onto Broadway, she found it imperative to escape the incessant sound of the music. She quickly crossed up and over, and she smiled slyly as she reviewed her plan. Plan B was actually better than Plan A. This would be sweet.

She pulled the restaurant door open with assurance. As much as she loathed this place, it was perfectly suited for poetic justice. There was a large line to check in. Those already on the list waited along the corridor sides. Folks stared at their large, clear plastic pagers as if their glare alone would cause them to light up and vibrate, allowing them seating at a nearby table. The smell of the pseudo Italian food made her crave the real thing.

Greg had taken her here on their second date. He thought it was funny; with all the amazing Italian restaurants within feet of this place, tourists queued up to dine here. As a reward, they were served huge helpings of bland, flavorless, genuine imitation pasta product. That should have warned her that Greg was far from genuine. Instead of appreciating the comfort these out of towners found dining in a familiar place, Greg chose to be snide, snarky and overly impressed with his own self-importance. Back then, she thought it sexy and sophisticated. Now, after discovering his not so secret life, she knew Greg’s actions had been indicative of the true nature of his soul – dark, callus, mean spirited and cruel.

She remembered the way to the ladies room, and entered it without hesitation. She put her bag on the sink, carefully avoiding the big puddle of soapy water in the middle. She took out the debit card to which she had affixed a sticker reading, “Today is your lucky day. This debit card is worth $1,000. You can use it as you want or take it to the nearest ATM. The pin number is 3796. You can withdraw up to $500 today and another $500 tomorrow. It has been arranged. It is my gift to you. Merry X-mas. Love, Santajew.” With a satisfied smile she taped the card to the mirror, exited the restroom, and sauntered out of The Olive Garden.

She walked towards Rockefeller Center as her pulse quickened. Two more tasks, then she would escape to a warm climate. Justice and revenge, all in the same mix, planned to a perfection. She was glad to realize that when precipitated by extreme betrayal and anger, she remained capable of solving it all with her top notch planning.

She had believed in him. Trusted him. Loved him. In exchange, he had lied, cheated, stolen and broken her heart. But she was smart. Smarter and braver then he ever noticed. She had planned carefully; by the time the new day dawned, he would be ruined and she would start her new life.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the thousands of tourists who milled about in front of Radio City. Where do they all come from, she wondered, as another bus unloaded its stream of camera toting, waist-pouch wearing passengers. Girding herself to enter the nucleus of Christmas hell, she moved towards the Tree. Her usual, long stride was hampered by the press of people; she could move no more than an inch or two per step. As she came within a few feet of the Tree, she almost backed out; the hajj mentality of these people scared her. What was it about this tree bedecked in strands of bulbs that beckoned all these people to pay homage?

Somehow, she made it to the edge of the skating rink. She and Greg skated here once. She thought it romantic; he told her he just liked skating and being able to ruin holiday photos by giving the finger to the onlookers. She had been such a fool. She should have seen the signs.

She carefully removed one of the two packets of post-it affixed bills from her bag, splitting the contents between both hands. When the wind blew north, she lifted one hand over the rink and let the bills fly. With the other hand, she waited for the breeze to pass, than she spun around, throwing the dollars up and towards the people near the Tree. She watched as they floated downward, moving quickly from the rail, as shouts of joy and chaos began to sound. How she loved this City.

She race walked from the chaos, hearing happy shouts from those claiming money. She could picture Greg’s face, horrified by her generosity. She would have suffered his wrath in the past for giving but a dollar to a homeless jug. She threw back her hood, pulled down her scarf and laughed, “Don’t worry Greg; it was from your personal account, not mine. I guess you get to be Santajew this year.”

As she moved down Fifth Avenue, her eye was caught by a woman and two small children, huddled together in the cold. Something looked wrong. They didn’t look like beggars, but they also didn’t look like they belonged on this affluent boulevard of dreams and desires. The woman saw her looking, and explained, “My husband left us here two days ago. He had our plane tickets home, our money and our bags. I don’t know what happened to him. But we’re cold, hungry and scared.” Looking at the children, she knew it was the truth. She reached into her bag and pulled out a packet of cash, glad she hadn’t thrown it all out at Rockefeller Rink. Along with the Charmin coupon, she handed the woman $2,500 cash, each bill affixed with the Santajew post-it, like those she shared at the Tree. She said, “Merry Christmas. Santajew at your service.” Before the woman could say or do anything, she rushed off. Instantly, she was again part of the crush of anonymous humanity, scurrying down Fifth Avenue.

The Empire State Building. Final stop in her ‘payback’s a bitch’ tour. Entering the art deco lobby, she replayed the moment that changed her life. It was here, under the gold bas relief of the Empire State Building, Greg had asked her to marry him. Most folks went up to the Observation Deck for a moment like that, but Greg was too cheap to buy tickets. It was here that she said yes, accepting that tacky, cheap, silver and turquoise ring that had caused her finger to break out in a scaly rash. The perfect place to hammer the final showcase nail in his coffin.

She watched the people rush through the lobby, passing the backlit paintings of the Eight Wonders of the Modern World without ever seeing them. Kind of the way she had entered her marriage to Greg. And just like the way Greg had treated her these past years. She had changed that today. She was right on schedule. She took the final plan item from her bag, a $2,000 debit card, pin number and Santajew note attached. After kissing it goodbye, she taped it to the sign that describing the Empire State Building.

Without a backwards glance, she exited the lobby. The limo she had hired was waiting. They drove towards the midtown tunnel and she was content. In less than four hours, she would be on a plane to Greece. In just over 24 hours, Greg would return from his weeklong bimbo tryst in the Caribbean. He still perceived her as only his loyal, devoted, blindered wife, waiting patiently for his return. But she knew. Not only was he cheating on her; he was paying for his lifestyle with money embezzled from her father’s company. But she had been forced to spend too many hours alone, watching and reveling in those New York City revenge movies, and they had given her a PhD in payback.

Monday, she had moved their joint assets to an offshore account. On Tuesday, she had emptied his secret safe deposit box, placing most of that money into another off shore account along with the purchase of a few discretionary debit cards and cash stashes. When she had discovered the extent of his transgressions, she had secretly listed the house, which had been in her name only, on the market. She had sold and moved from it on Wednesday. On arrival, he would discover he was broke, single, homeless and about to be arrested. In her head was the image of Greg trying to unlock the front door of what had been their house, only to discover it was no longer home. It gave her a warm, fuzzy feeling.

If and when Greg found the letter she left on his desk at the office, he would be livid. Especially when he read about Santajew. He hated holidays, good deed doing, and charitable causes with a passion. Throughout their marriage, whenever she did something generous or good, for weeks he would maliciously taunt her with the nickname, Santajew.

Cindy had reclaimed Santajew thanks to his money and her passion. She smiled. Payback. New York style.

By: Lauren J. Walter  1/15/08

Large and small players are scrambling to get into the business of covering Africa with more indepth coverage and to provide more choices. As Africa slowly becomes more affluent, so does the need for choice and quality programming.

MyBroadband.co.za has the rest of this story

British retailers hand out an estimated 13 billion free plastic bags every year, they're used for an average 12 minutes each, they take between 500-1,000 years to decay, and they break down ('photo-degrade') in smaller parts, which are still toxic. But the significant adverse effect is on other wildlife. Modbury, the Devon village which became the first place in the UK to ban plastic bags, puts it like this:

In the UK at least 200 million plastic bags end up as litter on our beaches, streets and parks ever year. When a plastic bag enters the ocean it becomes a harmful piece of litter. Many marine animals mistake plastic bags for food and swallow them, with painful and often fatal consequences.

It's not a coincidence that Rebecca Hosking, who started that campaign, was (and is) a wildlife photographer who had watched the damage done when birds and sealife, as well as land mammals, eat plastic bags, or get entangled in them. These pictures are all from the Modbury site, which also has some short films.

In order: deer rooting around on a rubbish tip (in India); a crane which has wrapped itself in a plastic bag; and the slightly grisly contents of the stomach of a dead Minke whale washed up in France.

The picture of the minke whale stomach is also used on the Claire Morsman's 'sociable guerilla bagging' site, Morsbags. It uses an 'open knowledge' approach to sharing bag patterns to encourage people to make their own fabric bags and use them instead of plastic bags. She was inspired to launch it after finding a dead seagull on a beach in Devon with its legs trapped in a plastic bag. Morsbags lists the contents of the whale's stomach:

• 1 pastic/aluminium crisp packet
• 2 English supermarket carrier bags
• 7 various coloured plastic bag bits
• 7 transparent plastic bags
• 1 food packaging wrapper.

Clearly government advisers such as Chris Coggins are right to say that supermarkets need to do a lot more about packaging. But when the British Retail Federation complains about including plastic bags in the Climate Change Bill, they are on tricky ground. It's hard for people, in their day-to-day lives to do things which are respectful of other species. Not using plastic bags is an important symbolic gesture.

Of the many speakers included is Rick Warren, the guy behind 'A Purpose-Driven Life'. In this particular video he reflects on "what we've been given" and how to turn "affluence and influence" into a purposeful life. Whichever way you feel about Rick Warren, I thought his talk provided some good food for thought. Check it out. Thanks to Boris for the link.

*I'm been having embedding this video. For now, check out the link HERE.

This is not encouraging news for all of us who are making an honest effort to reduce our impact by changing the way we live, for it indicates that simply by living in this country and enjoying its benefits - even if they amount to using the cast-offs of others - we each carry the karma of American affluence and energy profligacy.

While it may seem surprising that even people whose lifestyles don't appear extravagant--the homeless, monks, children--are responsible for significant greenhouse gas emissions, one major factor is the array of government services that are available to everyone in the United States. These basic services-including police, roads, libraries, the court system and the military-were allocated equally to everyone in the country in this study. Other services that are more specific, such as education or Medicare, were allocated only to those who actually make use of them.

The students conducted detailed interviews or made detailed estimates of the energy usage of 18 lifestyles, spanning the gamut from a vegetarian college student and a 5-year-old up to the ultra-rich-Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates. The energy impact for the rich was estimated from published sources, while all the others were based on direct interviews. The average annual carbon dioxide emissions per person, they found, was 20 metric tons, compared to a world average of four tons.

But the “floor” below which nobody in the U.S. can reach, no matter what their energy choices, turned out to be 8.5 tons, the class found. That was the usage calculated for a homeless person who ate in soup kitchens and slept in homeless shelters. The person with the lowest energy usage was a Buddhist monk who spent six months of every year living in the forest and had total annual spending of $12,500. His carbon footprint was 10.5 tons.

Go spend a year or two in an underdeveloped country, then return to the U.S., with its wealth of highways, vehicles, buildings, services and store inventories - and its obscenely huge defense budget - and it's pretty clear how the findings of the class could be so. Plus, as Timothy Gutowski, the class's professor, explains, we are SO affluent that even when we take green steps, we're likely to offset them with other choices available to us in this culture of unlimited choices.

“When you save energy, you save money,” Gutowski explains. “The question is, how are you going to spend that money?”

The students looked at the factors within each person's control that might lead to a reduction in their carbon output. They found that achieving significant reductions for the most part required drastic changes that would likely be unacceptable to most people. As a result, they said, “this all suggests to us very significant limits to voluntary actions to reduce impacts, both at a personal level and at a national level.”

Maybe, then, my 12 years of living collectively and sharing resources, had some merit. That lifestyle was certainly "unacceptable to most people." Back to the future, everyone.

Thanks to Smart Mobs and ZDnet for the link.

To give you an idea of craziness of real estate prices - the house I live in is now worth the same as what a three level town house in the inner city cost back in 2000. Of course that house is probably in the million dollar mark. I really don't get it. So everyone in mum's group wants the prices to remain as high as they have been in the past few years whereas I want them to drop so I can buy in.

I read a story in the paper about a young family that lived in a tent in a caravan park and used public toilets and BBQ facilities to cook a meal. These people are completely invisible at the moment in the mainstream press which goes on and on about millionaires, people who make money off real estate and rising rent prices. It makes people anxious and if you buy into it you really feel you don't have enough even if you're a millionaire. It's the whole status anxiety thing.

But if you don't look after those at the bottom, it's not good for your kids or the future. Incredible disparity in wealth within a society really scares me. It's how radicals are created on both sides of the fences. I don't mind paying more taxes for better social services and for the money to go to people who need it. I believe in means tested welfare. I mean the fact Nicole Kidman will get the baby bonus of $5000 is ludicrous.

If you click on this website - you can do your bit for homelessness in Australia.

[Eat Money poster from The New Internationalist Shop]
Only when the last tree has died, and the last tree been poisoned, and the last fish been caught, will we realise we cannot eat money - Cree proverb

Inflation.
Rising Fuel prices.
Unaffordable housing.

But you know what - no one is feeding mud bricks to their kids in this country to fill their bellies because there's nothing else to feed them.
A big corporation can spend thousands of dollars on wooing a client with expensive champagne, meanwhile somewhere in the world someone is starving to death.
Communism wasn't the answer. What is the answer?
Or is this the way the world is - survival of the fittest?

There's a lovely quote he makes: "every time I give I break the grip of materialism in my life", awesome.

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.517898&w=425&h=350&fv=bgColor%3DFFFFFF%26file%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fstatic.videoegg.com%2Fted%2Fmovies%2FRICKWARREN_high.flv%26autoPlay%3Dfalse%26fullscreenURL%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fstatic.videoegg.com%2Fted%2Fflash%2Ffullscreen.html%26forcePlay%3Dfalse%26logo%3D%26allowFullscreen%3Dtrue] from www.ted.com

Merci a vous tous les amis badboys, vous avez fait péter les scores wordpress. En effet,depuis hier l'article sur les banderoles a rassemblé plus de 1200 lectures à lui seul. Résultat: il se retrouve en 1er page wordpress grâce à son nombre de visites.

Si cela continu je vais être obligé de vous récompenser.

Petite liste des améliorations à venir :

- Pour commencer je vais bientôt ajouter de nouveaux tee shirt aussi beau que ceux en boutique.

- De nouvelle captures photo des t-shirts en boutique pour vous donner un arpercu avant l'achat.

- Plein de réductions pour vous mes lecteurs préférés (frais de port offert,-20% etc.)

- Des améliorations graphiques du blog pour vous faciliter la navigation.

- De nouveaux reportages écrit ( comme "benzema à t-il le melon") ou reportage photo (comme " les pires banderole en ligue1" ).

- Je prépare actuellement un dossier maillot 2008-09 avec le plus d'exclusivité possible.

- Prochainement une nouvelle rubrique va s'ajouter, "l'info transfert" : tous les mardi de la semaine sera consacré aux derniers dossiers chaux du mercato ou aux simple rumeurs de depart.

Some noteworthy facts from the study mentioned below (which can be downloaded from http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/dca-dea/yjc/index-eng.php):

• Positive attitudes of one’s friends towards others have a protective influence on emotional health and well-being.

(How many of us would follow Dale Carnegie's advice and praise people whenever we can instead of blasting them for their failures?  We could create positive people as a drop of water ripples outward from its point of impact.  Of course I guess you'd have to be positive already.  Humans follow the laws of the universe though we like to fool ourselves otherwise.  Of course this is linked to a caring community, nutritious diets and exercise.)

• Almost half of students are physically inactive. Fewer than half report daily consumption of fruits or vegetables, and only half report daily consumption of low-fat/skim milk. The problems of inactivity, obesity and poor nutrition are particularly apparent in youngsters from homes with the lowest levels of family wealth.  (A healthy body is needed for a healthy mind and vice versa.  It's a feedback cycle.  Healthy mind (the coordinator) is linked to the social determinants while healthy body is linked to food (the building blocks).  I can certainly understand this finding having suffered poor health for much of my childhood through to early university - oh, the glories of "extremely" high carbohydrate diets) 

• Most forms of bullying have decreased in the past four years. However, more than one-third of students have still been victims of bullying. More students – about 40% – from higher-income families acknowledge they have bullied others. 

(I can understand this one from my own history.  I wonder if the wealth part parallels our North-Western vs. South-Eastern situation.  Such as the West exploiting the East through migrant labour, having them take our e-waste, cheap labour to produce our food.  The politics people would get that.  Of course you may not agree and I accept that).  

• Health-risk behaviours such as smoking, drinking and marijuana use are strongly associated with lower academic achievement, a less positive attitude towards school, not living with both parents and having poorer parental trust and communication. Also, those who report that they find it easier to talk with friends have higher rates of substance use.

At least the smoking fell.  That was the easy one relatively speaking.

The solutions are there.  Like our problems with the environment and climate chaos (which are inextricably linked to how we deal with people - deal with people badly, deal with environment badly), it's a matter of willpower (and along those lines, political will).  Who's going to take the first step, inspire and lead?  

****

Queen’s-led study tracks trends in youth health behaviour

Wednesday April 02, 2008

Positive school experiences and good family relationships exert an important influence on almost all aspects of young people’s health, a new Queen’s University-led national study shows. 

On the other hand, family wealth and peer relationships have both positive and negative influences on youth health.

These are just a few of the findings from the new youth behaviour report released today in Ottawa by the Public Health Agency of Canada. The report examines smoking, alcohol and drug use, physical activity and body image, eating patterns, emotional health and injuries in children aged 11 to 15. More than 9,500 students from Grades 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 participated in 2006.

The Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey has been carried out in Canada every four years since 1990 by the Social Program Evaluation Group (SPEG) at Queen’s, in partnership with the Public Health Agency of Canada. The study is supported by the World Health Organization and involves research teams from 41 countries in North America and Europe. The new report examines the health settings and contexts of young people in relation to their health attitudes and behaviours.

Among key findings from the study (comparing 2006 to 2002):

• Daily smoking among both boys and girls has declined significantly, especially in Grade 10, with a drop from 15% down to 4% of boys, and a drop from 11% down to 6% for girls. The proportion of students getting “really drunk” twice or more has also declined slightly among Grade 10 students. In 2006, the proportion of boys in Grade 10 who report ever trying cannabis dropped to 38% from 50% in 2002, whereas, the proportions for girls were similar across the two years, at about two-fifths.

• Almost half of students are physically inactive. Fewer than half report daily consumption of fruits or vegetables, and only half report daily consumption of low-fat/skim milk. The problems of inactivity, obesity and poor nutrition are particularly apparent in youngsters from homes with the lowest levels of family wealth.

• Health-risk behaviours such as smoking, drinking and marijuana use are strongly associated with lower academic achievement, a less positive attitude towards school, not living with both parents and having poorer parental trust and communication. Also, those who report that they find it easier to talk with friends have higher rates of substance use.

• Most forms of bullying have decreased in the past four years. However, more than one-third of students have still been victims of bullying. More students – about 40% – from higher-income families acknowledge they have bullied others. 

• From 31 to 48 % of boys and girls in Grades 6 to 10 report one or more medically-treated injuries in a 12-month period. School factors – particularly, higher academic achievement levels – are associated with lower occurrences of serious injury.

• While emotional health is similar for both boys and girls in Grade 6, by Grade 10 girls experience poorer emotional health than boys. Higher levels of parental trust and communication are much more important to young people’s emotional health than living with both parents, or to family wealth.

• Positive attitudes of one’s friends towards others have a protective influence on emotional health and well-being.

“Improving school and family strengths may indicate the best opportunity for success of youth health interventions,” says SPEG director Dr. William Boyce, who edited and contributed to the report. “At the same time, the greatest need for interventions appears to be within the peer context and in social income policy. Further research is needed to investigate how these protective factors combine with risk factors and lead to health improvement or to poor health in young people.”

Other Queen’s contributors to the report are: Wendy Craig (Psychology), Will Pickett (Community Health and Epidemiology), Ian Janssen (Kinesiology and Health Studies),  John Freeman, Matt King, Don Klinger and Hana Saab from the Faculty of Education; and Frank Elgar from Carleton University.

An executive summary of findings, in English and French, is available upon request. The complete study may be accessed on-line.

For more information on The Health Behaviour in School-aged Children, see: www.hbsc.org

Keywords:  bullying, social determinants, health, food, nutrition, food security, low income, high income, affluence, schools, education, society, microcosm, reflection

Here's my version of the WSJ data regarding how US commodity prices and world population have changed over time:

The CRB Spot Index is based on the prices of these goods:

• burlap, cotton, print cloth, wool
• butter, cocoa, lard, sugar, rosin, rubber, soybean oil, tallow
• corn, wheat
• hides, hogs, steers
• copper scrap, lead scrap, steel scrap, tin, zinc

Notes:

• fossil fuels are not involved in this index
• the index is not adjusted for inflation
• to grossly understate the case, the upward trend in the last six years is worrying

I've overlayed the population curve on the graph to emphasize (as did the WSJ article) that rising prices are not solely the result of central bankers putting more money into the economy. Since minerals and other natural resources like good agricultural land are finite resources, population growth and rising per capita consumption must force prices up — unless counterbalanced by rising productivity.

A couple of weeks ago I made essentially the same case, suggesting that inflation has been tightly bound to the price of oil (a commodity) rather than the actions of central banks, and offered this chart:

And this one annotated with past oil crises and the coming of age of the Asian "miracle" economies:

The message is clear. With the CRB spot index doubling and the price of oil tripling in the last 6 years, productivity increases have not been able to address increasing demand (more people coupled with increasing per capita consumption) and diminishing resources.

Consider this graph, from an earlier post:

Here, the trend from 1950 is horrible. It's little solace to see CO2 per capita (maybe) leveling off while total CO2 emissions and population continue a steady increase.

All of the above in one go:

And with some smoothing to make it easier to digest:

The 1st and 2nd oil crises were artificial, that is, politically motivated not the result of real production limitations. The spike in oil prices of the last six years, however, is not a political statement. What if that spike reflects actual cost? What if the spike in the CRB spot index is not the result of financial hocus-pocus by central bankers and commodity traders but a reflection of reality on the ground?

Justin Lahart, Patrick Barta, and Andrew Batson — the authors of the WSJ article mentioned above — put it this way:

Steady increases in the prices for oil, wheat, copper and other commodities — some of which have set record highs this month — are signs of a lasting shift in demand as yet unmatched by rising supply.

As the world grows more populous — the United Nations projects eight billion people by 2025, up from 6.6 billion today — it also is growing more prosperous. The average person is consuming more food, water, metal and power. Growing numbers of China's 1.3 billion people and India's 1.1 billion are stepping up to the middle class, adopting the high-protein diets, gasoline-fueled transport and electric gadgets that developed nations enjoy.

The result is that demand for resources has soared. If supplies don't keep pace, prices are likely to climb further, economic growth in rich and poor nations alike could suffer, and some fear violent conflicts could ensue.

And they talked with one of the most cited economists of our time:

As a young economist 30 years ago, Joseph Stiglitz said flatly: "There is not a persuasive case to be made that we face a problem from the exhaustion of our resources in the short or medium run."

Today, the Nobel laureate is concerned that oil is underpriced relative to the cost of carbon emissions, and that key resources such as water are often provided free. "In the absence of market signals, there's no way the market will solve these problems," he says. "How do we make people who have gotten something for free start paying for it? That's really hard. If our patterns of living, our patterns of consumption are imitated, as others are striving to do, the world probably is not viable."

...

But Mr. Stiglitz, the economist, contends that consumers eventually will have to change their behavior even more than then did after the 1970s oil shock. He says the world's traditional definitions and measures of economic progress — based on producing and consuming ever more — may have to be rethought.

reflections

When politicians or corporations find out there is some bad news about to break, they mitigate the damage by coming clean about their involvement. It's time for environmentalists do the same.

The bad news is we need higher prices for food and fossil fuels to provide the market signals necessary to change economic behavior. It's important, but not enough, for activists to point out the problems of population growth, consumption growth, and the damaged incurred by burning fossil fuels, but only clear market signals actually change behavior quickly and dramatically enough to affect positive outcomes.

Inflation of food and fuel prices is just the ticket. When it's not driven by governments printing money willy-nilly, inflation reflects the reality on the ground. Increasing demand meets finite supply.

Only after accepting this can we begin to meaningfully address the need to:

• make family planning services ubiquitous
• ensure all women have the same political and economic rights as men
• ensure all children get a sound basic education
• provide a social safety net for everyone (food, shelter, medical care, jobs)
• build a new economy based on ecological health and limited natural capital
• reduce consumption to sustainable levels

Any other alternative says some people deserve to live well while using a large share of environmental resources and others should simply get out of the way and die.

We can create a Dickensian world or one that's better. It's our choice.

notes

US commodity data from Commodity Research Board (CRB) Spot Index of 23 markets, B7. (Same source as the WSJ article.)

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Economics Prize Lecture 2001

I have observed that the more affluent a congregation is that the more works related and less Biblical living/teaching is preached or practiced. It becomes more important to live well and do good rather than know Jesus and live as He taught. They are concerned about their place in the world and perceptions. Jesus is a savior in a vague way but not a teacher. As more generations are raised this way, very little is left of Biblical understanding. Soon young people wonder what the point of church is and quit going because it doesn’t apply to their life. They find excuses to avoid church and soon don’t bother even with excuses but have been won over by the world. The link is broken. Their children likely won’t go to church.

Also, there seems to be a necessary for a need in order for people to want God in their lives. The more affluent a nation, person or church are, the less is truly needed. This often can be a gradual decline as wealth increases so by the time the church or person has reached apostasy, they do not necessarily realize it for what it is but rather give justifications as to why their beliefs have changed and the original beliefs and practices are no longer “relevant”.

This was seen in Old Testament writings as well as throughout history and more recent events. When things were going well for Israelites they fell away from God until things got tough. Then they remembered God and begged forgiveness. I guess its just human nature to take God for granted until trouble comes. After the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks, church attendance is the US spiked. It has now fallen back off. We need to fight against this by keeping church relevant to everyday life.

I also find it interesting that the most popular churches today seem to have the most apostasy. Americans are comfortable with their worldly, consumer lifestyles and want a church which justifies this. They don’t want to change or sacrifice. They want immediate rewards, not some vague thing which maybe will occur when they die. They want to be entertained. Thus, the message becomes less important than the package (fancy buildings, nice clothes, popular music, etc). The message itself has become watered down in order to appeal to “the masses”. Forget creation if you want, but know some about Moses and the 10 Commandments, Jesus birth, simplified savior message with His death and resurrection. Not much said about daily living other than the Golden Rule. While this may bring people in the door every week, does it really bring people to know and understand Jesus mission and God’s word? I don’t think so. It makes hollow Christians with only a vague idea of the meaning of what Christianity is about. Most say they are Christian but don’t act any differently than non-Christians.

A good example of this is in observing the ordinance of headcovering for women. This is a very contentious issue to some. There are many rationalizations as to why not to cover. The Reformed Presbytery in North America issued a position against covering in 2001. (Read their report) The conclusion states that it is an alteration and change concerning headcovering. Meaning at one time they did endorse covering. They now use the fact that women generally don’t wear headcoverings in modern culture to show that 1 Corinthians 11 was only cultural to ancient times.

They don’t want to offend or drive anyone away be telling the truth, “In this way, we, as Christians, may use our liberty to promote unity and peace within the body of Christ and to drive away unnecessary contention from the Church.” In other words, women don’t want to do it so we won’t make them so they will still come to our churches. Thus, they have rationalized away and countermanded this Biblical ordinance.

A group in North Ireland split from the main Presbyterian church to form the Free Persbyterian Church due to apostasy. This group supports women’s headcovering and a return to Biblical principles. This is just one example of apostasy in modern churches.

Perhaps we give central bankers too much credit for both stimulating growth and controlling inflation. Look at the correlation of inflation rate and oil prices over the last 35 years.

I put this graph together after reading a news report that said the current inflation rate in the US was the highest in 17 years. The data I found (sources below) say that's a true statement. The article, however, focused on what the US Federal Reserve and its chairman Ben Bernake were going to do about it, the assumption being that they should keep inflation low and avoid a recession.

two kinds of inflation

A government printing money willy-nilly causes inflation of the worst sort as happened in Weimar Germany which in 1923 issued a 50 million mark banknote worth about $1 US and is happening in Zimbabwe which currently has "the highest inflation rate in the world, above 100,000 percent."

The USA learned to manage inflation of this kind under Paul Volker Federal Reserve chairman from 1979 to 1987. He was appointed by Jimmy Carter during a time of high inflation which peaked at 13.5% in 1981 and fell to 3.2% by 1983 under his tough-love management that caused a recession and the highest unemployment since the Great Depression but brought down inflation. Or so the story goes.

Was it Volker's money management or was it OPEC's response to Carter's and the US economy's energy management that brought inflation under control? Carter put in place both incentives for renewable energy as well as efficiency measures while the economy reacted to a fast increase in the price of its fundamental input. Look at the graph above. OPEC responded.

This page at the Hoover Institute touts Volker's successor Alan Greenspan, Fed chair from 1987 to 2006, as being particularly adroit at keeping inflation low. But was he that good or was it just that the price of oil was low during his tenure?

Isn't there another kind of inflation, one that is simply the result of increasing demand for a ubiquitous, fundamental resource like oil which is finite and well beyond the control of central bankers? If the world economy is based on oil (and it is) and the demand for oil increases due to developing economies, well, developing, then you would expect prices to rise, not from governments printing money, but from fundamental Economics 101 demand/supply relationships.

Inflation caused by demand of a basic resource outstripping finite supply is to be expected. It's not a central banker's faux pas. It's normal.

oil prices

Consider this:

The 1973 oil crisis began on October 17, 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC, consisting of the Arab members of OPEC plus Egypt and Syria) announced, as a result of the ongoing Yom Kippur War, that they would no longer ship oil to nations that had supported Israel in its conflict with Syria and Egypt (the United States, its allies in Western Europe, and Japan). [source]

The 1979 (or second) oil crisis in the United States occurred in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Amid massive protests, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fled his country in early 1979, allowing Ayatollah Khomeini to gain control. The protests shattered the Iranian oil sector. While the new regime resumed oil exports, it was inconsistent and at a lower volume, forcing prices to go up. Saudi Arabia and other OPEC nations, under the presidency of Dr. Mana Alotaiba increased production to offset the decline, and the overall loss in production was about 4 percent. However, a widespread panic resulted, driving the price far higher than would be expected under normal circumstances. In the United States, the Carter administration instituted price controls. [source]

What I've cavalierly labeled Asian "miracle" is really the point of maturity of that "miracle." East Asian economies began to take off 20 years prior and now have a huge impact on the price of oil because of their increasing demands for that limited resource. (Curiously, it nearly coincides with the US invasion of Iraq.)

Looking at the most recent 10 year period for which we have good data, 1996 to 2006, world oil consumption increased by 12.2 million barrels/day, from 71.5 to 83.7. Fully 31% of that increase was due to China doubling it's consumption. (18% of the world increase was due to US consumption going up 13% percent over those 10 years during which Japan decreased oil consumption 11%.)

In the face of peak oil with developing economies developing and mature economies like the US increasing their use of oil products, it can hardly be surprising that oil prices increase. Because the world economy is intimately tied to oil, inflation of the kind not controlled by central bankers increases too. Given the price rise in oil of the last couple of years, the question is not why inflation is going up but why hasn't it increased more rapidly? That's something central bankers and economists can likely answer — although they will go to great pains to avoid it.

sustainability

A world hooked on growth (see here for the movie) sees inflation as uniformly bad. Rising prices reduce the value of the savings we work so hard to put away for retirement and rainy days. The last thing we want is for some government agency (like a central bank) to destroy our efforts with irresponsible actions that stimulate inflation. What we're not taught and what doesn't get air time in the media is that inflation can occur in a perfectly natural way. A few years of bad weather pushes up food prices. Population increase makes housing prices rise (seen as a boon to current house owners but not their children). Increasing world demand for oil forces all prices to rise.

There have been a few leaks in the media umbrella. Peak oil infrequently but occasionally appears in the news. Water shortages in the US west and recently in the southeast found their way to local and national news outlets and made us think about how even a well-developed country like the United States can cope with increasing population. News about climate change leaks through from time-to-time but not in a way that causes too much concern. Even the notion of ecological footprint and the idea that humanity is consuming 125% of Earth's resources splashes on us periodically. Maybe the next leak will be about the kind of inflation that is beyond our current control mechanisms and how putting off dealing with it just makes the consequences worse, but don't hold your breath waiting for that one.

Prices rise quickly when demand outpaces supply, and it's not just oil:

The price of wheat is soaring to record levels, and right now those prices are hurting local businesses and their customers. [source]

The price of wheat has more than tripled during the past 10 months, making Americans' daily bread — and bagels and pizza and pasta — feel a little like luxury items. And baked goods aren't the only ones getting more expensive: Experts expect some 80 percent of grocery prices will spike, too, and could remain steep for years because wheat and other grains are used to feed cattle, poultry and dairy cows. [source]

Demand for meat and ethanol increases the demand for grains and the land to grow them; an increasing population increases the demand for everything; and, since agriculture and shipment of all products are dependent on oil, the increasing price of oil adds to the price you pay at the supermarket. You can't have growing economies and cheap bread, beef, and biofuels. In a world with growing economies and a growing population you can't have cheap oil either. In fact, we're looking at the demise of cheap anything.

One way to look at sustainability is as an economy in which prices are stable or decreasing. Price stability comes from population and resources remaining constant. Renewable energy is just that, renewable, not depleted over time (unlike oil). Sustainable agriculture is a way of constantly getting the same productivity out of the land and soil. Prices might decrease due to the invention of new, more productive methods of production, distribution, and organization. We're good at inventing but give it too much credit for our current "success" most of which comes from cheap fossil fuels which are a source of energy and agricultural fertilizer.

Our economy today depends on the ever increasing availability of cheap energy (fossil fuels) to not just keep prices level but reduce them even in the face of increasing population. Consider the variables. The earth is not more fecund than it used to be; there is not more land, more water, more fish in the sea. The current prices rises at the grocery store and gas pump are merely bills past due for having been using 125% of available resources for too long. It's a margin call.

negative growth

Using 125% of our resources and faced with rising prices of everything, we need to reduce consumption. This is the bane of every sustainability advocate trying to get the message out, for the message itself is not one any person wants to here and goes against the grain of centuries of growth.

In macroeconomics, a recession is a decline in a country's gross domestic product (GDP), or negative real economic growth, for two or more successive quarters of a year. [source]

A depression is any economic downturn where real GDP declines by more than 10 percent. A recession is an economic downturn that is less severe. [source]

Sustainability advocates should be clear about the need for economic recession/depression — as difficult as that is to admit. If we are consuming too much, then the response to that must be to consume less which means negative growth which, by definition, is economic recession or depression.

When a person is overweight, consuming less is a healthy response, and a very difficult one. Given that all mainstream economic thinking is focused on growth in a nearly psychopathic way, it's hard to imagine going on a consumption diet without dire consequences. We have no model for it, only images of bread lines and great queues of people trying to get jobs. Or so we think.

Is there a different, more positive model?

Lester Brown and others call for putting the nation on a wartime footing in an effort to combat climate change. During World War II American families did consume less and largely without complaint. It was seen as an act of patriotism. For three years no cars were produced; tires, gasoline, and sugar were rationed. The factories that had produced cars produced planes and tanks. Women and African Americans poured into the mainstream workforce for the first time, filling the slots formerly held by white males who enlisted or were drafted into the armed forces. Instead of planes and tanks, Brown would convert our auto production to make wind generators.

It's the right kind of idea. But, without a war at hand, how will we achieve it? Perhaps inflation will get so bad the required will can be found. Counting on a general sustainability revelation occurring because of the prevalence of good science and political integrity is, as we've found, a non-starter.

footnote

Paul Voker, former Fed chair, writing in 2005:

I don't know of any country that has managed to consume and invest 6 percent more than it produces for long. The United States is absorbing about 80 percent of the net flow of international capital. And at some point, both central banks and private institutions will have their fill of dollars.

The transfer of international capital to the US along with easy credit availability (subprime lending) may be one reason we have avoided higher inflation in the face of rising oil prices, but clever financing does nothing to increase physical resources. And at some point nature makes a margin call.

references

Inflation data.

Historic oil prices:

• IEA and the graph here based on that data set
• WTRG Economics
• InflationData.com

Oil consumption 1996-2006.

Peak oil review.

[update:  see also this NYT article from March 20]

Currencies
The world’s most important currency, the US dollar, does not really trade freely. The US Treasury established in 1934 the ‘Exchange Stabilization Fund’ specifically to ‘manage’ the US dollar exchange rate. Its dealings are secret. In 1987, 1998, 2003/4 and likely at many other times, the treasury departments and possibly central banks of the US, Japan, the EU and other countries collectively intervened to manipulate currency values. China has pegged its currency, the renminbi, to the US dollar for many years. As the US complains about Chinese currency manipulation, it needs to come clean about its own efforts first.

I suggest that currency traders and speculators should not be blamed for strong currency movements. They are nearly always reacting to bad or anti-market policies of governments and central banks and generally reflecting the ‘collective consciousness’ of the global financial community.

Stock markets
Stock markets are not free of government intervention either. After the 1987 US stock market crash, President Reagan established the Working Group on Financial Markets, (the ‘plunge protection team’), to effectively stop stock market crashes. How and when it operates is again secret. Journalists and others have tried for years to get information of the Working Group’s meetings and activities, but to no avail. On January 22, 2008, it was believed that the US Federal Reserve purposely reduced its Federal Funds rate by 0.75% just before the US Dow Jones Index was due to open 600 points (over 5%) lower! This move potentially saved the US stock markets from a major crash that day. Here we have a clear – and public case – of market intervention for the purported ‘public good.’

Interest rates
The US Federal Reserve, the EU Central Bank, Bank of Japan – in fact nearly all central banks regularly announce interest rate changes to short term securities. And through their buying and selling of government bonds, they also influence rates on all longer-term securities.

Unfortunately, a largely economically illiterate public clamours for manipulated, low interest rates. Central banks generally oblige, despite them supposedly being mostly ‘independent.’ Artificially induced low interest rates then create excessive borrowing, such as we have seen in housing. A housing bust follows and everyone blames the government – rather than themselves! (Question: who is really best able to set interest rate policy? Is it a country’s central bank or the free market?)

Oil
By controlling over 40% of global oil production, OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), stage-manages global oil production and prices. Not only do they control production levels, but they have been free to cite their oil reserves’ data with no independent verification of what they do actually have in the ground. And there are many reasons – as Matt Simons, eminent oil analyst, suggests – why we need to be sceptical of the Gulf States oil reserve numbers. Again, with the reserves being unaudited by any reputable international agency, OPEC is able to abnormally influence oil prices.

Food
Governments influence agricultural markets to a massive degree. Annual agricultural subsidies in the EU amount to about $7