Water too sacred to sell

The United Church of Canada seems to think that buying bottled water is now sinful. Although I'm not entirely sure that they believe in the notion of "sinful" anymore, so maybe it's just downgraded to inadvisable.

The United Church of Canada plans to ask its members to stop buying bottled water.

Delegates at the national meeting of the church's General Council in Thunder Bay, Ont., adopted a proposal this week that originated from congregations in London, Ont., recommending the step.

The measure was part of a package of water proposals -- some from congregations in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa - which were adopted and affirmed, among other things, that "water is a sacred gift that connects all life.''

Now water, its management and its availability, are major issues that will only become bigger, but attacking bottled water companies seems to me to be a rather silly tack to take. Dress it up with religious fluff and it gets worse. Something's necessity does not make it sacred, unless we want to expand the meaning of "sacred" to the point of meaninglessness, like we've already done with the word "art", "Christian", and a host of others.

The UCC is concerned with the privatization of water "whose value to the common good must take priority over commercial interests", and yet remains mute on the subject of the privatization of food. How's that for consistency? Of course, food production has been privatized since the dawn of civilization, so it's a little too late to squawk about it.

Richard Chambers, the church's social policy co-ordinator, also said that the church isn't calling for a boycott, only asking its members to avoid buying bottled water wherever possible. A kinder, gentler boycott, I guess, which will no doubt fall short of a devastating impact, especially since they have no intentions of "forcing" their membership to comply. That's very nice of them. Was there ever a question of forcing? Churches are notorious for using force. There's only so much finger-wagging a person can take before resistance crumbles.

Need I add that the UCC is not only losing membership, but entire congregations? Not over this issue, admittedly, but it lost its compass years ago, arguably right at its founding. As residual habits of piety die off along with the people who had them, the United Church is having a hard time keeping people coming to church. Having forgot what it's here for and why, if it ever knew, it tries to come up with causes to justify its existence, and even that it does very poorly.

Water deserves a better spokesman.

Technorati tags: UCC, Water

I have seen the future...

...and it's riding low.

Because I am Canadian, and therefore polite by definition, I try not to laugh out loud at the sight of middle-aged men in mullets and clunky gold chains riding on their grizzled chest hair, old ladies in tight perms and cat-eye glasses (oh wait, those are cool again), 30-somethings in great big hair, 50-somethings in headbands around their straggling grey locks and a host of other people who just can't get over the worst fashions of their teens and twenties. It looked rather silly when they were young and everybody was doing it. Now that they are no longer young and most other people have moved on, they are walking caricatures.

But the future will be even worse.

In ten to twenty years, those middle aged guys will be deliberately hanging their pants low so we can admire the pattern on their boxers. Or worse yet, their briefs. And the ladies will be showing off their puffy and distended tattoos just below the lumbar region.

You may start screaming now, but it won't do any good.

Technorati tags: Mullets, Low riders

"Absenteeism" in the Blackberry age

The Ottawa Citizen has its knickers in a knot because Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Transport, did not sufficiently interrupt his PEI family vacation following the terrorist arrests in Britain. I'd link you to the article but it's for subscribers only and nobody else seems to care enough to publish an article on it. Telling.

Could somebody please let them know that in the age of Blackberries and telecommuting, physical presence in the office is no longer requisite? The poor guy did fly back for a day, and has been in electronic contact with the office several hours a day on his now rather compromised vacation, but the Citizen is trying hard to sound shocked anyway. On the front page, not in the editorial section.

To be fair to the Citizen, they did pillory Liberal minister Pierre Pettigrew for his lengthy stays in Paris too, so at least they're bipartisan in their indignation. But I think they should drop it altogether. First, it makes them sound like dinosaurs, and whiny ones at that. Second, it begs for an investigation into how much time their reporters and columnists actually spend in the office, and how much time they're only in contact electronically. Because we all know that you can't do real work when you're away from the office, right?

Technorati tags: Journalism, Ottawa Citizen