Monthly Archives: June 2009

Issues, Municipal

Numbers of Hungry grow in Abbotsford.

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I allow myself one lotto 6/46 ticket whenever the pot gets over $10 million. An inexpensive chance to dream … and you never know – somebody has to win it. But even though the pot was $15 million I did not by a lottery ticket, instead spending my $2 on purchasing a $2 food bank donation coupon at Safeway.

It just seem a wiser way to spend my ‘mad money’ considering how demand for meals and food have soared over past weeks.

Disturbing is not a strong enough word to describe the flood of new faces, new people, looking for food and a place to sleep at night that has been occurring. When you stop to consider this trend, frightening is a more accurate word to describe the implications.

The new people have swollen the numbers of people in need to the point that those who provide meals have literally run out and had to scramble to find something to serve in order that everyone got fed at least something.

Those serving meals find themselves needing to provide more meals, but facing the reality of less donations and generosity from the public.

The Abbotsford Food Bank, facing the reality of more hungry people and the effect the economy has had on donations, has had to reduce the amount of food it gives to individual clients. Help is needed to fill the shelves as we head into summer when traditionally donations to the food bank go down. Going into this summer the shelves are looking bare at a time demand is quickly climbing. Abbotsford’s Food Bank could use a drive such as that being undertaken in Vancouver to restock the Food Bank’s shelves.

As a community we all should look at how we are spending our money to see if we cannot find a few dollars we could spend being generous to the growing numbers of people in our community in need of generosity simply to eat.

Consider

Theft is Theft

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In the best of economic times stealing from charitable thrift stores is low. During our current economic climate such theft it is detestable. In Abbotsford this theft has reached a level that can only be characterized as despicable.

I am not referring to the ever popular price tag switch to a lower price. Not am I referring to outright theft of an item such as occurred on the weekend, were having failed with an attempted price tag switch, the woman (obviously no lady) said she didn’t want the item – then took advantage of the line-up and the volunteer to walk out of the store with the unpaid for item.

If it had been an item that was needed such as a pot to cook in it might have been forgivable. But a decorative wood plaque with a copper piece with three floral patterns embossed into the copper? No that is just plain low-down theft.

Still, this type of dishonest thieving merely results in a lower price from price tag switching or the loss of the item in the case of outright theft, so that while the thrift store is denied the income it is at least not out of pocket.

There is a type of theft being perpetrated on the thrift stores that is costing them $tens of thousands of dollar$ in out of pocket expenses.

As I pulled into the MCC store by the bus station, a young man was using a sledge hammer to break up garbage dropped of in the middle of the night as “donations”. Under cover of darkness someone snuck in and dumped this junk in order to avoid the cost of disposal; leaving the thrift store to pay the cost of disposal.

Included in the uncharitably dumped items was a console TV set with the back broken open to reveal the tubes. An item that whoever dumped it had to know was garbage.

MCCtv
On the way to swim at ARC, I passed the Hidden Treasures thrift store whose parking lot was full. A couch without cushions, refrigerator and other assorted “donations” all sitting under the sign asking people not to drop off these types of items because the store has to pay to have them removed.

HTlot
All the thrift stores in town have to inspect “donations” because so many people try to use these charities as dumping grounds simply to avoid the hassle and/or cost of disposing of their discards.

When the doors to the drop-off area at the Salvation Army are closed, these selfish thieves simply dump it anywhere they can. MCC Plaza has gates, one of which, since it is on the side street, had to be a chain-link fence gate with chain-link fencing extending away from the gate on both sides.

People who engage in this behaviour might just as well walk into the thrift store with a gun and take money out of the till at gunpoint.

Hmmm

permissum lector caveo

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insanitytraces2

I was speaking with a friend and colleague who disclosed she occasionally feels disorientated when she steps through a doorway, a reaction I experience on occasion myself.

As we know from advances in theoretical physics, reality is made up of an almost infinite number of alternate universes lying side by side parallel to ours. The difference between our universe and the universes that are on either side of ours are so minute that to an observer the differences would be unnoticeable.

It is only in the universes lying further from our own that differences become noticeable. The further one moves from ones starting universe (U0) the more the target universe (Ux) varies from U0 with the variations increasing as x increases. At a certain point (x + 1 or -x -1 since the universes lie to either side of the universe of origin) the observed universe becomes unrecognizable. From the point of view of the observer from U0 the universes beyond x + 1 (-x-1) become more and more bizarre.

As a result of doorways serving as thresholds between locations (rooms, inside/outside etc.) within ones starting universe U0, the membrane between universes becomes thinned by the ‘rubbing’ of the membrane caused by repeated transitions between locations within U0 (universe of origin).

Under certain circumstances the membrane can become so thin that as one steps through the threshold (doorway) one in fact steps from a location in U0 into a location in U1 or U -1 depending upon whether one is going up levels (+) or down (-) from U0.

Since the universe adjacent to one’s current starting universe is not noticeably different from U0, when such a transition occurs most humans do not notice that a transition between different universes has occurred.

Some individuals however are sensitive to the moment of transition. This sensitivity manifests as a feeling similar to, and oft accepted as, disorientation.

Thus it is that individuals who are sensitive to the transitions find themselves feeling ‘disoriented’ when transition through doorways.

If transition between universes due to thinning of the membrane has a probability of occurring, say .1x where x is an indeterminably (in our current universe) high number, why do those sensitive to the transition feel the ‘disorientation’ of transition so often?

Remember we are speaking of, for all intents and purposes, an infinite number of universes. As a result, a transition occurring in at least one universe is not an unusual event but an expected event in the totality of parallel universes.

There are, effectively, an infinite number of multiple yous spread across the totality of universes, stepping through an infinite number of thresholds. Mathematically, at random but not infrequent intervals, one of the yous will transition between universes.

Since two* of you cannot occupy the same universe the you that was in the universe you transitioned to is knocked to the next +universe. Like dominos this continues across alternate universes until a universe is reached sufficiently different from U0 that ‘you’ do not exist. Your transition from the starting universe creates a ‘vacuum’ that is filled when the you in the next –universe is pulled in to fill the ‘vacuum’. Again this continues across the alternate universes until a universe is reached sufficiently different from U0 that ‘you’ do not exist.

*two of you cannot occupy the same universe refers only to involuntary transitions. Using the proper science or mysticism can allow a traveller you to transition to a universe without knocking the resident you into the next universe. Extreme caution must be exercised since this circumstance has the potential to result in a universe annihilation event occurring.

The term starting universe is used in reference to transitions since there is no way to pinpoint ones universe of origin until one transitions into a universe scientifically or mystically advanced enough to be aware of and able to transit between parallel universes.

In universes lacking the advanced scientific or mystic knowledge, the vast majority of transitions that occur go unremarked. In the minority of cases with individuals sensitive to a transition between universes it is usually written off as ‘disorientation’.

Some of those sensitive to transition and curious about the nature of the universe and Reality come to understand what is happening, waiting (hoping) for a transition to a universe that is aware of parallel universes and that transfers between the universes occurs. Hopefully a universe with advanced scientific or mystic knowledge

Generally those aware of the nature of these transfers between universes say nothing to avoid being labelled strange or crazy. As being considered strange and/or crazy is a normal state for me I have no hesitation in sharing the knowledge of why sometimes some people feel ‘disoriented’ when they transition through a threshold (doorway).

It really does not matter what you think about this matter since Reality does not care what you believe – Reality just is.