Sunday, July 26, 2009
From Montreal looking back
Muskoka 5th July
Parry Sound is actually on Georgian Bay, round the corner from Lake Huron. We have moved on from there after meeting up with our Canadian friends Gary and Judy who we met in North Carolina last October.
Gary and Judy arrived to spend a little time with us at Parry Sound, home of the world’s largest fresh water Archipelago. There are thirty thousand Islands here and a boat trip convinced me that if you’ve seen one etc… We were told that an island has to be one acre in size to be called an island, anything smaller than that doesn’t count.
A boat is a definite must here, some folks even have floatplanes at the bottom of the garden whereas I only have fairies!
Gary and Judy escorted us to our new campground, about sixty miles from Parry Sound and close (by Canadian standards) to where they live. An invite to dinner was immediately offered (and accepted), and so we leapt back into the truck and headed for the boondocks.
Our friends live a ways off the “pavement” (tarmac) on the very edge of the water and we were treated to a very pleasant ride on the lake in the power boat. It was interesting that full throttle could be used on the 50 horse motor without my lunch being spilled over the side. The two Labrador dogs like to sit in the prow but not when we are going flat out!
I am pleased to see that these guys over here and in America have got all the toys that a man needs, it annoys me greatly that it is not so in the U.K.
Just to illustrate how out in the wilds these guys live, Gary and Judy had seen a bear in their yard only a few days earlier.
There was an evening concert in the park which we attended, the country music star was playing and singing at a speed of dead slow, we all nearly fell asleep.
We have been trying to play golf again as we do on rare occasions. The 9-hole par three course on the campground had so many trees, bunkers and water hazards, that we almost lost a ball per hole! This is not a course for novices.
We stayed at Gary and Judy’s house for a few days. I was amazed at the wildlife in the garden; there were red squirrels, grey squirrels and would you believe, black squirrels! We also had chipmunks and Mallards, and lots of beautiful birds.
The day dawned that I had to paddle a kayak but it was no problem. Gary had told us previously that he and Judy have a collection of kayaks and when the moment arrived I was given a kayak built for two with a large beam. My wife who has the large beam got the racing kayak. This was all lots of fun and a memorable event. Then Judy suggested a swim, she said swimming off the dock was OK, but I was deliberately slow at getting my clothes off (fortunately), and Freda was first in the water. As the video was capturing the moment, she didn’t like to hesitate about it!
Not for the first time this side of the “pond” we attended a vintage boat show. These boats are all about varnished wood and beautiful styling, a combination that is hard to put together and anyone who has had a boat will tell you that keeping things that way requires lots of hard work.
If you own a boat in Canada, you need a boat house. The kind of place that will protect your boat in a serious snow storm and also fitted with a hoist so you can lift the boat out of the water, you don’t want it crushed by the Ice!
A local Old Tyme Steam fair was nothing compared to what we have seen at the Great Dorset Steam Fair in England but there was some strange and interesting stuff to be seen.
A memorable stay with Gary and Judy in the Muskoka region,
We moved 125 miles (perhaps I should really be working in kilometers like the Canadians do) in a south east direction to spend time with horse farming friends, Debbie and John. They found us a convenient spot outside the hay barn, not too far to stagger at the end of an evening!
We saw some of the local countryside and because Canada has a lot of water (don’t ask about the mosquitoes!) it has lots of canals and locks.
The local town had another spectacular lock with a 48 foot rise and fall. This is actually a two stage staircase on a very pretty part of the outskirts.
By pure chance, there was a boat due and I was talking to the boat owner, before he dropped out of sight and into the depths of the lock,
It transpired that a buddy of his who previously owned a nightclub on the Island of Jersey, (Channel Islands) was actually one of the nuttier customers that I had had at my garage! His pal had arrived fresh off the channel island ferry at my garage by taxi. “I want a car, that one, I want it now” he said producing a briefcase stuffed with readies.
Three days later I’d had a phone call from a Rolls Royce dealer in London, the guy had done a similar stunt there and the Dealer was wondering if he had stolen the car that the man wanted to trade in and the briefcase full of money! I explained that the man was a former nightclub owner from Jersey and seemed ok to me, my bank manager liked the money, what more could I ask!
I spent a little time helping John and Debbie with the haymaking and it reminded me what a bad habit work is. We enjoyed our stay on the farm but were constantly reminded that horses equal flies!
Another 130 miles east to call on yet more friends, this time folks who have connections to my Swiss domiciled cousin Sylvia and her husband Peter. We have again been made extremely welcome by Rosmarie and Peter; this time we are in Mallorytown but I do wonder if the Brits would think it large enough to give it the title of town!
Rosmarie and Peter also have a black Labrador and the usual collection of wildlife in the garden but it was a treat to see a Hummingbird at the specially designed feeder that some folks have.
The campground is nice with a heated outdoor pool and wifi but it could not be called high speed internet and phone calls over the net are a bit fraught.
We often find poor mobile (cell phone) signals on campgrounds and just use the “Skype” anyway, but eventually the penny dropped that we do not have “roaming” on our USA cell phone, that’s why the bloody thing won’t work! We won’t worry about it now as we will be back in the USA in a couple of weeks and there was a time that I thought this might be our only trip to Canada but now I’m not so sure. We like it here.
One item of wildlife so far unmentioned is the skunk. We have seen a number of these and they are a little larger than I expected. We have also found out what the smell is like. They only create a stink when they are frightened but I suppose they are entitled to be frightened when a truck is bearing down on them faster than they can run. So far the only ones that stink are lying in the road, I have driven past the same dead skunk for several days and the smell has shown no sign of decreasing yet.
We have been having a fresh study of fuel consumption and the onboard computer tells us that when not dragging our home behind us we are doing 18.5 Miles per US gallon (24.2 miles per imp gallon), not bad when I remember the old Ford Zodiac Mk III doing 14 per gallon.
When our house is tacked onto the rear we manage only 11 mpg (US) or 13 miles per Imperial gallon, mustn’t grumble even if Canadian diesel cost a ridiculous £1.79 per US gallon or £2.14 per English gallon. It is important to remember that the whole kit and caboodle weighs twelve tons.
For all you pretend Spaniards, I did not bother to work it out as Ltrs per 100 Km, It’s been a long day and today we have moved to Ottawa, a leisurely trundle in the sunshine.
Well, we have “done” Ottawa and enjoyed it even if the weather did spoil things at the end of the day. We knew it would all go pear-shaped so we had planned to do outside things in the morning and indoor stuff later. Indoor stuff was inside the Canadian Parliament building and very interesting (and very English) it was too!
Outside, this was a very busy city with very French looking buildings and the chatter of French voices on the street, lots of water and rivers and even more canals. There is a staircase of eight locks alongside the Parliament building and maintained very well as a tourist attraction. The Brits could learn from this as we have a “staircase” of very grand proportions at Devizes, Wiltshire maintained very badly. What should be a tourist attraction to be proud of is barely scratching by, with no help from the government.
Ontario normally has superb weather at this time of year, not so this year. The weather Gods have deserted them and perhaps global warming is having more effect than anticipated. The weather is rubbish, big time thunderstorm today and lots of cloud, some days with temps in the low twenties. Low temps can be a good thing, we know how wearing a steady 32 centigrade can be but a normal amount of sunshine would be nice.
Canada is nice but just not as “sharp” as the USA. Campsite internet can be very poor to non existent, service in shops etc is just lacking that extra fizz that we have become used to; cars are generally smaller than the USA and roads a little narrower. It’s all in the economics with a smaller population to pay for a greater area so some things will never match the USA but the people have all been very nice!
To view the photos, click on the link below.
http://picasaweb.google.com/arthur.croasdell/CanadaPartTwo?feat=directlink
MATCHBOX: AMPHIBIOUS D.U.K.W
The DUKW (55a) was base upon a military vehicle which had been built in the USA, but which was used extensively by the British army in World War Two. The real vehicle was a 2.5 ton GMC Amphibian Truck which had been a secret weapon until June 1943. Its purpose was to transport supplies and soldiers from ships to the coast. It proved to be of great benefit during the Normandy landings and featured prominently in D-Day Commemorative television programmes. After the war it was put to good use in a variety of circumstances, not least for rescues in times of flood.
The phototype actual vehicle took just 38 days to complete and 'DUKW' were its code letters. It was known as a 'DUCK' works in the USA and by the soliders who used it in action during the invasion of Sicily. The Matchbox model had a smaller scale body when compared with the rest of the army vehicles in the '1-75' range and perhaps because of this it did not sell as well as the larger scale military vehicles.
Metal wheels were fitted to the first released to the first releases but subsequently either grey or black plastic wheels were used. It was the last Matchbox military model to be fitted with metal wheels. There are no casting variations with the DUKW and the only three recorded variations centre upon the three types of wheels. Only the black plastic wheels were fitted with rounded axles. The matal and grey plastic wheels always featured crimped axles. --Model Collector
The Calm Before The Storm
At the end of this coming week, the staffing meeting will take place and paperwork will be filed in court. The transition to return home will begin.
We have been advised not to say a word about it to Jack and Jill until everything is set in stone. Mom is obviously chatting up the move during visits because they keep bringing it up and their behaviours are starting to show signs of turmoil. Her nightmares have started up again and both are manic-hyper after visits. Jack keeps asking Nantie if she still loves him and, as you can imagine, the conversations bring her to tears.
We're going to start the packing process soon so we're not scrambling the night before the move. Nantie picked up brightly colored boxes that will work great for the tons of toys and clothes that will be going. The transport workers had better rent a Ryder truck for the load.
No joke.
We have been advised not to say a word about it to Jack and Jill until everything is set in stone. Mom is obviously chatting up the move during visits because they keep bringing it up and their behaviours are starting to show signs of turmoil. Her nightmares have started up again and both are manic-hyper after visits. Jack keeps asking Nantie if she still loves him and, as you can imagine, the conversations bring her to tears.
We're going to start the packing process soon so we're not scrambling the night before the move. Nantie picked up brightly colored boxes that will work great for the tons of toys and clothes that will be going. The transport workers had better rent a Ryder truck for the load.
No joke.
Making bad decisions
From the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep in our beds, we are making conscious decisions. Probably the first one is; “Should I get up now?” and the last one is; “Should I go to sleep now?” And in between those two decisions, are thousands of other daily decisions. Almost all of them are mundane. And yet, some are incredibly important to us individually and in many occasions when made by others, to society in general.
As an example; when my maternal grandparents had taken a sabbatical from their missionary work in Nigeria in 1912, they were in Liverpool making arrangements to choose which ship they would go on to sail to New York so that they could catch a train to take them to their home in Toronto. The passage would be paid by the Bible society that had employed them. They were given two choices of which ship they could take. One was a Belgium ship and the other, a British ship. My grandmother decided that the Belgium ship would be fine as they didn’t need to go on a more expensive ship such as the British ship. As fate would have it, the British ship was the Titanic. Further as fate would have it, my grandmother was going to give birth to my mother in three weeks.
In 1947, I lived with a captain Radley Liversidge for nine months. He had been retired as a seaman since 1912. Prior to that, he was the captain of the largest passenger ship in the world at that time, the Baltic. What was remarkable; was that when he was the captain of that ship, he was only 24 years of age. In 1912, Ismay, the head of the White Star Line offered him the job as captain of the Titanic. He turned down the offer. Ismay wanted him to sail the Titanic non stop at full speed so that the ship would break the world record at crossing the Atlantic but Liversidge knew that he would have to slow down when they were approaching the ice field that was heading south from the area of Newfoundland and if he did this, the Titanic would not beat the speed record and he would be fired by Ismay as soon as the Titanic docked in New York. Rather than risk being fired, he chose to refuse the offer. Had he taken the job, he would have slowed down and the 1,500 who died; would have lived to tell the tale and he would have been fired when he got to New York and that was the factor that made him decide to refuse the job. That fact has haunted him all his life even though he had no reason to feel guilty about his decision; after all it wasn’t he who told Captain Smith to keep going through the ice field as if it wasn’t there.
In 1975, after having addressed a United Nations crime conference on terrorism at the U.N. headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, I decided to take a bus to the town of Chamonix, France so that I could climb part way up Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps. The morning that I was to catch the bus, I missed it by two minutes. I was told that I would have to wait for two hours for the next one. I decided instead to catch the train to Chamonix. As fate would have it, it was on that train that I met my Japanese-born wife. I married her six months later and we have been married 33 years and we have two daughters and four granddaughters.
After I had given my speech at the U.N. conference in Geneva, I was invited by the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s official observer to the United Nations to join him for lunch. It was ironic that he invited me to have lunch with him considering the fact that I had just condemned the PLO for their acts of terrorism. In any case, we had an enjoyable lunch. The solicitor general of Canada who was at the conference as head of the Canadian delegation, observed me speaking with PLO observer and he later asked me to speak to him about the upcoming Olympic Games being held in Montreal the following year. As you may know, one of the Palestinian terrorist factions had murdered 15 Jewish athletes at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972 and we didn’t want a repeat of that happening in 1976. As a result of my talks with the PLO observer and his talk with Arafat, the chairman of the PLO, no acts of terrorism were committed at the Olympic Games in Montreal or any future games by any Palestinian. Had I chosen to refuse to meet with the PLO observer to the UN on a matter of principle because he was a Palestinian, and Palestinians were committing acts of terrorism, things may have turned out differently.
In 1980, I was invited to address a U.N. conference being held in Caracas, Venezuela. That was the year of the child. Originally I had decided to write my paper on my concerns about the horrific crimes committed by young offenders. However, while I was doing my research on my paper, I read a very lengthy report on the abuses being heaped upon young offenders in American correctional facilities. I was so incensed when I read the report; I decided to write a paper on the need for a bill of rights for young offenders that would prevent these abuses from happening anymore. During my speech, in which I spoke about the American abuses and abuses in other countries against their young offenders, the American delegation was extremely upset and embarrassed. After I finished my speech, I left the conference hall to deal with another matter and while I was absent, the head of the American delegation asked the chairman of the session for permission to respond to my speech. Normally, the rules of the UN don’t permit delegates to respond to the speech of an expert (yes, that’s what they call us) but he decided that the Americans could respond for this one occasion. They agreed with what I said and further said that I was right when I said that there was a need for the UN to create a bill of rights for young offenders. They brought in a resolution the next day asking the UN to conduct studies on this issue for the next five years. The rest is history. The bill of rights (which is called, The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules on the Administration of Juvenile Justice) was created after five years of conferences around the world and passed by the General Assembly in New York in November 1985. That decision of mine to switch my paper from horrific crimes committed by young offenders to the need for a bill of rights for young offenders has had an effect on the lives of millions of children world wide.
I have given you instances where decisions were made that had an effect on some of us personally and in some cases, an effect on great many others. Of course, greater men and women have made decisions that have had an enormous effect on society.
President Truman struggled for quite a while before he finally decided that the Americans could drop the two atomic bombs on Japan. Had he not made that decision, over a million Japanese and Americans would have been killed in the battles that would have followed.
General Eisenhower, the commanding officer of the Allied forces decided on the exact day that the Allied forces would invade Normandy during the Second World War. Prime Minister Churchill decided to replace the British general in charge of the African Theatre with General Montgomery. After making that decision, the British battles in Africa were won.
We all make good decisions throughout our lives. If we didn’t, we would die as youngsters, probably by walking across a street without looking first at the transport truck heading our way. But alas, we also make bad decisions. Some decisions made by some people are horrendous.
For example, after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the Japanese leaders were invited to surrender. The leaders of Japan refused. It was only after the second atomic bomb was dropped, this time on Nagasaki, that the emperor of Japan interceded and ordered the Japanese leaders to surrender. His decision to intercede, save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens. However, the refusal of the Japanese leaders to initially surrender after the first bomb was dropped; cost the lives of thousands upon thousands of Japanese citizens in Nagasaki.
As brilliant as Eisenhower was, he slipped up when he didn’t press forward towards Berlin when he had the chance. As fate would have it, the Soviet Army got their first and problems with the Soviets haunted the people of Berlin for a great many years.
Adolf Hitler made two terrible blunders. He was so cocksure of his ability to win any war; he foolishly declared war on the Soviet Union and later on the United States. It was primarily the efforts of those two nations that Hitler’s armies were finally defeated in April 1945.
The Japanese leaders also screwed up when they decided to attack the United States in 1941. As Admiral Yamamoto said it so succinctly as his task force attacked Pearl Harbour, “We have awoken a sleeping giant.” That sleeping giant crushed the Japanese forces and walked into Japan as conquerors
Is it not the duty of society to learn from its mistakes so future generations will not have to pay for past errors as we do now? The answer is academic and yet, leaders of nations continue to blunder their way into mistakes after mistakes.
Take for example, the American mistake of going to war against North Vietnam. The Vietnam War was a military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1959 to 1975. The war was fought between the communist North Vietnamese, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other member nations of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. It was primarily the American forces that conducted the war against the North Vietnam communist forces. The war was lost to the North Vietnamese forces at a huge human cost in terms of fatalities, including 3 to 4 million Vietnamese from both sides, 1.5 to 2 million Laotians and Cambodians, and 58,159 U.S. soldiers. What a waste of human life that was. At least five million lives were lost and for what? The communists took over all of Vietnam anyway.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq, from March 20 to May 1, 2003, was led by the United States, backed by British forces and smaller contingents from Australia, Spain, Poland and Denmark. President George W. Bush stupidly invaded that country because he believed that the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. Where did Bush get that information? From his Central Intelligence Agency of course; an agency that is not known for its great advice in the past. As it turned out, no such weapons were stockpiled or ever found. Admittedly, Iraq is better off without Saddam and his two evil sons but the Iraqis have suffered even more after the Americans stepped in to temporarily take over. The War with Iraq has almost bankrupted the United States. What a terrible decision that was when the equally terrible (and the worst) U.S. president that nation ever had made the decision to invade Iraq.
In 1953, the U.S. and British governments covertly removed the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran, because he opposed the greed of British/American oil companies in his country. Oil profits were not helping the Iranians. This action laid the foundation for an anti-American fundamentalist Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979. Now the Iranians are really suffering in a nation run by religious zealots.
In 1979, Afghanistan was well on its way toward reforms designed to lift that country out of feudalism. But when the Soviets invaded, the Americans aided fundamentalist Islamic opposition groups including Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda army, which became a potent force in the region. Once the Soviets were expelled, the Afghans were left to pick up the pieces, which led to a further 10 years of civil war and the Taliban gaining power.
What makes us make bad decisions? Below are ten reasons that we and others make bad decisions and sometimes without even knowing it. And as they say in poker, if you can't spot the sucker at the table, then it's probably you.
1. I have come this far, I might as well continue. We all know that the past is past and we can’t get back money or time that we already spent. But many people irrationally take invested costs, time, money, or other resources which have already been spent and can't be recovered, into their decision making. They then plow on hoping and wanting to believe that things will get better.
2. Me, me, me! (the egocentric bias) Putting yourself in another person’s shoes is harder than it sounds for most people. If we only think about ourselves, then others will suffer. Ismay, the head of the White Star Line was thinking about all the glory he would get if his Titanic broke the Atlantic speed record. He didn’t consider the risk he would put all those on board his ship if the ship plowed through the ice field at full speed.
3. Proving a point. (confirmation bias) Isn't it a coincidence that no matter what happens in the world, politicians can spin it to show why it confirms their opinions? A cynical explanation is that politicians twist the truth to get what they want. But a more subtle explanation is that our brains tend to search for and interpret information in ways that support our pre-existing opinions.
4. That’s easy. (overconfidence) According to a famous survey of drivers conducted by Ole Svenson in 1981, 80% of respondents rated themselves in the top 30% of all drivers. And anyone who doesn't see that as a strange finding probably rated themselves in the top 30% in math also. While overconfidence is definitely a good thing in many situations, it probably means people don't work on their weaknesses as much as they should. Do overconfident drivers practice safe driving given their lack of abilities? Do overconfident doctors, discussed in this HealthDay article, get the proper training? Do overconfident public officials realize when they are making bad foreign policy decisions? Probably not.
5. Why not me? (dysfunctional competition) Do you have mixed feelings when you find out your co-workers get a promotion that you weren't even interested in? You're not alone. People's happiness is often a function of what they have relative to others. Your co-workers might be just as happy with you getting a pay cut as they would with getting a raise themselves. Everyone wants to have homes and cars like their neighbours have and will spend money to achieve these things even if their spending bankrupts them.
6. Mine, mine, mine! (endowment effect) Why is it so hard for people to throw, give away or sell things that are past their prime? One theory is that people tend to place a higher value on objects they own relative to objects they do not. I must confess; I fit into that category, much to the chagrin of my wife. I just can’t seem to make the decision to throw something away that has been with me for years.
7. Watch out for sharks. (availability bias) People are suckers for recent and memorable events. So much so, that they think these types of events are more likely to happen than they actually are. For example, do you really believe that if you walk on a sidewalk crack, you will break your mother’s back? Despite the publicity that terrorism and aircraft crashes has gotten in the past several years, the risk of dying from terrorism or in an aircraft crash is very low compared to much more mundane ways to die such as driving off the road which is 80 times more likely to kill you. It follows that to not visit a country because acts of terrorism occur in it or not fly in a plane because planes crash is rather stupid. Mind you visiting Somalia or flying in a plane owned by an airline that is prohibited from landing at international airports is even more stupid.
8. If everybody else thinks it’s OK, it must be OK. (conformity) People should make decisions based on what they think and not what everyone else thinks, right? Well, unfortunately many people die because they were told it is safe. How many people have drowned in overloaded ferries after they were told that everything will be OK? Fifteen hundred people died after the Titanic sank because they believed that it was unsinkable. The builders of the Titanic only put twelve lifeboats on the ship because they thought they wouldn’t be needed anyway.
9. Lets go at it hard. (illusion of control) We all know that there’s no difference between our chances in craps if we have the dice or someone else at the table does, right? Ellen Langer from Harvard famously showed that people rolling the dice in craps threw harder on average when going for high numbers and softer when going for low numbers. And they tended to bet more when they were rolling relative to others. This may be one reason that people know gambling doesn't pay on average, yet gladly gamble their own money. It should also cause us to question the confidence of our co-workers who know they will hit an aggressive deadline even though there are many factors out of their control. Every runner knows that he must slow down at some point otherwise he will fail. I remember watching a famous long distance run at the Games in Vancouver, B.C. many years ago. The man who was in the lead ran faster than everyone else but by the time he got into the field where the end of the run was located, his legs were so wobbly and he was so weak, runners who were five minutes behind him had passed him in the field where he had collapsed.
10. He's just a moron. (attribution error) Is the driver that cut you off a jerk? Or is he a good guy who didn't see you because he's distracted by something else going on in his life. Judging by the finger that you chose to hold up, you think he's a jerk. I remember years ago when I was on my way to court to represent a client when I thought I was cut off by another motorist. I screamed at him and gave him my one-finger salute. I saw him an hour later. He was the judge hearing my client’s case. That's about par for the course, as most people tend to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for the actions of others. It's better to withhold judgment about a person until you've actually talked to them. Perhaps President George W. Bush would have been smarter if he looked for a way to talk with Saddam instead of telling Saddam to “get out of Iraq in 48 hours or I’m coming to get you.” His faulty attitude has cost thousands of American lives since the invasion and will cost many more.
Making decisions can be a hard thing to do sometimes. My wife and I looked at over 30 homes before we chose the one we wanted. I looked at only 5 cars before I chose the one I wanted. Sometimes, we have to make split decisions. Years ago, someone cut in front of me on a major highway and I jammed on my brakes and crossed three lanes of traffic before I got my car under control. Others in the same predicament jammed on their brakes and were rear ended by transport trucks or struck by them head on when they crossed over the median. They were killed. I was lucky that I wasn’t killed. Now I don’t jam on my brakes when a thoughtless fool suddenly cuts in front of me.
If at all possible, we should carefully consider all issues with respect to our decisions before we make them. By doing this, there is less of a chance of us making bad decisions. If we do make bad decisions, we shouldn’t immediately make another bad decision to correct the previous one we made. It will obviously compound the initial problem and when that happens, someone else will have to make a decision for us so that we can be extricated from the problem we created for ourselves.
I want to compliment my readers who have read this essay in my blog. Obviously, you have made a very good decision.
As an example; when my maternal grandparents had taken a sabbatical from their missionary work in Nigeria in 1912, they were in Liverpool making arrangements to choose which ship they would go on to sail to New York so that they could catch a train to take them to their home in Toronto. The passage would be paid by the Bible society that had employed them. They were given two choices of which ship they could take. One was a Belgium ship and the other, a British ship. My grandmother decided that the Belgium ship would be fine as they didn’t need to go on a more expensive ship such as the British ship. As fate would have it, the British ship was the Titanic. Further as fate would have it, my grandmother was going to give birth to my mother in three weeks.
In 1947, I lived with a captain Radley Liversidge for nine months. He had been retired as a seaman since 1912. Prior to that, he was the captain of the largest passenger ship in the world at that time, the Baltic. What was remarkable; was that when he was the captain of that ship, he was only 24 years of age. In 1912, Ismay, the head of the White Star Line offered him the job as captain of the Titanic. He turned down the offer. Ismay wanted him to sail the Titanic non stop at full speed so that the ship would break the world record at crossing the Atlantic but Liversidge knew that he would have to slow down when they were approaching the ice field that was heading south from the area of Newfoundland and if he did this, the Titanic would not beat the speed record and he would be fired by Ismay as soon as the Titanic docked in New York. Rather than risk being fired, he chose to refuse the offer. Had he taken the job, he would have slowed down and the 1,500 who died; would have lived to tell the tale and he would have been fired when he got to New York and that was the factor that made him decide to refuse the job. That fact has haunted him all his life even though he had no reason to feel guilty about his decision; after all it wasn’t he who told Captain Smith to keep going through the ice field as if it wasn’t there.
In 1975, after having addressed a United Nations crime conference on terrorism at the U.N. headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, I decided to take a bus to the town of Chamonix, France so that I could climb part way up Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps. The morning that I was to catch the bus, I missed it by two minutes. I was told that I would have to wait for two hours for the next one. I decided instead to catch the train to Chamonix. As fate would have it, it was on that train that I met my Japanese-born wife. I married her six months later and we have been married 33 years and we have two daughters and four granddaughters.
After I had given my speech at the U.N. conference in Geneva, I was invited by the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s official observer to the United Nations to join him for lunch. It was ironic that he invited me to have lunch with him considering the fact that I had just condemned the PLO for their acts of terrorism. In any case, we had an enjoyable lunch. The solicitor general of Canada who was at the conference as head of the Canadian delegation, observed me speaking with PLO observer and he later asked me to speak to him about the upcoming Olympic Games being held in Montreal the following year. As you may know, one of the Palestinian terrorist factions had murdered 15 Jewish athletes at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972 and we didn’t want a repeat of that happening in 1976. As a result of my talks with the PLO observer and his talk with Arafat, the chairman of the PLO, no acts of terrorism were committed at the Olympic Games in Montreal or any future games by any Palestinian. Had I chosen to refuse to meet with the PLO observer to the UN on a matter of principle because he was a Palestinian, and Palestinians were committing acts of terrorism, things may have turned out differently.
In 1980, I was invited to address a U.N. conference being held in Caracas, Venezuela. That was the year of the child. Originally I had decided to write my paper on my concerns about the horrific crimes committed by young offenders. However, while I was doing my research on my paper, I read a very lengthy report on the abuses being heaped upon young offenders in American correctional facilities. I was so incensed when I read the report; I decided to write a paper on the need for a bill of rights for young offenders that would prevent these abuses from happening anymore. During my speech, in which I spoke about the American abuses and abuses in other countries against their young offenders, the American delegation was extremely upset and embarrassed. After I finished my speech, I left the conference hall to deal with another matter and while I was absent, the head of the American delegation asked the chairman of the session for permission to respond to my speech. Normally, the rules of the UN don’t permit delegates to respond to the speech of an expert (yes, that’s what they call us) but he decided that the Americans could respond for this one occasion. They agreed with what I said and further said that I was right when I said that there was a need for the UN to create a bill of rights for young offenders. They brought in a resolution the next day asking the UN to conduct studies on this issue for the next five years. The rest is history. The bill of rights (which is called, The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules on the Administration of Juvenile Justice) was created after five years of conferences around the world and passed by the General Assembly in New York in November 1985. That decision of mine to switch my paper from horrific crimes committed by young offenders to the need for a bill of rights for young offenders has had an effect on the lives of millions of children world wide.
I have given you instances where decisions were made that had an effect on some of us personally and in some cases, an effect on great many others. Of course, greater men and women have made decisions that have had an enormous effect on society.
President Truman struggled for quite a while before he finally decided that the Americans could drop the two atomic bombs on Japan. Had he not made that decision, over a million Japanese and Americans would have been killed in the battles that would have followed.
General Eisenhower, the commanding officer of the Allied forces decided on the exact day that the Allied forces would invade Normandy during the Second World War. Prime Minister Churchill decided to replace the British general in charge of the African Theatre with General Montgomery. After making that decision, the British battles in Africa were won.
We all make good decisions throughout our lives. If we didn’t, we would die as youngsters, probably by walking across a street without looking first at the transport truck heading our way. But alas, we also make bad decisions. Some decisions made by some people are horrendous.
For example, after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the Japanese leaders were invited to surrender. The leaders of Japan refused. It was only after the second atomic bomb was dropped, this time on Nagasaki, that the emperor of Japan interceded and ordered the Japanese leaders to surrender. His decision to intercede, save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens. However, the refusal of the Japanese leaders to initially surrender after the first bomb was dropped; cost the lives of thousands upon thousands of Japanese citizens in Nagasaki.
As brilliant as Eisenhower was, he slipped up when he didn’t press forward towards Berlin when he had the chance. As fate would have it, the Soviet Army got their first and problems with the Soviets haunted the people of Berlin for a great many years.
Adolf Hitler made two terrible blunders. He was so cocksure of his ability to win any war; he foolishly declared war on the Soviet Union and later on the United States. It was primarily the efforts of those two nations that Hitler’s armies were finally defeated in April 1945.
The Japanese leaders also screwed up when they decided to attack the United States in 1941. As Admiral Yamamoto said it so succinctly as his task force attacked Pearl Harbour, “We have awoken a sleeping giant.” That sleeping giant crushed the Japanese forces and walked into Japan as conquerors
Is it not the duty of society to learn from its mistakes so future generations will not have to pay for past errors as we do now? The answer is academic and yet, leaders of nations continue to blunder their way into mistakes after mistakes.
Take for example, the American mistake of going to war against North Vietnam. The Vietnam War was a military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1959 to 1975. The war was fought between the communist North Vietnamese, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other member nations of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. It was primarily the American forces that conducted the war against the North Vietnam communist forces. The war was lost to the North Vietnamese forces at a huge human cost in terms of fatalities, including 3 to 4 million Vietnamese from both sides, 1.5 to 2 million Laotians and Cambodians, and 58,159 U.S. soldiers. What a waste of human life that was. At least five million lives were lost and for what? The communists took over all of Vietnam anyway.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq, from March 20 to May 1, 2003, was led by the United States, backed by British forces and smaller contingents from Australia, Spain, Poland and Denmark. President George W. Bush stupidly invaded that country because he believed that the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. Where did Bush get that information? From his Central Intelligence Agency of course; an agency that is not known for its great advice in the past. As it turned out, no such weapons were stockpiled or ever found. Admittedly, Iraq is better off without Saddam and his two evil sons but the Iraqis have suffered even more after the Americans stepped in to temporarily take over. The War with Iraq has almost bankrupted the United States. What a terrible decision that was when the equally terrible (and the worst) U.S. president that nation ever had made the decision to invade Iraq.
In 1953, the U.S. and British governments covertly removed the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran, because he opposed the greed of British/American oil companies in his country. Oil profits were not helping the Iranians. This action laid the foundation for an anti-American fundamentalist Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979. Now the Iranians are really suffering in a nation run by religious zealots.
In 1979, Afghanistan was well on its way toward reforms designed to lift that country out of feudalism. But when the Soviets invaded, the Americans aided fundamentalist Islamic opposition groups including Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda army, which became a potent force in the region. Once the Soviets were expelled, the Afghans were left to pick up the pieces, which led to a further 10 years of civil war and the Taliban gaining power.
What makes us make bad decisions? Below are ten reasons that we and others make bad decisions and sometimes without even knowing it. And as they say in poker, if you can't spot the sucker at the table, then it's probably you.
1. I have come this far, I might as well continue. We all know that the past is past and we can’t get back money or time that we already spent. But many people irrationally take invested costs, time, money, or other resources which have already been spent and can't be recovered, into their decision making. They then plow on hoping and wanting to believe that things will get better.
2. Me, me, me! (the egocentric bias) Putting yourself in another person’s shoes is harder than it sounds for most people. If we only think about ourselves, then others will suffer. Ismay, the head of the White Star Line was thinking about all the glory he would get if his Titanic broke the Atlantic speed record. He didn’t consider the risk he would put all those on board his ship if the ship plowed through the ice field at full speed.
3. Proving a point. (confirmation bias) Isn't it a coincidence that no matter what happens in the world, politicians can spin it to show why it confirms their opinions? A cynical explanation is that politicians twist the truth to get what they want. But a more subtle explanation is that our brains tend to search for and interpret information in ways that support our pre-existing opinions.
4. That’s easy. (overconfidence) According to a famous survey of drivers conducted by Ole Svenson in 1981, 80% of respondents rated themselves in the top 30% of all drivers. And anyone who doesn't see that as a strange finding probably rated themselves in the top 30% in math also. While overconfidence is definitely a good thing in many situations, it probably means people don't work on their weaknesses as much as they should. Do overconfident drivers practice safe driving given their lack of abilities? Do overconfident doctors, discussed in this HealthDay article, get the proper training? Do overconfident public officials realize when they are making bad foreign policy decisions? Probably not.
5. Why not me? (dysfunctional competition) Do you have mixed feelings when you find out your co-workers get a promotion that you weren't even interested in? You're not alone. People's happiness is often a function of what they have relative to others. Your co-workers might be just as happy with you getting a pay cut as they would with getting a raise themselves. Everyone wants to have homes and cars like their neighbours have and will spend money to achieve these things even if their spending bankrupts them.
6. Mine, mine, mine! (endowment effect) Why is it so hard for people to throw, give away or sell things that are past their prime? One theory is that people tend to place a higher value on objects they own relative to objects they do not. I must confess; I fit into that category, much to the chagrin of my wife. I just can’t seem to make the decision to throw something away that has been with me for years.
7. Watch out for sharks. (availability bias) People are suckers for recent and memorable events. So much so, that they think these types of events are more likely to happen than they actually are. For example, do you really believe that if you walk on a sidewalk crack, you will break your mother’s back? Despite the publicity that terrorism and aircraft crashes has gotten in the past several years, the risk of dying from terrorism or in an aircraft crash is very low compared to much more mundane ways to die such as driving off the road which is 80 times more likely to kill you. It follows that to not visit a country because acts of terrorism occur in it or not fly in a plane because planes crash is rather stupid. Mind you visiting Somalia or flying in a plane owned by an airline that is prohibited from landing at international airports is even more stupid.
8. If everybody else thinks it’s OK, it must be OK. (conformity) People should make decisions based on what they think and not what everyone else thinks, right? Well, unfortunately many people die because they were told it is safe. How many people have drowned in overloaded ferries after they were told that everything will be OK? Fifteen hundred people died after the Titanic sank because they believed that it was unsinkable. The builders of the Titanic only put twelve lifeboats on the ship because they thought they wouldn’t be needed anyway.
9. Lets go at it hard. (illusion of control) We all know that there’s no difference between our chances in craps if we have the dice or someone else at the table does, right? Ellen Langer from Harvard famously showed that people rolling the dice in craps threw harder on average when going for high numbers and softer when going for low numbers. And they tended to bet more when they were rolling relative to others. This may be one reason that people know gambling doesn't pay on average, yet gladly gamble their own money. It should also cause us to question the confidence of our co-workers who know they will hit an aggressive deadline even though there are many factors out of their control. Every runner knows that he must slow down at some point otherwise he will fail. I remember watching a famous long distance run at the Games in Vancouver, B.C. many years ago. The man who was in the lead ran faster than everyone else but by the time he got into the field where the end of the run was located, his legs were so wobbly and he was so weak, runners who were five minutes behind him had passed him in the field where he had collapsed.
10. He's just a moron. (attribution error) Is the driver that cut you off a jerk? Or is he a good guy who didn't see you because he's distracted by something else going on in his life. Judging by the finger that you chose to hold up, you think he's a jerk. I remember years ago when I was on my way to court to represent a client when I thought I was cut off by another motorist. I screamed at him and gave him my one-finger salute. I saw him an hour later. He was the judge hearing my client’s case. That's about par for the course, as most people tend to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for the actions of others. It's better to withhold judgment about a person until you've actually talked to them. Perhaps President George W. Bush would have been smarter if he looked for a way to talk with Saddam instead of telling Saddam to “get out of Iraq in 48 hours or I’m coming to get you.” His faulty attitude has cost thousands of American lives since the invasion and will cost many more.
Making decisions can be a hard thing to do sometimes. My wife and I looked at over 30 homes before we chose the one we wanted. I looked at only 5 cars before I chose the one I wanted. Sometimes, we have to make split decisions. Years ago, someone cut in front of me on a major highway and I jammed on my brakes and crossed three lanes of traffic before I got my car under control. Others in the same predicament jammed on their brakes and were rear ended by transport trucks or struck by them head on when they crossed over the median. They were killed. I was lucky that I wasn’t killed. Now I don’t jam on my brakes when a thoughtless fool suddenly cuts in front of me.
If at all possible, we should carefully consider all issues with respect to our decisions before we make them. By doing this, there is less of a chance of us making bad decisions. If we do make bad decisions, we shouldn’t immediately make another bad decision to correct the previous one we made. It will obviously compound the initial problem and when that happens, someone else will have to make a decision for us so that we can be extricated from the problem we created for ourselves.
I want to compliment my readers who have read this essay in my blog. Obviously, you have made a very good decision.
Busia
After long last, I am delighted to be here in this tiny internet cafe in Busia writing to you all. I have been in Busuma (the bush) for about 2weeks and am now in Busia, in a very small city where they have one little place with electricity and internet. What a novelty. We just arrived yesterday in Buwunje, District Busia, in another rural area where we will be building the school. My oh my it is gorgeous! There are small and colorful mountains, many tall and different trees, and lots of greenery.Red and yellow wildflowers are scattered about. This area is much more spread out, lacking the common area and community feel of Busuma. We are missing the beautiful kids and people of Busuma, but we are blessed that Pastor Godwin decided to accompany our group. He is the most joyful and pleasant person to be around, as well as a passionate man of God. We stopped yesterday in a village called Namamera to drop off school supplies and other items for the kids that Aurora helps out. Today, we have been riding around looking for materials to build the school. I'm telling you,it is much harder here to get things done! It is so different from American that when you want things, they are not right at your fingertips. You must search and bargain and wait and hope and pray that you'll find what you are looking for. Today we were trying to find sand to build the base of the school and a truck to transport. One thing I have learned is to expect delays and be patient patient patient. As they say, things here work on "African time" aka SLOWLY. Here we are staying in a little hut next to the owner of the land, Pastor Giddeon. They have been good to us,feeding us delicious matoke, potatoes, chapoti, eggs, rice, pineapple, tea,and more. Here it is soooo easy to be vegan as dairy like cheese and milk is very rare. Dessert is nonexistent. I basically eat vegetables and occasionally rice for every meal. Also, they rigged a shower sort of deal with a little water jug filled with ground water for us to bathe in. We're living large now, haha. Honestly, I am not missing the comforts of home too badly. Sure we don't have electricity, clean or running water,chocolate, TV, computer, etc., and we do have tons of spiders and flies and such, but I am doing great! When God anoints you for a mission, He equips you with everything you need to get by. My biggest issues are simply missing my family and friends, worship music, and exercise. Also,it's hard never having alone time to sit and talk to God. But, I have been able to walk every so often. Not alone though, someone always accompanies me which is good. Walking refreshes and rejuvenates my spirit. Monday we should begin preparing the foundation of the school. I must go now but I just ask for your continued support in prayer; prayer for our strength,wisdom, unity, and courage. God bless you all and I cannot wait to see you.
Rickshaw Art - decorative art of rickshaws
Rickshaw, one of the principal means of transport in the urban areas of Bangladesh.
With the improvement of road communication throughout the country, rickshaw has now found its way into rural areas as well.
As a mode of transport rickshaw was first introduced in Japan in the early twentieth century. This mode of transport became particularly popular there due to the Second World War situation, which made petrol and motorised transport scarce and expensive. Japan, however, had soon replaced rickshaw, nintaku in Japanese, with motorised vehicles and by the 1950s the cycle rickshaw had disappeared from Japan.
In the 1930 and early '40s rickshaw became popular in Indonesia, Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries. Rickshaw is said to have reached Chittagong from Myanmar in 1919. Interestingly, rickshaw did not spread out to Dhaka and other cities of Bangladesh from Chittagong. Dhaka got rickshaw from Calcutta, where it was first introduced around 1930. European jute exporters living in Narayanganj and Netrokona (in Mymensingh) had first imported cycle rickshaw from Calcutta in 1938 for their personal use. The new vehicle roused great curiosity among the people of Dhaka, who were traditionally used to horse carriages, palanquins and city-canal boats. Initially cycle rickshaw did not receive enthusiastic response from users.
The Dhaka city had only 37 rickshaws in 1941 and 181 rickshaws in 1947. Before 1947, Dhaka was a district town, which had a population of 62,469 only according to 1951 census. But in 1998, the city's population grew over 8 million and the number of registered rickshaws in the city was 112,572. The number of rickshaws in all other cities of Bangladesh in that year was 274,265 and in all villages 91,040. Rickshaw and rickshaw vans (also a tricycle vehicle similar to rickshaw but with the difference that instead of passenger seats, these have a flat bed of wooden bars resting on the axle over the rear pair of wheels and they carry goods in small lots) are now fast replacing the traditional transports like horse carriages and bullock carts in the country.
It is a popular guess that the total number of rickshaws in the city is at least two and a half times that of the registered ones and accordingly, the city had at least 280,000 rickshaws in 2000. Estimates based on the figures that each rickshaw is operated by two pullers in morning and evening shifts and the average number of family members of a rickshaw puller is five, suggest that the rickshaws of Dhaka city alone is a source of income for nearly three million people.
Unlike in all Southeast Asian countries, rickshaws in Bangladesh have a lasting foothold. It has established itself with a dominance unmatched by other modes of transport. The predominance of rickshaw as a transport is evidenced by the fact that the percentage-wise traffic composition in Dhaka, Sylhet, Comilla and Rangpur cities are 49%, 78%, 80% and 55% respectively. Other means of transport in Dhaka are, in order of traffic, the (a) cars, jeeps, pick-ups etc. (b) baby taxi, (c) bus, (d) truck, (e) tempo and (f) bicycle. Bicycle, however, is the second in the list of predominant vehicles in cities outside Dhaka.
Fifty percent of the value added in transport sector is being contributed by rickshaws and the mode of transport provides employment and living to people engaged not only as the pullers directly but also as its manufacturers of its mainframe, the body with seat and hoods and its spare parts. A great number of people depends for the living on the decoration of rickshaw body, artwork on it and rickshaw garages.
Rickshaw Art - decorative art of rickshaws, which may be extended to cover all rickshaw decoration, from painted backboards and rear side panels to cut-outs appliquéd on to hoods and brass vases replete with plastic or paper flowers.
In a restrictive sense it is generally applied to the painted backboard, a tin plate fixed to the lower rear of a rickshaw hiding the chain. In this sense it is also extended to include the paintings on the rear of autorickshaws or baby taxis. Rickshaw art has been compared to traffic art in other parts of the world, such as the decorated trucks of Pakistan.
Rickshaw art is mainly an urban phenomenon and perhaps dates back to the 1950's. It shares some similarity of theme and execution with movie billboards, which may be ascribed to the fact that many rickshaw painters had either themselves painted movie billboards or had apprenticed with such painters. The art of the rickshaw painter is passed on from ustad, master, to apprentice. There is a lot of repetition, either because of the popularity of some motifs or because of the influence of the master craftsman.
The paintings are executed quickly, with readymade enamel paints, which do not allow paints to be mixed. Bright primary colours are popular and the painting is flat, lacking shadows, perspective, and scale.
There are variations in rickshaw art in different towns of Bangladesh. For example, nearly eighty per cent of rickshaws in Dhaka city are decorated and most of them have animal scenes, natural scenes, and pictures of movie themes.
Chittagong and Comilla areas show less enthusiasm about decorating rickshaws and the rickshaw art there contain fewer human images and have more images of flowers, birds, animals etc. Rickshaws in Sylhet, considered to be a more pious area, are rarely decorated.
Among popular themes are: the Taj Mahal, movie scenes and portraits of movie stars, idyllic scenes of rural Bengal with plump hens, placid cows, coconut palms, neat huts, gentle streams. Islamic scenes such as mosques and Borak, the winged horse, are also frequently found.
Because rickshaw backboards have to be painted annually, rickshaw artists often depict topical themes. In the early seventies, scenes of fighting between muktijoddha (freedom fighters) and Pakistani soldiers were common. Increasingly common, especially on autorickshaws are scenes of futuristic cities, planes and other fast-moving forms of transport.
Rickshaw artists do not always sign their pictures. Sometimes the name of the rickshaw garage owner or rickshaw maker or mistri is noted on the plate. Sometimes artists paint under pseudonyms. Occasionally, a number of artists share the same name, and, at other times, a plate executed by an apprentice, is signed with the name of the master.
It is probable that, with the increasing recognition being given to this form of folk art (a collection of rickshaw paintings has been given to the bangladesh national museum and a non-government organisation is popularising rickshaw art) more and more artists will sign their names. To know more about it: http://www.artsricksha.com/index.htm
(From Banglapedia, the national encyclopedia of Bangladesh)
Rickshaws ( riksha) in Bangladesh are cycle-powered, and are available for hire throughout the country; Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka is known as the "Rickshaw Capital of the World".However, increasing traffic congestion and the resulting collisions have led to the banning of cycle rickshaws on many major streets in the city. Still, in many neighborhoods of Old Dhaka, rickshaws are the only kind of vehicle that can travel through the narrow streets. Rickshaw-pullers are known as rikshawala in Bangla.
Bangladeshi rickshaw pullers are mostly from the district of Rongpur. Because of the recent famine and less job opportunities, people from there migrate to Dhaka, Sylhet and Chittagong to pull rickshaws.
Rickshaw man Omar Ali is Bangla's music star winner in the television "Pop Idol"-style talent show.(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
With the improvement of road communication throughout the country, rickshaw has now found its way into rural areas as well.
As a mode of transport rickshaw was first introduced in Japan in the early twentieth century. This mode of transport became particularly popular there due to the Second World War situation, which made petrol and motorised transport scarce and expensive. Japan, however, had soon replaced rickshaw, nintaku in Japanese, with motorised vehicles and by the 1950s the cycle rickshaw had disappeared from Japan.
In the 1930 and early '40s rickshaw became popular in Indonesia, Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries. Rickshaw is said to have reached Chittagong from Myanmar in 1919. Interestingly, rickshaw did not spread out to Dhaka and other cities of Bangladesh from Chittagong. Dhaka got rickshaw from Calcutta, where it was first introduced around 1930. European jute exporters living in Narayanganj and Netrokona (in Mymensingh) had first imported cycle rickshaw from Calcutta in 1938 for their personal use. The new vehicle roused great curiosity among the people of Dhaka, who were traditionally used to horse carriages, palanquins and city-canal boats. Initially cycle rickshaw did not receive enthusiastic response from users.
The Dhaka city had only 37 rickshaws in 1941 and 181 rickshaws in 1947. Before 1947, Dhaka was a district town, which had a population of 62,469 only according to 1951 census. But in 1998, the city's population grew over 8 million and the number of registered rickshaws in the city was 112,572. The number of rickshaws in all other cities of Bangladesh in that year was 274,265 and in all villages 91,040. Rickshaw and rickshaw vans (also a tricycle vehicle similar to rickshaw but with the difference that instead of passenger seats, these have a flat bed of wooden bars resting on the axle over the rear pair of wheels and they carry goods in small lots) are now fast replacing the traditional transports like horse carriages and bullock carts in the country.
It is a popular guess that the total number of rickshaws in the city is at least two and a half times that of the registered ones and accordingly, the city had at least 280,000 rickshaws in 2000. Estimates based on the figures that each rickshaw is operated by two pullers in morning and evening shifts and the average number of family members of a rickshaw puller is five, suggest that the rickshaws of Dhaka city alone is a source of income for nearly three million people.
Unlike in all Southeast Asian countries, rickshaws in Bangladesh have a lasting foothold. It has established itself with a dominance unmatched by other modes of transport. The predominance of rickshaw as a transport is evidenced by the fact that the percentage-wise traffic composition in Dhaka, Sylhet, Comilla and Rangpur cities are 49%, 78%, 80% and 55% respectively. Other means of transport in Dhaka are, in order of traffic, the (a) cars, jeeps, pick-ups etc. (b) baby taxi, (c) bus, (d) truck, (e) tempo and (f) bicycle. Bicycle, however, is the second in the list of predominant vehicles in cities outside Dhaka.
Fifty percent of the value added in transport sector is being contributed by rickshaws and the mode of transport provides employment and living to people engaged not only as the pullers directly but also as its manufacturers of its mainframe, the body with seat and hoods and its spare parts. A great number of people depends for the living on the decoration of rickshaw body, artwork on it and rickshaw garages.
Rickshaw Art - decorative art of rickshaws, which may be extended to cover all rickshaw decoration, from painted backboards and rear side panels to cut-outs appliquéd on to hoods and brass vases replete with plastic or paper flowers.
In a restrictive sense it is generally applied to the painted backboard, a tin plate fixed to the lower rear of a rickshaw hiding the chain. In this sense it is also extended to include the paintings on the rear of autorickshaws or baby taxis. Rickshaw art has been compared to traffic art in other parts of the world, such as the decorated trucks of Pakistan.
Rickshaw art is mainly an urban phenomenon and perhaps dates back to the 1950's. It shares some similarity of theme and execution with movie billboards, which may be ascribed to the fact that many rickshaw painters had either themselves painted movie billboards or had apprenticed with such painters. The art of the rickshaw painter is passed on from ustad, master, to apprentice. There is a lot of repetition, either because of the popularity of some motifs or because of the influence of the master craftsman.
The paintings are executed quickly, with readymade enamel paints, which do not allow paints to be mixed. Bright primary colours are popular and the painting is flat, lacking shadows, perspective, and scale.
There are variations in rickshaw art in different towns of Bangladesh. For example, nearly eighty per cent of rickshaws in Dhaka city are decorated and most of them have animal scenes, natural scenes, and pictures of movie themes.
Chittagong and Comilla areas show less enthusiasm about decorating rickshaws and the rickshaw art there contain fewer human images and have more images of flowers, birds, animals etc. Rickshaws in Sylhet, considered to be a more pious area, are rarely decorated.
Among popular themes are: the Taj Mahal, movie scenes and portraits of movie stars, idyllic scenes of rural Bengal with plump hens, placid cows, coconut palms, neat huts, gentle streams. Islamic scenes such as mosques and Borak, the winged horse, are also frequently found.
Because rickshaw backboards have to be painted annually, rickshaw artists often depict topical themes. In the early seventies, scenes of fighting between muktijoddha (freedom fighters) and Pakistani soldiers were common. Increasingly common, especially on autorickshaws are scenes of futuristic cities, planes and other fast-moving forms of transport.
Rickshaw artists do not always sign their pictures. Sometimes the name of the rickshaw garage owner or rickshaw maker or mistri is noted on the plate. Sometimes artists paint under pseudonyms. Occasionally, a number of artists share the same name, and, at other times, a plate executed by an apprentice, is signed with the name of the master.
It is probable that, with the increasing recognition being given to this form of folk art (a collection of rickshaw paintings has been given to the bangladesh national museum and a non-government organisation is popularising rickshaw art) more and more artists will sign their names. To know more about it: http://www.artsricksha.com/index.htm
(From Banglapedia, the national encyclopedia of Bangladesh)
Rickshaws ( riksha) in Bangladesh are cycle-powered, and are available for hire throughout the country; Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka is known as the "Rickshaw Capital of the World".However, increasing traffic congestion and the resulting collisions have led to the banning of cycle rickshaws on many major streets in the city. Still, in many neighborhoods of Old Dhaka, rickshaws are the only kind of vehicle that can travel through the narrow streets. Rickshaw-pullers are known as rikshawala in Bangla.
Bangladeshi rickshaw pullers are mostly from the district of Rongpur. Because of the recent famine and less job opportunities, people from there migrate to Dhaka, Sylhet and Chittagong to pull rickshaws.
Rickshaw man Omar Ali is Bangla's music star winner in the television "Pop Idol"-style talent show.(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Road Tax
If proof were ever needed that our political classes live in a different world/dimension to the rest of us the latest utterances from that House of Crass Arrogance has to be the ultimate proof. Now they advocate "Road Pricing" as an alternative to Road Tax, but not, I note, to Fuel Duty, which nets the Whitehall W*nk*r Brigade an astonishing 88 pence in every litre we put in the tank. The argument runs that we should poay for using the roads.
Excuse me, but I thought we were already - £10 billion in Road Tax and probably twice that in Fuel Duty! And not even a fifth of that is actually spent on roads or transport!
So now they want to introduce a sort of Toll system which will have each of us monitored as we drive and somewhere in Whitehall a meter will be running, measuring how much mileage you are doing and how much you must send them for the privilege at the end of each month. What they do not explain, since, as usual, they are looking only at the city and motorway traffic, is how those of us who live outside of the cities and away from their cattle-truck transport systems, will manage to get to and from work. Or the impact that this tax on travelling to work and back will have on the woder economy. As usual it is driven by the city dwelling Fiends of the Earth and Greenpeace Ecowarriors who would like to see us all back to living on self-subsisting smallholdings in unheated, unlit mud huts with thatch roofing and animal dung walls and floors. Of course, they omit the fact that we'd need animal skins to clothe ourselves and charcoal (which generates huge amounts of Carbon Monoxide) to heat our mud huts and international travel or even travel to the next collection of mud huts would be a thing of the past.
This government and their supporters and lobbyists see motorists as cash cows, to be milked as often and as viciously as possible. They hate the personal freedom that comes with car ownership because it means we are not under their control and they cannot control our movements or our choices. They hate independent thought and particularly anyone of inniative. What they want is a controlled, immobilised society of good little citizens who will do as we are told, pay everything we earn to them so they can enrich themselves and prevent us from doing what is right for us as individuals and not as the pawns they want us to be.
Naturally none of these morons has worked out that every increase in fuel duty, road tax or tolls translates into higher food prices and inflation. That just doesn't enter Whitehall's ideology driven thinking.
This is a tax we should all resist - if necessary by driving our politicians and their civil service puppeteers into the Thames!
Excuse me, but I thought we were already - £10 billion in Road Tax and probably twice that in Fuel Duty! And not even a fifth of that is actually spent on roads or transport!
So now they want to introduce a sort of Toll system which will have each of us monitored as we drive and somewhere in Whitehall a meter will be running, measuring how much mileage you are doing and how much you must send them for the privilege at the end of each month. What they do not explain, since, as usual, they are looking only at the city and motorway traffic, is how those of us who live outside of the cities and away from their cattle-truck transport systems, will manage to get to and from work. Or the impact that this tax on travelling to work and back will have on the woder economy. As usual it is driven by the city dwelling Fiends of the Earth and Greenpeace Ecowarriors who would like to see us all back to living on self-subsisting smallholdings in unheated, unlit mud huts with thatch roofing and animal dung walls and floors. Of course, they omit the fact that we'd need animal skins to clothe ourselves and charcoal (which generates huge amounts of Carbon Monoxide) to heat our mud huts and international travel or even travel to the next collection of mud huts would be a thing of the past.
This government and their supporters and lobbyists see motorists as cash cows, to be milked as often and as viciously as possible. They hate the personal freedom that comes with car ownership because it means we are not under their control and they cannot control our movements or our choices. They hate independent thought and particularly anyone of inniative. What they want is a controlled, immobilised society of good little citizens who will do as we are told, pay everything we earn to them so they can enrich themselves and prevent us from doing what is right for us as individuals and not as the pawns they want us to be.
Naturally none of these morons has worked out that every increase in fuel duty, road tax or tolls translates into higher food prices and inflation. That just doesn't enter Whitehall's ideology driven thinking.
This is a tax we should all resist - if necessary by driving our politicians and their civil service puppeteers into the Thames!
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