Cancer

Shall we see how substantial this video series might be?  It is free to view but does require registration.

On the Naming of Extended Family Relationships

Within a family, pet disagreements may exist.  These disagreements may never attain resolution but family members find certain fun in discussing and perpetuating them.  My father and mother kept one such pet disagreement over the relationship naming of members of our extended families.  Mum referred to various distant relatives as cousins of varying degrees, while Dad referred to similar distant relatives as uncles/aunts or nephews/nieces of varying degrees while cousins of any degree must always be generational contemporaries and only share equal numbers of steps back to a common ancestor.  Periodically they simply enjoyed trying to persuade each other of the correctness of each understanding of how to name these more distant family relationships.

Born and raised Canadian, Mum was actually using the conventional English language system of naming family relationships as illustrated by this table of consanguinity:

This system for naming family relationships does contain a significant logical flaw that gives certain non-reciprocal relationships the illusion of being reciprocal (the only possible truly reciprocal family relationships are those among generational contemporaries). One of the most important bits of knowledge we all seek when encountering a relative previously not known to us is whether that relative may be generationally contemporary with us or generationally senior or junior to us. The logical flaw in the English language's conventional system of naming family relationships hides that latter piece of vital information. Consider yourself attending a family reunion at which a centenarian (three generation senior to you) reminisces to a mother holding a newborn baby (three generations junior to you).  Very possibly, by this table, that centenarian and that newborn babe-in-arms would both be your first cousin thrice removed, an obvious absurdity. Similarly, if a distant relative previously not known to you comes up to you and announces, "I am your second cousin twice removed," you have no way of knowing which one of you is the junior relative and which the senior relative without the two of you actually tracing your family tree. This results from giving some non-reciprocal relatives who are generationally senior to oneself and other non-reciprocal relatives who are generationally junior to oneself the same relationship name (red) while other non-reciprocal junior and senior relatives are distinguished by differing relationship names (green), as pointed out in this highlighted table of consanguinity:

Dad's contention as to how extended family relationships should be named derived from his experience growing up in Wales before migrating to Canada.  In fact, he argued that the naming of relationships beyond those of close family members had been invented in Wales.  Whether that last is actually true, I do not know.  When I attempt to reconstruct what I think Dad intended to describe in a table of consanguinity, I find a far more logical system for naming family relationships:

To Dad, when you attend that family reunion and witness the centenarian reminiscing to the mother of the newborn, that centenarian would be your second great-grandaunt while the newborn babe-in-arms would be your second great grand-nephew, absurdity removed. Similarly, if a distant relative previously not known to you comes up to you and announces, "I am your third grand-niece," you immediately know that you are the senior relative.  In addition, the "... removed" modifier ceases to have any function and disappears.

Thus, I tend to side with Dad in this family pet disagreement and wish that the Welsh table of consanguinity could be conventional.

An Open Letter to My MP Before February 4th

Dear Ms. Qualtrough,

I am dismayed to learn that the government of which you are a part may sign TPP on February 4th.  This without the free and open consultation with Canadians that Mr. Trudeau promised.

During last Fall’s election, at the announcement of successful completion of TPP negotiations, none of you, your leader, nor the Liberal Party of Canada raised Canada’s participation in this agreement with its sovereignty attacking investor/state dispute settlement (ISDS) provision as the fundamental issue it should have been.  I really do not understand why our sovereignty did not take front and centre as THE issue through the election campaign and I asked you on more than one occasion to address the issue before the vote.  After all, if international corporations can sue Canada in SECRET when the government of which you are a part takes action to correct the damage inflicted by the previous government, then we will find ourselves impotent to act.  I have no problem with free trade, as such; I do see that betraying Canada's sovereignty as entirely another matter.

The now departed so-called loyal Conservative government negotiated in secret, then signed and eventually ratified the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPPA) which goes far beyond simply providing for freer trade but, in effect, diminishes Canada to a resource colony of the Communist dictatorship in Beijing for the next thirty years. With the inclusion of the ISDS provision, Chinese firms (which are merely arms of the Chinese Communist dictatorship) with investments in Canadian business now have the right to sue Canadian federal, provincial, and municipal governments in secret trials if new environmental, labour, health and safety, business practice, etc. law impinges on their investment. That is to say, Canada now has to clear such new laws, regulations, and court judgements with Beijing in order to bring them into effect.

Similarly, that government negotiated in secret, then signed both the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), both now awaiting ratification. It also brought Canada to participate in the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) secret negotiations and has signed other so-called free trade agreements, all of which include provisions for ISDS by which international corporations can turn to the International Centre for Settlement of Investor Disputes (ICSID) to sue sovereign nations, Canada included, in secret trials by tribunal outside of any national judiciary to overturn new law enacted out of a nation’s sovereign right to govern itself. Thus, Canada will have to clear such new laws, regulations, and court judgements with corporate head offices in order to bring them into effect and hope to remain safe from attack.

As I understand it, the evil of ISDS lies in its capacity to defeat the sovereign right of nations to govern themselves. With its secret trials and no recourse to appeal, the ISDS provision raises international corporations from the subjects of nations to, in effect, non-territorial kingdoms equal with or superior to no-longer fully sovereign nations while reducing participating nations, Canada included, to resource and labour colonies of those corporations.  For suborning Canada’s sovereignty to international corporations through ICSID, former Prime Minister Harper and those of his ministers involved in these negotiations should be called to answer to the charge of treason.

I have deliberately placed links throughout this letter to commentary by others, both domestic and international, on the danger of these modern so-called free trade deals with their inclusion of ISDS through the ICSID.  If my understanding of this very fundamental issue is not sound, please educate me and your constituents as to just how it is that:

•Canada submitting to ICSID and its ISDS secret trials may not constitute suborning of our sovereign right to govern ourselves;

•ISDS proceedings may not raise international corporations from being subjects of nations to, in effect, non-territorial kingdoms, equal with nations;

•ISDS proceedings may not be SECRET TRIALS, utter anathema to a free and democratic society, but be open and public;

•Decisions by ICSID tribunals in ISDS suits may be appealed to a higher court;

•ISDS suits may be in either direction to allow nations to sue corporations, not just corporations to sue nations; and

•ICSID tribunals made up of corporate lawyers (one selected by the suing corporation, one selected by the defending nation, and one so-called neutral, but all drawn from corporate legal practice and vested in corporate interests) may be fair and impartial judges of ISDS suits.

Instead of ISDS, Canadian operations of international corporations that find themselves at issue with our governments at whatever level should bring the matter to an open and public Canadian court within the Canadian judicial system for decision under Canadian law in the same way as Canadian corporations and Canadian citizens must do. If an issue exceeds the competence of Canadian courts, an international corporation should be required to publicly request its home nation government to pursue the matter in an open and public international court on a sovereign nation versus sovereign nation basis that clearly holds international corporations as subjects of sovereign nations and not as equals with sovereign nations.

I can only hope that Mr. Trudeau will do the right thing and refuse to ratify TPP on February 4th and CETA when it comes up for ratification unless the sovereignty destroying ISDS provision gets stripped from them and that he withdraws Canada from the secret TTIP and TiSA negotiations as long as they remain secret (after all he promises to be open with Canadians) and also contain the sovereignty deleting ISDS provision.

If you cannot educate me satisfactorily on every point above and the government of which you are a part does ratify TPP to confirm the previous government’s abrogation of Canada’s national sovereignty, may I respectfully suggest that you resign your position in cabinet and cross the floor of the House of Commons to sit as an independent MP or with the one caucus that seriously strives to retain our sovereignty.

Please share your thoughts on this vitally fundamental issue in cabinet, in caucus, and publicly with your constituents.

Thank you for your attention,

Edwin M. Hopkins,

Cc: The Delta Optimist, The Council of Canadians, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Minister of Foreign Affairns Stéphane Dion, Minister of International Trade Chrystia Freeland, Interim Opposition Leader Rona Ambrose, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, Green Leader Elizabeth May.

Christmas Letter '15

Nadolig Llawen!                     Merry Christmas!                              Buon Natale!

Christmas 2015.

From our home to yours, dear Family and Friends,

Again it is our pleasure to share a little bit of our lives over the past year at this very special time of year.  We hope you enjoy a full and restful Christmas/New Year season.  2015 has been very much a typical year for us, happy with very ordinary challenges.

Tina continues to take the occasional casual shift, nursing at VGH  while she enjoys her retirement.  She continues with cello lessons at the Delta Community Music School under the tutelage of Bo Peng, accepting gradually increasingly more challenging music to learn.  Although Tina intended to resume taking harp instruction as well, that just did not work out for this year.  Perhaps in the new year.

With exercise and prescribed medication, Ted's health continues as stable, with only occasional colds.  He continues to alternate 3 days of swimming (2500 m. in roughly 50 min.) with 3 days of cycling (nearly 14 km. in roughly 40 min.), sometimes substituting a good stiff walk (a little over 4 km. in 40 min.).  With David well moved on from the Richmond Delta Youth Orchestra and Ted’s term as immediate Past President completed at the end of August, he is no longer active with the Delta Symphony Society.

Angela’s news is most exciting as she and her friends in the Dusty Babes Collective found a studio in which to work.  One of the major British Columbia ceramic artists had retired and sold his studio property to a developer who was not developing immediately but offered the site for lease as ceramics studio space.  Angela discovered the notice and the Dusty Babes promptly took up the lease; they have it for at least a full year from last June and she now spends most Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays working her art there.  Angela continues part-time work at Spawts, a ceramic studio that specializes in ceramic family pet paw print impressions, working Mondays and Fridays.  She enjoys this work with the very small staff that includes one of her Dusty Babes friends.  In January she added another part time position as Saturday ceramics studio technician for Vancouver’s West End Community Centre.  Occasionally Angela also teaches school break concentrated children’s ceramics classes at the Delta Potter’s Association studio.  Tina and Ted both remain in wonder at the beauty of Angela’s ceramic creations which range from hand crafted ceramic buttons through cups and bowls of various sizes to large vases.

David continues his musical studies as a founding student in the new strings music program within the Music Department of Kwantlen Polytechnic University, commuting to the Langley campus.  His focus remains on his viola, giving him great success while he really enjoys his studies.  The strings program remains very small which means that no large ensemble (required by the Kwantlen Music Department) exists, so the university continues to send him and the cello student to play with the Trinity Western University Orchestra. Kwantlen and also requires music students to participate in small ensembles and we enjoyed the end-of-term recitals and concert performances by David's string trio (David, the violin student, and a piano student from Kwantlen Music’s piano program) in April and by his quintet and his duo in December.  Outside university, David also took up private study on his viola with Robert Hirschhorn Rozak and occasionally fills in with his viola for the Stradivari Ensemble.

Although studying music at Kwanten, David continues private study on piano, at the Delta Community Music school, in Garth Preston’s studio.  He also continues to play with the adult Richmond Orchestra; fortunately that orchestra’s major concert this fall did not conflict with Trinity Western University Orchestra’s major concert as it did last year.

David enjoys writing, especially fiction as he extends his imagination.  In his free time, during the summer before last, he wrote an initial draft of a novel.  As he found chances through autumn, winter, and spring into this past summer, he worked through revisions and published the book as digital copy.

Again, our year brought a few significant life events for us to mark.  Ted’s cousin David T. E. Hopkins passed earlier this month after a few month’s battle with cancer.  He rests, treasured, in Ted’s boyhood and current Internet connection memories.  Earlier in the Autumn we celebrated with Ted’s brother Norman as his son Gareth and wife Zoë left for Australia to take up a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Melbourne upon completing his PhD in Environmental Studies at Utah State University.

Looking beyond ourselves, Canada’s federal election last Fall drew our attention more intensely than ever before.  All of us have always voted in every election for which we have been eligible, keeping our political thoughts largely to ourselves.  For this election, issues were so critical that Ted just could not remain private with his thoughts and shared his views via his blog, and some e-mail messages.  The most critical issue to Ted’s mind did not get addressed properly but over all the whole family is satisfied with the election result.

We share many Canadian’s concern for the plight of the many refugees from the civil war in Syria.  Our congregation at Ladner United Church participates with many others across the country and is providing for two refugee families anticipated to arrive any day now, by year end.  The Ladner community gives enthusiastic support, participating in this project.

We took only one get-away this year, returning to Cusheon Lake Resort on Salt Spring Island for the Canada Day weekend.  As usual, we enjoyed Beddis Beach, Beaver Point at Ruckle Park, and Harlans’ Salt Spring Gelato among all else we enjoy on Salt Spring.

Catinka remains very much queen of our house, while Angela’s ducks continue to hold authority over our back yard.  Jemima and Rebeccah resumed their egg production with the new year, less heavily than last year, then slowed and stopped completely when they moulted with the end of summer.  Less frequent egg laying resumed this month.  From January to August, Tango remains convinced that he should not let any of us exit the back yard.  Adam, Angela’s red haired standard poodle, has settled in as very much a part of the family, continuing to endear himself to us all.

Ted continues to seek players to experiment with his invented team sports of Two Ball and Delta.  Lacking sufficient contact of his own among sports minded youth, he continued to approach schools as their Physical Education and intramural sport programs likely offer the best chance of drawing sufficiently large groups of players together.  This remains disappointing as no schools have taken up either game yet.  Ted also kept up a web presence for the games, having revised the site, and on Facebook.  These continued to catch attention world-wide, but he still awaits word of anyone actually playing either game.  You are most welcome to have a look and draw the games to the attention of sport minded people you may know.

And now we look forward to 2016.  Recent weeks, of course, have filled us with Christmas preparations.  We hope yours have gone well and we wish you a Merry and Blessed Christmas and all happiness in the New Year.

With our love,

Ted, Tina, David, and Angela.

P. S. That this letter arrives on Christmas Eve is entirely deliberate.

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!                           Happy New Year!                          Felice Nuovo Anno!

Infinitus - What Child is This? - Beatboxing String Trio

An open letter to my newly elected Member of Parliament, Carla Qualtrough

2015, October 21.

Dear Ms. Qualtrough,

Please accept my congratulations on your election.  Through the campaign you impressed me simply as the person you are and by what you said and did.  But for your silence and the silence of the Liberal Party of Canada on the issue I considered most vital for Canada’s future, I could have readily given you my vote.

With the announcement of successful completion of TPP negotiations, none of you, your leader, nor the Liberal Party of Canada raised Canada’s participation in this agreement with its sovereignty attacking ISDS provision as the fundamental issue it should have been (although the Council of Canadians suggests that the Liberal Party actually supports TPP as negotiated).  I really do not understand why our sovereignty did not take front and centre as THE issue through the election campaign.  After all, if international corporations can sue Canada in secret when the new government takes action to correct the damage inflicted by the previous government, then we will find ourselves impotent to act. The ISDS provision in the now, unfortunately, ratified Canada/China FIPPA, in TPP and CETA awaiting ratification, and in TTIP, and TiSA still under secret negotiation, permits international corporations to sue us in SECRET if we act on any of the many other issues in a way not to their liking, as though such corporations are equals with Canada as a nation rather than the subjects of nations.  I have no problem with free trade, as such; I do see that betraying our sovereignty as entirely another matter.

The now departing so-called loyal Conservative government negotiated in secret, then signed and eventually ratified the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPPA) which goes far beyond simply providing for freer trade but, in effect, diminishes Canada to a resource colony of the Communist dictatorship in Beijing for the next thirty years. With the inclusion of the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provision, Chinese firms (which are merely arms of the Chinese Communist dictatorship) with investments in Canadian business now have the right to sue Canadian federal, provincial, and municipal governments in secret trials by tribunals outside of our justice system if new environmental, labour, health and safety, business practice, etc. law impinges on their investment. That is to say, Canada now has to clear such new laws, regulations, and court judgements with Beijing in order to bring them into effect.

Similarly, that government negotiated in secret, then signed both the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), now awaiting ratification. It also has Canada participating in the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) secret negotiations and has signed other so-called free trade agreements, all of which include provisions for ISDS by which international corporations can turn to the International Centre for Settlement of Investor Disputes (ICSID) to sue sovereign nations, Canada included, in secret trials by tribunals outside of any national judiciary to overturn new law enacted out of a nation’s sovereign right to govern itself. Canada will have to clear such new laws, regulations, and court judgements with corporate head offices in order to bring them into effect and hope to remain safe from attack.

With its secret trials and no recourse to appeal, the ISDS provision raises international corporations from the subjects of nations to, in effect, non-territorial kingdoms equal with or superior to no-longer sovereign nations while reducing participating nations, Canada included, to resource and labour colonies of those multinational corporations.  For suborning Canada’s sovereignty to international corporations through ICSID, departing Prime Minister Harper and those of his ministers involved in these negotiations should be called to answer to the charge of treason.

All through the election, Mr. Trudeau and the entire Liberal party remained silent on the evil of ISDS and that silence makes me suspicious that Liberals may be complicit with the Conservatives in betraying our sovereign right to govern ourselves. To alleviate that suspicion, I can only hope that Mr. Trudeau will do the right thing and refuse to ratify TPP and CETA unless the sovereignty destroying ISDS provision gets stripped from them and that he withdraws Canada from the secret TTIP and TiSA negotiations as long as they remain secret (after all he promises to be open with Canadians) and also contain the sovereignty deleting ISDS provision.

Instead of ISDS, Canadian operations of international corporations that find themselves at issue with our governments at whatever level should bring the matter to an open and public Canadian court within the Canadian judicial system for decision under Canadian law in the same way as Canadian corporations and Canadian citizens must do. If an issue exceeds the competence of Canadian courts, an international corporation should be required to publicly request its home nation government to pursue the matter in an open and public international court on a sovereign nation versus sovereign nation basis that clearly holds international corporations as subjects of sovereign nations and not equals with sovereign nations.

Please share your thoughts on this vitally fundamental issue, both with your leader and with your constituents.

Thank you for your attention and, again, congratulations,

Edwin M. Hopkins,

CC: The Delta Optimist

The Liberal Party of Canada

The Council of Canadians