So ideaCity 2010 has come to a close. At a first timer at this conference I have to say it far exceeded my expectations.

The final pod of the night ended with something sure to make the rest of us feel inadequate….child prodigies. We heard from the world’s youngest educator, 12 year old Adora Svitak, 14 year old blog sensation Tavi Gevinson and YouTube sensation Natalie Tyler Tran.

Adora Svitak discussed what it actually means to let a kid be kid. The kid herself mused that while some people would say that letting kids be kids means letting them run wild, Adora feels that responsibility is not a bad thing and stopping a kid from achieving their dreams by telling them to “wait until they grow up” only squashes their dreams.

This insightful educator talked about how her own life would have been different if she had been told “wait until you are older to publish that book” “when you are older you can give seminars and educate”. Instead, her needs and wants were cultivated and flourished.

While I think that children need responsibility I couldn’t help but sit back and think that the 12 year old didn’t fully appreciate the uniqueness of her own life, the financial situations some kids are under, or the fact that at 12, the responsibility of making your bed, your lunch, and doing your laundry was enough. I admire Adora for everything she has done, she is a remarkable child, but not all children are like her and not all children want her life.

Am I saying we shouldn’t allow children to express themselves, experiment with their dreams, and be constantly encouraged? Absolutely not. I’m just saying we do it with a bit of realism. Today’s children don’t need to be sheltered they need to understand what goes on in this world, that war exists, that racism, sexism, homophobia, disease and lots other bad things exist, but it needs to be a slow drip. We can’t turn on the tap of “reality” and fill their glasses to the brim, we have to provide a steady stream and let them gradually drink.

Natalie Tyler Tran is a hilarious, down to earth individual who notices the funny things in society I think we all notice, the difference is, she’ll put her face on the internet and say “what the hell was that??” While she didn’t find herself remarkable and I did. We often overlook the great power humor has. It can heal us, give us a new perspective, relieve our stress, or just allow us some fun. While Natalie didn’t think her humor merited her being with people like Adora Svitak, I would say she possesses the greatest knowledge of all, the ability to make people laugh.

If you haven’t watched any of Natalie Tyler Tran’s YouTube videos, do it now. And then do it again when you are having a bad day, cause it’s a pick me up almost as good as coffee.

-Stephanie

Amid the great food, massages and mimosas is where ideaCity truly exists. I feel like the ideas for next years conference are going to spawn from these conversations and it  is these moments amid the mimosas that keep conferences like this going. The psychic talking to Margaret Atwood and the magician and the scientist are perfect examples of why theses conferences are truly necessary. It’s also interesting to watch almost everyone try and figure out the scores of the latest World Cup games.

I thought about trying to bring an actual post about a specific speaker or issue, but instead I’m choosing this visual which I feel is almost more inspiring. The creation of next year’s conference.

Our final pod features child prodigies in which my 26-year-old self will sure feel inadequate, but will no doubt prove to be inspiring.

-Stephanie

Shimabukuro does stuff with a ukelele that I can’t help but think nearly nobody would expect. Showcasing the flexibility of the little instrument, he took us through some tango, a sweet soft piece, a taste of rock, and George Harrison’s  ’While my Guitar Gently Weeps.’

The suprising heartiness of the uke was also rather apparent, namely during the tango piece. The tiny instrument took a beating, with strong chords that seemed like they would be the death of it. By the end of the barrage, it didn’t even have to be tuned.  And the sound coming out of it was far from stereotypical. Just goes to show you that it’s not the size of the instrument… it’s how you use it.

Annnnnnd some pictures!

-Reinisa

I was outside on one of the few breaks given at Ideacity and I was thinking about how tired I am and how disappointed I am in my lack of forwardness, my lack of interviewing presenters. Wondering where the little Barris on my shoulder screaming “Go get it!” was. When a little boy off to the side of the building started playing the violin.

He was walking around in small circles, pacing and playing. He kept switching from what sounded to me like classical violin to a more fiddle sounding music. So it sounded as if he was playing happy, playing sad, playing happy, playing sad. All the while walking in a circle.

This made me think about things like ‘The Great Circle of Life’, life and death, karma, winning, loosing and eventually brought me back to the conference.

Tan Le has invented a device with Emotive, an Australian company that is worn on one’s head and gathers the electrical fluctuations from ones scalp. Using these fluctuations one can do things with one’s mind, like move a wheelchair, or play a video game. Which means one day I too might be able to play the violin with my mind.

I could also win an Olympic gold medal, like Ashleigh McIvor, with my mind. She spoke about uncertainty and what she may do with herself now that she has achieved her goal.

This ties back into circles and my uncertainty. I am going to achieve my goals right now, I am going go interview somebody because I can’t stay stationary, I have to move along my circle.

Another moment, just now just as I was writing that sentence Michelle Rainey of the B.C. Marijuana Party just walked over here and told me to get out there and talk to people. I’m coming Ideacity!

Victoria Gray

After being condemned for his involvement with the Nazi party during WW2 philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote about technology in the 20th century. This is a huge theory and it concerns people used as technology, but it starts by talking about human’s relationship to technology and nature.

In the beginning of the century people used technology as a way to further nature. A way to use nature to their advantage. Think of a watermill, that thing attached to a house, powering something using the river. the mill did not disturb the river, it worked with it.

Then people turned to raping the land in order to get what they wanted. Think about the way a place looks after it has been drilled for oil. It is dead, there is nothing left.

Dr. Rachel Armstrong spoke today about meshing technology with a biological/chemical substance to create a city that not only thrives, but helps us survive. She wants people to stop beating nature and all the materials we use into submission. She believes that instead we can use the materials we have in accompaniment to natural substances to create a living city, that gives back to us and to nature.

It sounds very complicated and very sceincy. Something I have mentioned I don’t really understand, but I understand Heidegger.

I think we can use nature as well as give back to it. It doesn’t have to be as complex as science and chemistry. It can be as simple as ecowalls and solar power. Not that she is wrong, but for those of us who don’t understand we can think small and create big change in our own little ways.

Victoria Gray

While there is a lot of talk everywhere about renewable energy, recycling, reusing and the new fashion bag trend known as reusable grocery bags, Diane Francis points out we are overlooking a crucial part of our ecological issues: the amount of people crowding our planet. Overpopulation is contributing to the decline of our planet as we continue to take over parks, marshland, and other natural land sources to erect more housing for our over-crowded planet. Suburbia is killing mother earth.

Not surprising at all, when Francis published her article speaking out against overpopulation, people were less than amused. Religious group in particular had issues with Francis’s take on birth control, and her ghastly mention of China’s one-child policy. While the assumption seems to be that China, who has instituted a one child economic policy, rips pregnant women from the streets and forces abortions on them, Francis clears that myth. What China does is educate their women on the benefits to having only one child, not only to themselves economically, but to China as a country and in turn the world. In providing birth control to their women, China offers them choice.

Surprising to me, another country instituting a one-child policy and going so far as to open abortion clinics to give their women choice is Rwanda. Rwanda, despite being a country made up of mostly Christians, and a company whose major hospitals were built by the church, has managed to reach a compromise for the sake of their country and its citizens.

Is it so wrong to suggest that the world doesn’t need as many people as we are bringing to it? As someone with zero plans to have children, I go on record with my plight towards the preservation of our planet. However, as someone with two siblings, Francis’s talk left me wondering what life would have been like with even a two child policy? I’m not sure we are necessarily at the place of limiting women who want to have children, but what about those who don’t, but can’t prevent it? I’m reminded of the television show 19 Kids and Counting which airs on TLC. If you haven’t heard of it or seen it, the title is pretty self explanatory. The Duggar family does in fact consist of 19 children. The show started when they had a mere 15 little ones running around and has continued ever since. When asked why they don’t practice birth control the Duggars calmly state that they don’t believe in interfering with the plan God has laid out for them. I can’t help but wonder what happened for the plan Michelle Duggar, mother of 18 and veritable baby machine had for herself? What, as Millika Chopra spoke of this morning, was her intent?

I also can’t help but watch that show and observe other extremely large families and feel a sense of sadness for the older children, who instead of socializing, making friends and experiencing new things are simply confined to the task of helping to raise their younger siblings.

Diane Francis has received criticism that ranges from hate mail to death threats for simply stating that maybe the world doesn’t need as many people as we are putting into it, and that the time may soo be coming where our government steps in and says enough is enough for the state of our country.

When there aren’t enough spaces for future children to go to university, when there are no more places to build condos and suburbs and when parks become as over-crowded as the Eaton Centre on boxing day, will we look back and say Diane Francis was right?

-Stephanie

Idealists connecting at ideaCity.

“Women are one hand these fragile things that need to be protected, while on the other hand they are jezebel’s the world needs to be protected from,” Sally Armstrong.

Rape camps in Sarajevo. Women of war, women of the enemy side rounded up and put into camps where they are raped. Gang raped and tortured more than once a day. In Africa women are the victims of terrible atrocities. Armstrong named only a few disgusting things but the rape and mutilation struck me the most. For some reason the thought of having my breasts cut off with a machete is more alarming that having my arm cut off with one.

Is it that breasts are womanhood? I don’t think so. Maybe it strikes me so because you can’t do that to a man. For the goal of winning a war it may seem pointless to take the breasts of a woman, to rape a woman, but it’s not.

Take a woman’s breasts in an impoverished country and she has no way to feed, to sustain and nurture a child. If you kill the children, you rid yourself of the enemy forever. It is a smart form of genocide. A cruel form of genocide.

If you rape a women on a mass scale you stand a great chance of impregnating women on a mass scale. Get rid of the enemy by breeding your enemy out.

Sounds barbaric doesn’t it?

It has been happening for centuries. Lets go back to (pick an era…) the Vikings. Rape and pillage! that is what they are known for isn’t it? Well, great builders, great explorers, but also great warriors and everyone feared them because they would come rape and pillage.

This is something civilized people left behind.

But, wait, didn’t Australia try to breed out its native population?

Wait, didn’t Canada (yes us), try to take the native out of the child in residential schools?

Didn’t the Taliban strike down women and force them to stay in the home and wear the Burka. Did they not refuse them the ability to educate themselves?

From this I conclude that women are still and have always been a fundamental war strategy. In most cases, women and children or future children didn’t start the war. They are therefore bystanders possibly not innocent, but not involved as an entire gender.

Why is this strategy of war not being denounced in “the civilized world”?

This is something I have never heard of and I like to think I keep myself pretty up to date with the news. Why have I not heard about it?

Why? Armstrong said she gave all the evidence of ramp camps she could find to an editor and seven weeks later there were four sentences written about it. He got busy, he forgot.

He was a news maker. Media has the power to create the issues. Not just change them, but create them. Think about the TTC. One vigilante took a photo, put it online and then, all the newspaper in Toronto were publishing front page stories. All the mayoral candidates are talking about it, the provincial government is talking about it.

One vigilante reporter, Sally Armstrong gathered the information and the evidence, handed it over and nothing was done.

I want something done. I want women to rise above the status of inanimate war strategy. Email The Star and tell them you want to know more and you want to know why this is a non-issue for the world.

The Star was not the publication that didn’t publish the information so feel free to contact The Globe, The Post or The Sun.

Victoria Gray

Due to some technical difficulties, I haven’t been able to post the rest of my pictures from yesterday, so, let’s hope 3rd times the charm…

A bit of a summary of yesterday…

Margaret Somerville talks about spirituality and ethics.

Anne Graham Lotz talks about her relationship with God

Erika Ritter spoke about the relationship between people and animals.

Geography makes history, according to Cleo Paskal, who spoke about how the creation of infrastructure can change the geopgraphic landscape

Neshama Carlebach urged the audience to "return to the land of (our) souls" in an emotional vocal performance.

Jane Poynter spoke about her experience living in Biosphere 2 for 2 years

Liv Arnesen tells the audience about her journey, both in becoming an explorer, and realizing her dream of skiing to the South Pole

Edna DeVore took us out of this world and the ongoing search for life in the universe

Keeping things on the astronomical level, Margaret Race spoke about otherworldly organisms and how they may affect us.

Spoken word artist Vanessa Hidary, the 'Hebrew Mamita'

Margaret Atwood spoke about the future of literature, and the importance of keeping books around.

-Reinisa

You don’t have to agree with an idea to respect someone and their views or values, religion or space. That is what Nonie Darwish spoke about just minutes ago. She was born in Cairo Egypt as a Muslim. She grew up in Gaza, went to school in Gaza and was taught hatred. She is fighting to eliminate the Muslim hate propaganda against Jews.

She showed mainstream television clips of people, men, women and terribly enough a child condemning the Jews to death, violence and disease. propagating the idea that Jews live for money and to destroy the Muslim faith. It was sickening. In a post 9/11 world the age of anti-islamophobia is upon us. The Western world as I know it changed drastically from hating the Muslims (which is wrong) to drastically trying to accept their culture after the injustice we put our own Muslim countrymen through.

The criticism, not hate, is nice to hear. No culture is perfect, not ours, not yours, not theirs. We could all stand for a little bit of criticism.

Darwish only wishes to see peace between the Jews and Muslims. She criticizes her own people for their hate, their laws allowing murder of adulterers (who are usually women), laws that state a woman must have four male witnesses to prove rape, laws that state killing someone who has left the faith shall go unpunished. Laws that allow women and non-Muslims to be treated unjustly. Laws and teaching that encourage violent Jihad (war to promote or further the religion). Teaching children in schools, both male and female that killing oneself for  your religion, martyrdom, will make you a hero.

These are the kinds of things that need to change. Change because they go against human rights of their own people and infringe on the rights of  the people of all nations.

By no stretch do I believe that Israel or some Jews are not guilty of the same things. It is a war after all. Both sides condemn each other and spread hate. It is an us vs. them mentality that exists in any war. You have to make the other side seem different and monstrous in order to convince people to kill, in order to win.

This war has been happening for centuries.

Hi, stupid little kid here to tell you, YOU ARE NOT WINNING! Both sides are losing and tens of millions of people have died over the centuries fighting over these lands, fighting over the same god. It is time to find peace. It is time to agree to disagree.

This stupid little kid is here to say to the big strong men of the world that it is time to act like children, it is time to share and play nice.

Victoria Gray

This morning’s pod was all about inspiration and change. The session opened up with a fabulous dance performance from Canadian choreographer Aszure Barton and her fabulous four dancers. Barton’s choreography shows the power of the human spirit to accomplish whatever you choose. What was evident through her work, as her dancer’s flowed harmoniously across the stage was the passion they all had for what they were doing. Passion and inspiration in any form is a powerful catalyst to be around.

Mallika Chopra, daughter of world-famous author Deepak Chopra,  then took to the stage and shared her story of intent and finding a purpose for her own life. Many people wander through life waiting for things to happen and taking them as they come. Chopra challenges all of us to find our own destiny and intent and to make what you want a reality. For someone looking to start a career in a few short months, it struck a chord.

As I take a moment to pause on this conversation break you can’t help but be inspired by by the people coming together. Across the way Natalie McLennan is speaking to an upcoming presenter, who is a mere 14 years old. Beside me, a former dancer is thanking choreographer Aszure Barton for her performance and conveying her love for dance.

This last day is proving to be as powerful as every day before it. We are all excited to get back in and see what is next to come.

-Stephanie

Gone are the days when companies tell us as consumers what we are going to get. Now, we tell manufacturers what we want. Take Apple, one of the corporate sponsors for ideaCity. They are one of my favorite companies, and they manufacture and create amazing products and technologies, but their products come from a consumer demand and they are a company that has greatly considered the demands of its public. The iPad, their newest gadget that I enviously see floating around the conference came from our demand to have our email, photos, webpages and whatever else we wanted on a fast machine we could slip in our briefcase.

As Popcorns so appropriately put it, The DNA of a brand must be woven into the DNA of a culture. We want to know where our dollars are going and instead of supporting big corporations, we demand that our dollars support our society.

Much like the demands Tracey Worcester asks us to make of our pork, Faith Popcorn encourages us to challenge companies with our demands

-Stephanie

Tracey Worcester explores this in her documentary “Pig Business” which explores how pigs are treated in different parts of the world and how that makes for better food. The scary thing is that in the United States and Canada, the majority of our pork products come from pigs who live painful lives tortured in stalls where they cannot even turn around.

Imagine living our life in an area the size of a coffin. For these pigs, it is a reality. The cannot turn around, move freely, root around in the dirt or even turn over. As a result, a lot of these animals go crazy, and often chew on each others tails, literally mutilating each other of boredom. They are surrounded by their own feces, the carcasses of pigs that have died and other bacteria. To prevent these pigs from dying, their bodies are pumped full of antibiotics. The antibiotics in their bodies becomes the antibiotics in our bodies.

As if that information wasn’t enough, the fact is that pigs in these supercenteres are give a hormone that is banned in 160 other countries….160 other countries have decided that this hormone (which couldn’t be named for privacy reasons) isn’t safe to go in the bodies of their citizens, but Canada is ok with it.

Local, free range farming is Worcester’s key to keeping our bodies free of hormones and offering other animals a happier life. While Worcester does acknowledge the added expense that can come from buying local, I have to say that paying a little more for a purer cut of meat is worth the expense.

Just today I join two friends in a goal to get in shape and motivate each other. It got me thinking that we are all so concerned with how our bodies look on the outside, we don’t really give a lot of thought to how they look on the inside. It’s time to worry about the inside as much as the outside.

To check out Tracey Worcester’s documentary “Pig Business” (FOR FREE) go to pigbusiness.co.uk

-Stephanie

Day 2 is done. The first half of the final “Pod” of speakers covered business (Very diverse, this conference, I like it), then we got a little bit more sex-talk, and we concluded with the future of reading and books.

I heard Faith Popcorn predict the future and  listened to Diane Francis‘s theory about the over population of the world. (Her idea ran along the lines of China and Rwanda’s birth control policies- something that caused her countless hate mail).

The final two speakers went in a bit of a different direction.

Josey Vogels spoke a bit about masturbation, strange letters she’s gotten, and how there’s really no such thing as normal when it comes to sex (or anything else really), citing that “as soon as you let someone else define your normal,” you’re going to inevitably be messed up. She also took the quote of the night; “It’s not the meat, it’s the motion.”

The day/night ended with the legendary Margaret Atwood and her thoughts on the future of literature, the question of whether or not cremation is environmentally friendly, and 3 “practical” reasons why it’s imperative to keep your favorite books around in book-form as opposed to going entirely digital; solar flares, energy shortages and internet overload. All good reasons indeed, however I confess I’m also a big fan of that “new book” smell.

And that’s it for the day/night. Picture post to follow!

-Reinisa

Faith Popcorn predicts trends in culture and consumer behaviour. She talked a lot about the “new” social media phenomenon. We are moving more and more toward bottom-up media. The consumer tells the company what they want and get it or leave. This is not a new idea. Not at all. We have been moving toward bottom-up forms of social media. Think waaaaaay back to things like Angelfire websites. I had my own poetry site in the year 2000. It sucked and it was full of advertisements Angelfire put there, but it was free and at 13 years old I had my own voice and so did many people.

Then came things like Msn and MIRC these were places where people could share ideas information, websites and files. Or maybe they were before Angelfire, I don’t know, but I used them all. I was connected to people all over the world via MIRC when I was 11.

I am no trend setter because there were thousands of people using these programs. Social media theory has been around for a long time aswell. I studied in university 4 years ago and Borges theorised about the internet before it was even invented.

This conference is supposed to be about new and big ideas. Miss Popcorn I don’t think you got the memo.

Then we move to over population. Huge. Diane Francis believes that the world needs legislation to impose birth control and limit the number of children born. I think it’s a great idea – seriously! I am one of those horrid people who think people should be made to have parenting licences and yes even if it has nothing to do with overpopulation a child in a two child home might feel more loved than a child in a seven child home. There is a much higher parent to child ratio. Again though this is not an origional idea, Johnathan Swift’s A Modest proposal. Different, sort of the same talking about eating babies to feed the Irish. Feeding people and having less people to feed in a time of great suffering for the Irish.  And another guy I can’t find his name, but he wrote that in the future there would be too many people to feed with the world’s food supplies such as they were. The population needed to be controled, either we had to kill people or do something about the birth rate. Google is failing me again. Early Eugenics.

I understand why this is being purported as a big idea, but this is something that rich people will not likely stand for. If you stop population growth, you stop economic growth, you cut your consumer base, so you cease to increase your profit margins. You stop making MORE money. Isn’t that what the capitalist system is all about?

Why would the people who have the control and the money want to stop making money? We see this in many other lectures happening here. The pharma business convinces us we are sick when we aren’t to make money, the pig farmers and other big business farmers keep animals in abhorrent conditions and pump them full of hormones and antibiotics we know are bad for us so they can make money….etc.

So…what can we do? Obviously what we have already done Popcorn, grassroots initiatives, buy local, go natural. Not new.

Josey Vogels. Sex columnist. The Kerry Bradshaw of Canada. Yes, lets have good sex. Open your mouth and tell your partner what you want. I agree. Go you, don’t be ashamed of what you like because you will be happier when you’re having good sex. Don’t be ashamed to masturbate.

A woman who needs no introduction, Margaret Atwood! She talked a bit about death and joked about a new method of corpse disposal invented in sweeden. You’re flash frozen and shaken into little pink bits. Then if you so choose you can be shaped into something of value, like a bird bath as suggested by Znaimer, but Atwood does not want that.

She then moved on to talking about whether the paper bound book will become obsolete. She thinks they won’t or shouldn’t because simply put when everything goes to hell you can still read your book by candlelight. The internet will be lost.

Think about changing the way you view money when we do that we may be able to change a lot more, a lot faster, a lot more.

Victoria Gray.  Click to view slideshow.

I love Star Trek, oh god am I a Trekkie, but it’s just nifty to think of different species co-existing in a better and more peaceful society. Even though they are constantly fighting (I don’t know how that works). So when Jane Poynter, Edna DeVore and Dr. Margaret Race started talking about Bioshperes (I thought Biodome and where the heck did Poly Shore go? “Wheezin the Ju-uice!”) but realised what a tremendous feat of science it was to have had people living in a self-contained ecosystem for 2 years. Poynter went through hell in that dome fighting with colleagues and loosing oxygen due to compost in the soil, but proved humans could sustain life on another planet using such biodomes, or uh Biospheres.  That is really cool.

Then DeVore spoke of space travel and the possibility of being able to find a planet just as habitable as Earth with the Kepler. A shiptype that is looking for stars like the sun to give the right amount of heat to create a habitable planet. Didn’t understand much, but I tried to listen…it sounded neat I suggest you check out the Kepler.

Then Race started talking about the ethics of space travel. Wow. They are both at http://kepler.nasa.gov/ . Check it out, godda get back. Click to view slideshow.

Victoria Gray

The subject of her interest was sparked by a book she read as a child wherein a dog who was left to attend to a child was killed upon the return of his master after a struggle with a snake to save the baby. The cradle was overturned in the struggle which lead the master to believe the dog had killed his child, so he killed the dog without question, later discovering his child alive and a dead snake obviously killed by the dog.

She said that there were versions of this story in many cultures. There is even a true story behind it that took place in France in medieval times. St. Ginniford (I don’t know if that is spelled correctly and my Google search is not revealing much), was revered and prayed to, to heal and save children. He was a dog, who saved a child.

I’ve had dogs, I know they would give their lives for me. I love my parents dogs, but I think the relationships I have shared with my cats have been even deeper.

A cat would have a hard time saving a life like a dog, through violence, but I think they communicate and love just as much if not more. Ritter said dogs and animals are like illiterate children with no money. Ok I can believe that, but when she started saying they couldn’t talk I kept thinking about my wonderfully annoying, loud mouthed Tabby, Boccaccio or Bocey (Bow-see). When she has something to say, she makes you understand very loudly and clearly. Granted the things she wants are simple: love, food, acknowledgement and rewards. Much like a dog.  

Most of the time she just wants someone to talk to. We have deep and meaningless conversations that consist of me saying random nothing and her saying what I can’t understand. That’s the meaningless part. The deep part is that while these conversations are taking place I’m telling her I acknowledge and appreciate her presence in my life, and her response is telling me the same.

Knowing what she wants when she wants it is no easy feat. It requires attentiveness and a willingness to try to learn from your animal. Cats are not so easily swayed into loving a human, one must put effort into convincing them to trust. Once you do gain that trust I think the loyalty may be even deeper than a dogs. Bocey will not talk to anyone but me. I have a roommate, my very best friend, who has been around since Bocey came into my life and still she does not talk to my roommate. My Bocey greets me at the door very loudly proclaiming “I’m here, your home, love me!”

Often cats get left out of this circle of love between animals and humans because they are seen to be aloof. I don’t think they are aloof, I just think they are picky and you have to work to know and communicate with them. Click to view slideshow.

Victoria Gray

This part of the conference took thought and theory beyond the ozone layer, exploring the depths of space, searching for possible extraterrestrial life, and how one would cope in a sealed off environment if it were built outside the planet.

What I was most interested in this time around was a presentation by Edna DeVore. Her focus was the possibility of life outside of our little planet. A fervent believer in “aliens” I couldn’t help but wonder… what if we don’t find a life-filled planet that matches ours? Moreover, what would happen if we found a life-filled planet UNLIKE ours? How would we cope with intellegent life, dwelling on a planet that was NOT like Earth? Is is possible? Probable? Here’s the mind-blower, though……… Because we are so focused on finding that which is identical biologically, are we missing something? Take some time to ruminate on that. Let me know what you think.

On to a second, but similar thought, after DeVore came Dr. Margaret Race- a “planet protector” who explores and deals with oraganisms that dwell on other planets, and what could potentially happen if they were returned to earth and NOT quarantined. This struck me as very interesting, and a bit of a catch-22. How can we properly study organisms and matter from, say, Mars, when we don’t actually HANDLE it? According to Race, anything that comes from out side is, in a sense, sanitized as a medical instrument would be in a hospital in order to prevent contamination of us. Whilst on one hand, no, we DON”T know how to deal with otherworldly potentials for disease, etc, wouldn’t it be a great opportunity to LEARN? I don’t know. What I think is that, if we want to journey outside of the world, we need to learn how to properly deal with whatever organisms or matter that we find IN CASE we come in physical contact with it. I can’t help but think of Murphy’s law when I say this, but, I can’t help but think that, eventually, we will. And, who knows? Maybe it’ll be for the better.

One more set of speakers to go…

-Reinisa

This morning’s pod spoke heavily about ethics and in particular, the talks given by Margaret Somerville and Erika Paris struck a chord with me in terms of debates in today’s Canadian justice system. Margaret Somerville stated that Amnesty, the idea of wiping away and forgiving past offences during a certain period of time, was inherently flawed. Both Somerville and Paris agreed that Amnesty’s flaw is its inability to acknowledge the victims of these tragedies. If we do not acknowlege the victims of such atrocities such as genocide and the holocaust,  these victims will eventually bring these issues to the forefront and create bigger problems.

I couldn’t help but listen to Somerville and Paris and think to the recent MP’s decision to refuse a pardon to Karl Homolka, stopping her right to walk away with a clean slate. While I agreed with the decision before, I can’t help but feel especially attached to it now and wonder what would have happened to Canadian society if we allowed one of it’s worst criminals to clear the slate? How would the families of her (and Paul Bernardo) react?

What I took away from Somerville and Paris is that we can forgive, but the idea of Amnesty also suggests that we forget which is where the inherent problem lies. To forget something is to deny its existence. In the case of genocide victims, and the victims of unspeakably violent crimes in our own country, those moments cannot be forgotten.

Homolka was forgiven when she wasn’t given a life sentance, was allowed to obtain a degree from Queen’s University while in prison, and was released to live in Joilette, Quebec. In this case to pardon, much like Amnesty, would be to forget.

It’s funny how even though we are inside the beautiful Royal Conservatory at ideaCity that the outside world is always permeating.

-Stephanie

When it was successful though it was pretty cool. One second her hands were outside of the box holding a stick and in the next instant she was running back to the stage from the crowd blowing a whistle and carrying a chinese sun umbrella. Pretty cool.

Although now that magic has been analysed every which way on television and such the illusion is not as grand. No matter what they show you, you know its sleight of hand or some such. Still neat to watch and still must take a long time to master. It is quite a skill!

She also had Znaimer and a crew men from the conference tie her up, she and Znaimer then stood behind a curtain while the audience counted to three, the curtain dropped and Chen was still tied up, but was wearing Znaimer’s jacket underneath the ropes. I don’t know how she did it, but my goodness that is quite a trick.

After that the topic switched from illusion to ethics. Margaret Somerville spoke about the ethics of science and spirituality.

“Spirituality is to ethics as oxygen is to breathing,” she said.

She had to make it clear that spirituality does not have to be religious. It can be as some psychological and ethical theories state a moment of transcendence. A moment of awe in your life, of amazement and wonder.

She believes that people have to be alright with uncertainty, which most humans are not. This is why we may be genetically programmed to search for morality. Religion and spirituality offer us a sense of morality.

She spoke of a new theory in Epigenetics that believes the search for morality is coded in our genes and only needs to be triggered by an environmental stimulus.

this sounds very much to me like a scientific rendition of Jung’s collective unconscious. If morality is universal, if religion or spirituality is universal , why? Genetics or something else? Something equally as spiritual? Something we can’t see, but feel that isn’t god. Is it that all humans are connected by a bond? Jung thought so, as does Medium Collette Baron-Reid.

She didn’t want to be psychic it just happened. She believes she can tell things about people by touching them. I tried to find her to ask what she saw about me. I’m skeptical about these things, but I would love to see what happened. Connectivity among the human race would be impressive if it could be proven. Maybe it would create more peace in this world.

I’ll keep trying to find her and let you know more as the day goes on.

Victoria Gray

The first presenter was a woman named Juliana Chen-  the first female to win the world championship as a magician. Opening with a fantastic blacklight dance piece, Chen switched glowing masks and flowed across the stage. From there she moved into a fantastic card/dance piece in which she appeared to pull deck after deck, card after card, out of thin air. She also had Moses tie her up, and wound up wearing his jacket, and, though the final trick had some technical difficulties, seeming to become immaterial, entering a covered box and having short staffs pushed through her, and then appearing to disappear (well, her hand sticking out of the box did). THough her assistant’s choreography was a little basic for my taste, It was a great way to start the day.

….then we heard about spirituality, religion and ethics, which seemed an odd match.

Spectre

In the cards? Chen appears to pull cards out of thin air as she dances.

Chen takes a quick bow before changing for her next trick

Looks that bind: Chen gets Moses Znaimer and an assistant to tie her up. Though apparently strongly bound, Chen wound up wearing Znaimer's suit jacket.