O•S•C•A•R© Fida's Pizza Changes Hands - Old Ottawa South

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Page 16 The th OSCAR - OUR 37 YEAR MAY 2010 AFTER THOUGHTS from Richard Ostrofsky of Second Thoughts Bookstore (now closed) www.secthoughts.com quill@travel-net.com The title of this column, taken from a much longer piece I’m writing, is not as contradictory as it sounds. It’s premise is simple: Though the Geriatric Superman on the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling is as dead intellectually as Nietzsche pointed out, the key issues of theology (the questions that any bright four-yearold begins to ask) are still very much alive, and must be expected to remain so. In adult, god-neutral language, they might be framed in terms like these: What is the cosmic context of our human lives, and how can I (and should I) understand and relate to that context? At the end of the day, what am I? How does the social world of human relationships really work, and where do I fit into it? Within those givens, which I cannot change very much, for what goals and values should I live? These three, I take it, are the central questions that religious thinkers down the ages have grappled with – and that people, religious or not, are still grappling with. The first is the sort of question you might ask, waking up in VRTUCAR, Ottawa’s own car sharing organization, is marking its 10 th anniversary this spring. Started in the year 2000, with four friends and one car, VRTUCAR now serves over 1,400 Ottawa residents with 70 fuelefficient cars. “Old Ottawa South residents have been enthusiastic supporters of car sharing from the beginning,” says VRTUCAR President and ‘Chief Theology For Atheists a strange house, in a strange bed after a hard night’s drinking: Where am I? What is this place? How did I get here? The second is the question you would ask on discovering that there were a lot of other people in the house, some even in that same bed: Who are all these people? How do I relate to, and deal with them? The third is the question you would ask after a further recognition that this place was to be home from now on: Either how do I get out, or how do I make a life here? Even when we reject all claims that definitive answers to these questions were once revealed, and when we discard all notions of a God or gods to do the revealing, the questions themselves remain as valid and urgent as ever. If anything, they become much more urgent, given the technological powers now at our disposal, and the political choices these entail. My purpose in the piece I’m writing is to review these central issues of traditional theology from an ecoDarwinian perspective that takes self-organization and emergence and (correspondingly) “the death of God” as its starting point – not to offer definitive answers to them, but to consider where they stand. The project is timely, but it should be the leaders of the major world religions, not just amateurs like me, who undertake it – because the mental health of the Sharing Officer’, Wilson Wood. “Old Ottawa South is extremely challenged when it comes to parking, especially as new development often adds to the neighbourhood’s parking woes,” Wilson notes. “Each shared car removes 8 to 10 private cars from our streets – reducing traffic congestion and air pollution – helping to make Old Ottawa South a more pedestrianfriendly neighbourhood. Studies have millions who rely upon and trust them depends upon their doing so. Unfortunately, they show few signs of being ready or willing to undertake the hard thinking and doctrinal revision that such an effort entails. With a few honorable exceptions, most religious leaders seem to be digging their heels even further into their dogmas which have decreasing relevance and decreasing credibility for modern people in today’s world. Their institutional interests may depend on their doing so, for there have always been more people who prefer to cling to ready-made answers rather than think seriously about difficult questions. Still, this is not a healthy state of affairs. As Emerson put it 150 years ago, “The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.” As knowledge advances, the religious emotions – notably awe and alienation – live on. There is every reason why they should continue to do so. Yet traditional religious answers and practices no longer deserve to have the last word. They are suggestions from the past – worth consideration, but in need of questioning in the the light of existing knowledge and one’s honest sense of reality. Seen this way, one finds that many of the old traditions need serious revision or editing to remain playable – like an old theatre piece also shown that people who car share, reduce their transportation carbon footprint by up to fifty percent. They support public transit more, and tend to be healthier because they walk and cycle more. A great example is VRTUCAR member and long-time OOS resident David Chernuschenko, creator of the “Living Lightly Project,” he adds. Car sharing would seem to make sense economically, as well as environmentally. “Car sharing can save you thousands of dollars each year, over owning a car,” Wilson points out. Based on 2007 Canadian Automobile Association figures (latest available), the cost of owning and operating an economysize car, including gas, financing, license, insurance, repairs, maintenance and depreciation is $8,588 per year, or $715 per month. The average VRTUCAR driver, according to Wood, spends about $1,140 per year, or only $95 per month, saving over $7,000 per year. VRTUCAR members have 24hour access to a fleet of clean, fuelefficient cars stationed throughout that needs help from a skilled director if it’s to go on stage. Some remain wholly relevant and serviceable after such treatment. Others are interesting as historical specimens, but no longer as anything else. A religion is a world view that you can hope to live by, die by, and perhaps share with friends along the way. It is nothing more than that, and nothing less. One crucial intellectual task today is to save religion from itself: from its institutions and their interests, from its entrenched authorities, and from its own worst impulses. This OSCAR column is mostly excerpted from the beginning and end of the essay I’m writing – the first draft of which is nearing completion. It will run to about 90 pages when it’s finished – much too long to publish here, even in serial form. I want to invite comment on its thesis from my friends and neighbors, some of which I may use (with your permission of course) in the final version. Also, I will promise to send the finished piece by e-mail to anyone who requests. To facilitate handling, please put that title “Theology for Atheists” as the subject when you write for a copy. I will respond to comments as best I can, and will be thankful for your interest. VRTUCAR - Ten Years of Green Driving in Old Ottawa South Ottawa. VRTUCAR pays for the gas, insurance, maintenance and repair of cars, while members pay only for the hours and the kilometers they use, plus a modest monthly membership fee. Cars can be booked online up to 30 days in advance. Full details are available on VRTUCAR’s newly renovated website – www.vrtucar. com. In Old Ottawa South, VRTUCAR has three stations located at Bank & Sunnyside, Bond’s Décor and Carleton University. VRTUCARs are also located at Billings Bridge, Britannia Village, Byward Market, Carlingwood, Centretown, Glebe, Hintonburg, New Edinburgh, Sandy Hill, Vanier, Westboro, West Wellington, Woodroffe and Baseline, as well as several locations in Gatineau, through a partnership with Quebec car share Communauto. “We are looking forward to our next decade of providing a sustainable, affordable, alternative to owning a private car,” says Wilson. “Support from an environmentallyaware community like Old Ottawa South has helped make VRTUCAR the success it is today.”
MAY 2010 Primary Paleontologists Can Find Fossils Here In Ottawa By Paige Raymond Kovach If your kids are like mine, they are fans of ancient herbivores and carnivores. Yet even though Ottawa wasn’t home to Brachiosaurus or Tyrannosaurus Rex, we have fossils right here for your favourite primary paleontologist to discover. The shales and limestones (sedimentary rocks) in and around Ottawa contain thousands of fossils. These fossils represent the life forms that once lived in the ancient seas that covered this region. We took the kids for a quick walk to Brown’s Inlet recently and they found some shale. Splitting the rock revealed a pattern. Was it a fossil? We had to find out what it was. Technically speaking these public lands are owned by the National Capital Commission so you must have permission before taking rocks or breaking them. Better to take photos of any fossils you find, and leave only footprints. “All the dingy, gray rocks you see in this area are from the Orvidician period and are over 440 million years old,” said Jean Dougherty, paleontologist at National Resources Canada. “The fossil you have in your picture has trackways or burrows made by a mud-dwelling creature. These creatures made a genetically set pattern in the mud we believe they used as a way of communicating to each other.” “The fossil you found was twice as old as the oldest dinosaur that ever lived.’ Said Ms. Dougherty, manager of the Earth Materials Collections of National Resources Canada. Or perhaps your kids have climbed and sat on fossils they weren’t aware of it. An Ottawa South mom introduced Squirrel Talk The weather keeps wavering as if on a ship at sea, making us reflect upon peoples’ impact on our world. This month’s soliloquy is from someone you might know, so we’ll leave you the pleasure of recognizing it. Read it in your mind or aloud, with the special verbal emphasis usually associated with this writer. Softly, it carries our spirits forward and gives our mind food for reflection. […] Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish’d. […] The undiscover’d country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; me to the fossils in some of the rectangular boulders in Brewer Park recently. “You can see some stacked columns of crinoids in some, some brachiopods, and corals if you look closely,” she said. According to Geoscape, the geology website of Natural Resources Canada, crinoids are a group of marine organisms that include starfish and sea urchins. Most forms consist of stalks with a series of stacked columns, a head-like structure and feathered arms. The most common fossil will be a single crinoid, or a few scales clumped together. Finding a whole crinoid is much more rare. If you and your kids still have the dinosaur bug, take your bikes, the bus or your car to visit Logan Hall. The free display of fossils, rocks, minerals and meteorites may just make your primary paleontologists into budding geologists too. My kids loved the meteorite found by a boy in St. Robert, Quebec. Logan Hall is located at 601 Booth Street, in the Geological Survey of Canada Building and is open Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. The Canadian Museum of Nature is another great place to visit with your primary paleontologist. The second floor is devoted to dinosaurs. The museum is free on Saturday mornings from 9 a.m. until noon. Please note that the museum will be temporarily closed from April 26 until May 21, 2010 to prepare for its grand reopening. Resources Natural Resources Canada has a great website called Geoscape. In the lesson plans for the Ottawa-Carleton area there are great facts on our local fossils. http://geoscape.nrcan.gc.ca/ ottawa/index_e.php Professor JA Davidson from Carleton used to give fossil fieldtrips as More Than Words! And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.--Soft you now! part of a continuing education course. His itinerary is available on-line at http://http-server.carleton.ca/~jadonald/ fieldtrips.html. Ottawa fossil index from Geoscape Crinoids are a group of marine organisms that include starfish and sea urchins. Most forms consist of stalks composed of a series of stacked columns of with a head-like structure and feathered arms. The most common fossil will be a single, or a few scales clumped together. A whole Crinoid is much rarer. Trilobites were marine creatures that moved just above the sea floor. Trilobite means three lobes, and if the creature were to be divided lengthwise it would have a centre lobe and two side lobes. Trilobites were hard-shelled creatures, and they had to shed their hard shell in order to grow. The shell is usually what fossil hunters find. More than words, reading this author (and many others) is an experience that changes each time we read the text, as our personal interpretation is influenced by our current and past experiences. This time we are reminded of recent Buddhist teachings we took: take no less yet no more than our place. A statement of simple appearance yet of hidden depth. Clearly a soliloquy such as above can lead us into a myriad of directions, and we choose to interpret it as a positive message. The comment this time relates to noise, and refers to the article in last month’s OSCAR on Patty’s Pub. We like having a pub nearby, but we find that it creates unacceptable noise at night. Perhaps if the owners helped respect the neighbourhood’s residential character then the situation referred to in last month’s OSCAR would not happen: “The only issue the pub has had at its present location has been a struggle [… Page 17 Three fossil hunting friends Oliver Waddington, Josh Rahaman, and George Kovach find some brachiopods in the shale boulders at Brewer Park. Photo by Paige Raymond Kovach Trilobites only lived in the Paleozoic era and are now extinct. If you find these types of fossils, you know how old the rock is -- between 545 and 250 million years old. Cephalopods are ancient mollusks that were dominant large predators in the tropical seas that existed in the Ottawa area. There are two main groups of fossil cephalopods, but only nautiloids are found locally and most have straight shells (orthocone). They lived in the Ottawa area from the Cambrian to the Ordovician era. Corals are irregular colonial masses that contain radically symmetrical, cupshaped living platforms that are larger than 1 mm in diameter. Many coral fossils are found in the Ottawa area, which suggests the climate was very different compared with today when] neighbours objected [when Patty’s Pub wished to open an outdoor patio].” When pub patrons leave at closing time in the middle of the night and are loud and noisy as they often are, then the pub itself becomes unwelcome. Another unfortunate recent example is that the pub forced the city to repair water valves during the night instead of letting the city do it in the morning as planned. This repair was so noisy that the sound reached through the whole house and lasted till early morning, so we couldn’t sleep for most of the night. Such actions from the pub plainly show they do not care about the neighbourhood. We ask the pub to act responsibly and thoughtfully towards the neighbourhood, and to ensure its patrons are respectful of the neighbourhood. Then the pub will be a very welcome neighbour. Would the pub actively commit to this ? We are the sum of all our actions and the sum of all our actions is the footprint we create. We can choose to better the world and our community by positive individual actions. Zen squirrels check us from the fence, sitting like little buddhas. Write us at taniamich@gmail.com.
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