I met someone yesterday and spoke to him like a normal person. His name is Steven and it happened while getting a tea at Timothy's coffee shop around lunch time. He was sitting in one of the couched areas reading a paper when I asked if i could sit in the seat dagonal him. He agreed and wondered aloud at the book I had just put on the table between us, which is about globalization. I turns out that he had been a teacher for 20 years until he left the profession in 2001, possibly because of the inherent problems with institutionalized learning institutions such as daycare, elementary and high schools in which attendance is considered legally mandatory. He started telling me about how large corperations like the WHO and the US government turn out research related to what they are selling and try to pass those studies off as unbiased. This kind of thing is not a surprise to me as I've studied vaccines and how they relate to my family. So I had a conversation about something with someone who agrees with me! This is not a normal occurance and it felt pretty good. We also spoke about the future of the global workforce and how it is becoming less and less employment oriented and more about finding what you do well and simply presenting that to a market that wants to buy into it. We exchanged numbers when we stood up to leave and he told me he would give me a call on the weekend. I'm glad to have met him, he's full of a sort of sly wit that I never pick up on straight away but appreciate later. He called my plan for starting up a home daycare a charity! Probably out of what he percieved to be noble intention on my part, nobility my ass.

Something else we spoke about and that I read about yesterday was the plan to make downtown Toronto a huge WiFi howspot. Interesting concept, certainly, but there are concerns over the safety of having electromagnetic radiation blasting out bodies with disruptive noise. The companies involved are, of course, touting that the WiFi signals are just as safe as TV and radio waves, which is true though I suspect the WiFi field will be a lot stronger than those on which TV and radio signals travel on. Health issues aside, I think a large network like the one proposed could potentially be a good thing. This is a technology that will allow for more free flow of information for those willing to embrace it. I wonder just how secure the network will eventually be...

Canada's immigration laws incorperate a "points" system that seems to make it harder for foriegn religious workers, such as middle eastern and Indian clergy, to stay in the country even if they've been here for 6 or 7 years and have established themselves as pillars of their local communities. To me it sounds like a policy that feeds into our xenophobic culture (in Glorious, Socialist Canada? No way!)