With encouragement, you can do your best
In 2015 I participated in my first organized run. My son was enthusiastically training for the Royal Victoria half marathon and said to me “you could go in the eight kilometre run.”
I was a consistent and fast walker but had no training or experience with running. I didn’t own proper shoes but it sounded like more fun than standing on the sideline holding his jacket, so I signed up as a 72-year-old.
I didn’t know what to expect on race day but I quickly learned that you become established in a pace group and shift positions within the group.
I realized I was going from leader to follower with one woman in particular. About halfway through I said to her we should cross the finish line together.
She didn’t disagree and we carried on exchanging positions. With the end in sight she said she was going to run the rest of the way.
I tried to keep up but when she saw me faltering she grabbed my wrist and brought me across the finish line with her. I was so grateful!
It’s a wonderful memory and it started me on an enjoyable cycle of preparing for five-, eight- and 10-kilometre events during the following years.
I send my best wishes to all first-time runners, especially seniors, in this year’s event. I hope you find the encouragement you need to do your best.
Karen Hamblett
Surrey
Investing is a risky business
Re: “Day trader in Sooke files lawsuit claiming $415M loss,” Oct. 8.
So let me get this straight. A Sooke carpenter in his 30s who was still renting an apartment and investing in Tesla stock since his early 20s, managed to reach a stock value of almost $50 million.
Instead of cashing out and being richer than any of us would dare dream, he decides he wants more?
Instead of liquidating his stock, buying a house, and still have tens of millions of dollars left over, he approaches the bank and financial advisers and leaves the stock alone, takes out a loan for the house, and continues to buy more Tesla shares.
The shares reach $415 million and still he doesn’t cash out. Then the stocks plummet and he loses everything.
Sure that’s a devastating loss, but who on earth needs more than $50 million, let alone $415 million? Why did he hold out for more?
And investing in the stock market is a very volatile business. That’s the nature of the beast. I feel for the guy, but sheesh…
Richard Konopasek
Victoria
No place here for nuclear energy
Please can we get off the nuclear power track since it is completely irrelevant to B.C.’s future? The recent comments on the place of nuclear in moderating climate change focus on the wrong target.
The safety of the technology is not the issue. Nuclear technology has proved to be extraordinarily safe, the three major accidents due to a toxic mixture of politics, incompetent owners and operators’ mistakes, not to the technology itself.
The technology was not at fault, even in the badly designed, old-fashioned reactor at Chornobyl.
Examples which should be shown are those of the EDF’s nuclear operations in France which have produced two-thirds of France’s power for many years without any incident affecting the public, or Canada’s experience with the Candu systems which have also produced power reliably for many years.
The correct issue for us is whether or not B.C. needs nuclear power. Most countries, rightly, regard nuclear as the last option in producing clean power. It’s expensive, difficult to construct, operationally complex, and must be used as baseline generation in large blocks of power as a centralised facility even when in the form of “mini” reactors.
It has a place in the portfolio but not everywhere and certainly not in B.C. Our west coast is ideally situated for wind power and hydraulic storage; suitable geography, no lightning storms, no ice storms and plenty of wind.
Wind energy could supplement the existing hydro installations to accommodate any future requirements at a cost (and timescale) well below any nuclear alternative.
Since the optimum areas for wind generation are on Indigenous territory, participation in wind energy projects would be also an excellent economic opportunity for First Nations.
Let’s leave the agonizing over nuclear to areas in the rest of the world that might need it and concentrate instead on the obvious, fully green alternative, for our homes in B.C.
Alec Mitchell
Victoria
The real meanings of ‘bail’ and ‘conditions’
Re: “Man arrested for disturbance found with knife, axe,” Oct. 8.
The brief item revealed a great deal about the state of our city, province, country. A man was found with an axe and knife, and a short investigation revealed he was on bail under conditions not to possess, you guessed it, an axe or knife. So far, so normal.
The next sentence is the kicker:
“He was held for a bail hearing and released by the court with several conditions.”
Zing! A light went on. The problem is not the man with the axe; the problem is the court. The court does not understand what the word “conditions” means. I’m guessing it is also ignorant concerning the meaning of “bail.”
If you violate the “conditions” your “bail” is revoked! It seems almost too simple, but evidently it is more than our judges can wrap their minds around.
Still, the situation shouldn’t be irreparable. Perhaps it can be fixed by simply assigning a weekend seminar (attendance mandatory) in which the meaning of these two words are reviewed and reinforced for the Solomons who preside over our courts.
Not a monumental undertaking, but one with tremendous potential for a better world for everyone.
Michel Murray
Saanich
Greens have real plans to pay for programs
Adrian Raeside’s recent cartoon depicted the Greens as being tax greedy, but I would like to point out that the Greens are the only one out of three parties that has revealed plans to pay for proposed programs.
As of today, I don’t believe any other party has addressed the revenue side of the provincial budget.
David Pearce
Victoria
Trees need someone to stand up for them
I am tired of living in a city that speaks out of both sides of its mouth when it comes to protecting trees. On the one hand we have the City of Victoria’s website, which trumpets its devotion to the urban forest and stresses our credentials as a “Tree City of the World.”
Under our Tree Protection Bylaw landowners must obtain a permit to remove or alter mature specimens or else face hefty fines. Our Parks and Recreation department goes to elaborate measures to preserve boulevard trees, and runs frequent tree tours in city parks (highly recommended, by the way), where arbourists tout the benefits of old trees and explain how to look after them.
On the other hand we have city council, which recently gave permission to a real estate developer to cut down 28 mature trees at 902 Foul Bay Road and now wants to remove the magnificent sequoia that graces Centennial Square, providing shade and pleasure while locking in carbon.
Most people understand that diseased or dying trees, or those that stand in the way of necessary infrastructure projects such as water mains, need to be taken down. The argument for removing City Hall’s sequoia is much harder to stomach. We are told (by the head of Parks and Recreation, no less) that its removal will contribute to improved sightlines over a refurbished town square. If you’re standing on Douglas Street opposite Centennial Square, would you rather be looking at a huge, mature, healthy sequoia, or gazing at an expanse of bare concrete with drug deals going down?
Would somebody at City Hall please stand up for the trees?
Barbara Abercrombie
Victoria
Trees are vital to the environment
Re: “Saplings not as good as a mature sequoia,” letter, Oct. 8.
The writer makes excellent points and I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t speak up. Destroying this healthy mature tree, and others like it, is, at best, poorly informed and, at worst, wilfully ignorant.
In addition to all the letter’s good points is the fact that trees create rain. By releasing water through transpiration and releasing fungal spores, pollen, bacterial cells and other particles that collect moisture for cloud formation, trees actually increase rainfall.
Healthy, mature trees are masters at this. Saplings take a long time to mature, if they survive at all, and time is not on our side as we experience the effects of climate change.
Where is the “revitalization” plan that leaves the sequoia in place, thus putting us in relationship with the trees’ ecological process? Here’s a golden opportunity to step up and be part of the change we need to see!
Val Murray
Cordova Bay
Goldstream bypass should be built
I am sure most drivers are familiar with the terrible traffic congestion that occurs when two lanes of traffic try to squeeze down to one going both north and south through the Goldstream canyon.
This is a very busy highway, carrying 26,000 vehicles a day and even more in the summer. We badly need a four-lane bypass to the west of the present highway; I think it would be a shame to put four lanes through the canyon itself.
There are several possible routes as shown by the 2007 Stantec Engineering report.
I urge everyone talking to the local candidates to bring this issue to their attention and press for quick action. It is inevitable that four lanes must be built, as traffic is only going to increase.
We need this highway built.
Lou de Macedo
North Saanich
Simple solution to three problems
Three items in last week’s newspapers caught my eye: crowded legislature, housing (again) and ferries (naturally).
Here is my suggestion that might help alleviate all three.
Make Vancouver Island Canada’s 11th province and leave B.C. on the mainland. Prince Edward Island is a province and Vancouver Island is more than five times larger in area and more than four times greater in population.
This would send more than 60 politicians and their attendant staff to Vancouver where most of the government work is done anyway, creating oodles of room in the legislature buildings.
Those who moved to the mainland for their work would free up houses, condos, apartments thus easing the strain on the housing shortage here. Sure, it would be a dump on Metro Vancouver, but they are big boys over there and can handle it.
It could give Vancouver Island a chance to create a new government all on its own. Let’s try a no-party style like the northern governments.
The people elect the best 15 or 17 or 19 people who then elect their premier. Those elected would be responsible to the electors, not to a party.
Ferries would remain under the control of B.C. Ferries (more staff moving to the mainland) but now ferries would be operating interprovincially and would receive the same federal subsidies that the ferries receive on the East Coast.
So by becoming Canada’s 11th province we unsqueeze the legislature, increase housing availability and reduce ferry fares.
Alan Hoey
Oak Bay
Think cyclists are bad? Look at our drivers
Times Colonist readers seem to just love to write in and complain bitterly about “scofflaw” cyclists breaking all the rules — and getting away with it too! — because of their unlicensed status. Yet I fail to see how the “licensed” behaviour of the typical car driver in Victoria is something to be proud of or emulate.
Working downtown, I have routinely witnessed the venerable drivers of Victoria tear through dense downtown streets at speeds upwards of 60 kilometres an hour, running stale yellow or even red lights.
Or my favourite — turning the wrong way down a one-way street and going half a block against oncoming traffic, before realizing the dangerous error of their ways.
None of this behaviour is ever ticketed or penalized by the (apparently never well-funded enough!) Victoria Police Department, to my knowledge, but it greatly contributes to the degradation of the quality of life of the rest of us — the pedestrians, and yes, the many, many cyclists of Victoria.
Maybe we should be taking away the licences of drivers who speed through downtown streets or otherwise engage in anti-social behaviour with their vehicles against the rest of us, as it doesn’t appear that licensing makes one a better user of the roads anyway.
Rob Rao
Vic West
Deep in debt and giving money away
Gee, if Premier David Eby’s NDP government should win the next election, he is promising a $1,000 grocery rebate to every household in B.C.
That money will sure come in handy.
But the government is in debt to the tune of $93 billion.
Should I feel guilty about receiving $1,000 from someone who should be declaring bankruptcy?
Lia Fraser
Victoria
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