I received an email today alerting me that I could use bar codes to determine the country in which a product was made. The general idea was to spot the items made in China, even if they weren’t so labelled. Perhaps you have seen something similar. Here is the text of the email I got:

The whole world is scared of China made ‘black hearted goods’. Can you differentiate which one is made in the USA , Philippines , Taiwan or China ? For your Information the first 3 digits of the barcode is the country code wherein the product was made.

All barcodes that start with 690, 691, 692 until 695 are all MADE IN CHINA. 471 is Made in Taiwan

This is our human right to know, but the government and related department never educate the public, therefore we have to RESCUE

Nowadays Chinese businessmen know that consumers do not prefer products ‘Made in China’, so they don’t show from which country it is made.

However, you may now refer to the barcode, remember if the first 3 digits is 690-695 then it is Made in China .

BARCODES:
00 ~ 13 USA & Canada
30 ~ 37 France
40 ~ 44 Germany
49 ~ Japan
50 ~ UK
57 ~ Denmark
64 ~ Finland
76 ~ Switzerland and Lichtenstein
628 ~ Saudi-Arabia
629 ~ United Arab Emirates
740 ~ 745 - Central America
All 480 Codes are Made in the Philippines

So is it true? Well according to the Urban Legends (Snopes.com) people, not exactly. First of all, it’s not the bar code that gives you the country information: it’s the EAN or European Article Number. So unless the product you’re looking at buying has an EAN, this whole discussion is moot.

The second problem is that the first two or three digits that represent the country code refer to the country in which the product was registered, not necessarily where it was grown or manufactured. If a product was made in China and then shipped to another country for packaging, then it will not bear the country code for China.

This recalls a problem we have in Canada with items that are labelled “Made in Canada,” as exposed by CBC’s Marketplace in the fall of 2007. Our laws state that as long as a majority of the cost of the product was incurred in Canada, an item can be labelled a product of our country. This includes packaging, and of course advertising expenses. Under this law, food made in China or any other country can be given a “Product of Canada” label as long as the distributor spent most of its money here.

What are we to do? Well, buying local produce is one idea. And how about making our own toys and games, or buying from local artisans and craft sales?

We can also let our shopkeepers know we prefer local products, and tell our governments that laws that allow foreign products to masquerade as made in Canada are no longer acceptable.

The general message of the email rings true: we can’t wait for someone else to tell us what’s safe for our families & what isn’t. It’s up to us to act for change.

Thanks to Dad, who brought this very interesting and timely issue to my attention

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I’m not a big hockey fan, but an article about the Vancouver Canucks caught my eye this morning. The team is breaking with tradition and NHL rules to appoint their goalie captain. Here’s part of the story:

In a move that breaks with tradition, and the NHL rules, the Vancouver Canucks named Roberto Luongo the team’s captain Tuesday, even though the goaltender will not be able to have a C sewn on his uniform.

Coach Alain Vigneault said Luongo’s leadership abilities makes him the obvious choice to become the 12th captain in Canuck history.

“In our mind, for this organization, this is the right thing to do,” said Vigneault. “Roberto is the right individual to be captain.”

Mike Gillis, the rookie Canuck general manager who promised to bring new ideas to the job, said it would be unfair not to let Luongo be captain just because of the position he plays.

“Leaders lead by example,” said Gillis. “Roberto is the leader of this team right now. We felt really strongly about that. To not do something like this means you have a leader that is unrecognized.

“We wanted to make sure he is recognized for his contribution both on and off the ice.”

Luongo, 29, often was Vancouver’s best player last year when the team missed the playoffs for the second time in three years. He said he was stunned when Vigneault first approached him with the idea in September.

“I didn’t expect it when Alain came and asked,” he said. “I was definitely surprised but at the same time I was happy and flattered.”

Rule 6.1 in the NHL rule book says: “No playing coach or playing manager or goalkeeper shall be permitted to act as captain or alternate captain.”

For those who wonder why a goalie can’t be team captain, there is a practical reason:

There have been six goaltenders named as NHL team captains. The last was Bill Durnan of the Montreal Canadiens during the 1947-48 season.

The league passed a rule preventing goalies from being a captain prior to the 1948-49 season. One of the concerns was Durnan left his crease so often to speak with officials it gave his team unscheduled timeouts during a game.

So the team has come up with a creative solution that will allow for all the duties of captain to be fulfilled, while Luongo remains in the crease:

To remain within the rules, Luongo will not wear a C on his jersey. To compensate, the Canucks named defencemen Mattias Ohlund and Willie Mitchell, plus forward Ryan Kesler, as assistant captains. It will be their jobs to discuss calls with officials and take ceremonial faceoffs.

“He (Luongo) is not going to come out of his crease,” Vigneault said with a grin. “We’ve already come to the agreement that opening faceoffs will be Mattias’s because he’s the longest running Canuck.

“Since (Mitchell) likes to talk the most, we’ll have him talk to the referees.”

Gillis said he told the NHL about the Canucks plan and they offered no objections.

Luongo said he isn’t bothered he won’t have a letter on his sweater.

“It really doesn’t change anything for me,” he said. “It’s a matter of people knowing I’m captain. At the same time, I’m sure it involves a lot more stuff off the ice.”

Children are so often confronted with rules that prevent them from doing something that is very important to them, and most of the time it seems their only choices are to abide by the rules or to break them and risk the consequences. As a parent and an educator, I like to teach my kids that things are rarely so black & white.

There are usually shades of grey, and if a child can present an alternative to a parent or teacher he may just discover that things are negotiable. He may have to give up something else, but that might get him the thing he wants more. Just as Luongo can’t wear the “C” on his team sweater, but he does get to assume the role of the leader of his teammates.

Creative problem solving is basically that “thinking outside the box” phenomenon that we hear so much about these days. Employers value an employee who can find creative solutions to work around an impasse - whether it be a matter of regulations, finances or physics. And in community building a leader who has the imagination to work around difficulties instead of giving up or blaming others, is a person who will be rewarded with both loyalty and a healthier community. The team management of the Canucks is demonstrating this sort of thinking outside the box, and also doing a great job of assigning jobs that suit each player’s abilities. Recognizing what a person is good at, and knowing when to split one job up and assign parts of it to several different people, is good human resource management.

This story demonstrates a very abstract concept in a way that a child can understand it. I hope those who have hockey fans in the family will share the article, and discuss how the team used creative problem solving to do what they wanted to find a very workable compromise.

Source: “Canucks break tradition, NHL rules, in naming Luongo team captain” (Jim Morris, The Canadian Press)

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I had to remind my girls several times this morning to get their chores done. They do tend to get distracted most mornings, and when they’ve scattered to the four corners of the house leaving the table littered with their breakfast dishes Mama is generally less than pleased with her young’uns.

When I called out to see where they’d gotten to, I was thinking of all the things that need to get done today . With their first drama class bright & early tomorrow morning, and Ju-Jutsu tomorrow night we’ve got extra laundry to wash, snacks to prepare, clothes to lay out, bus schedules to verify….

Playing hide and seek with the kids was not what I wanted to be doing, knowing just how busy the rest of this week is going to be.

When I called out I expected the girls would be messing about in the kitchen or their brother’s room, or in their own rooms hauling out every garment they own before they decide what to wear.

What a surprise I got, when they all came away from the television with their heads hung low.

All together watching TV, I can picture. But this morning they hadn’t tuned in the cartoons. They weren’t watching a DVD on the sly instead of getting ready for our morning’s study. What was so interesting that they couldn’t tear themselves away to do the chores they knew very well they are expected to do each & every day?

The morning news!

I ask you, how can a mother get angry at that? My littlest, only four years old, came trotting over & pulled herself up into my lap as I sat at my desk trying to decide just what to say to them. “It’s going to be sunny weather all the rest of the week, Mama!” she cried excitedly.

My preschooler was taking pleasure in the weather forecast?

I guess we must be doing something right….

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The Montreal Homelearners web site, and the community that has grown up around it, are the focus of an article in Montreal Families Magazine this month. The article by Liz Warwick looks at how technology benefits homeschooling families. Here’s an excerpt:

[H]omeschooling families often face a series of challenges when it comes to finding resources, be it math textbooks or lab equipment, as well as linking up with other families who share their passion.

But thanks to a website created by Montreal mom Sonya Olthof, homeschoolers have a new way to connect with each other. The site is called Montreal Homelearners (www.montrealhomelearners.ca) and is designed to make homeschooling easier for families.

“I wanted to make the (homeschooling) community more accessible and the Internet was such a logical place to start,” Olthof says. With help from her techno-savvy husband, she set up the site in early 2008.

Read the whole article here.

Thanks so very much to Sonya for all the work she has poured into our community, and for the wonderful way she brings us all together - not just online, but face to face as well. You’re a blessing & a wonderful friend!

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Michael Moore’s Slacker Uprising has been released for free viewing. If you are in the US or Canada you can get a free copy here.

Here are the rules for usage:

“I’m giving you my blanket permission to not only download it, but also to email it, burn it, and share it with anyone and everyone (in the U.S. and Canada only). I want you to use ‘Slacker Uprising’ in any way you see fit to help with the election or to do the work that you do in your community. You can show my film in your local theater, your high school classroom, your college auditorium, your church, union hall or community center. You can have your friends and neighbors over to the house for a viewing. You can broadcast it on TV, on cable access, on regular channels or on the web. It’s completely free — I don’t want to see a dime from this. And if you want, you can charge admission or ask for a donation if it’s to raise money for a candidate, a voter drive, or for any non-profit or educational purpose. In other words — it’s yours!” (emphasis mine)

- Michael Moore

As you can see, Mr. Moore is looking to see more folks getting out to the polls this year. Let’s see if we can’t help him make that wish come true!

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!