the spreading of ideas, information, or rumour for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person
– Merriam-Webster Online

Propaganda in this form is all around us. Corporations use it to try and convince us that their brand is “5 times better than the leading brand.” Governments use it in attempts to inform the public and create awareness of causes or issues. This article aims to reiterate some of the lessons from the book with a particular case study that hits close to home for Torontonians: TTC salaries. Before delving in to this topic, however, allow me this small disclaimer: I am not justifying TTC salaries with my argument. I am simply trying to bring to light the fact that information can (and often is) misrepresented to further a cause or make a point. I hope that you take from this article a better understanding of analyzing information and coming to your own conclusions independently.

Here is our case study: http://kromagg.org/TTC_Salaries.htm

Take a moment to read through this full page and come to a conclusion about it. Think particularly about what its trying to say about TTC salaries, and what position it takes. Continue reading once you’ve done this.

Welcome back! So, what did you think? The page starts off by listing the names, positions, salaries and taxable benefits of 548 TTC employees, then lists its sources at the bottom and some statistics about the table, as well as average salaries of health care workers for comparison. What is it saying? I’m not absolutely sure of the author’s intentions, but I think its safe to say that this page is implying that TTC workers (with an average salary of around $113,000!) make a lot more money than nurses, doctors, and other health care workers. How can that be? Why would transit employees make more than doctors?

Our first indication of misrepresentation of facts is that there are only 548 people listed here. Surely the TTC employs more people than that to transport thousands of people daily! According to the TTC’s website, it employs “more than 11,000″ people¹. It is apparent, just by thinking about this, that the sample size of the page is fairly small. How small? Well, let’s calculate the percentage.

(548 ÷ 11,000) × 100

This is a percentage calculation. What do you get? I get 4.98. This calculation, of course, assumes the TTC employs exactly 11,000 people. 4.98 is a percentage, meaning 548 is 4.98% of 11,000. This list of salaries represents only 4.98% of the TTC’s workforce. The next question you could ask is, what portion of the workforce does this represent? The highest paid? The lowest paid? Somewhere in the middle? A bit of investigating gives us our answer. Click on the link in the page next to “Source: Public Sector Salary Disclosure 2009″ (link provided here for ease).

This page, on the Government of Ontario’s website, links to various government reports from 2008. It clearly states, in the first or second paragraph:

The Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act requires organizations that receive public funding from the Province of Ontario to disclose annually the names, positions, salaries and total taxable benefits of employees paid $100,000 or more in a calendar year.

Indeed, this law requires publicly funded organizations to disclose information about employees who are paid more than $100,000 or more per year. What does this mean? The TTC employees listed on this page are the highest paid ones, representing only 5% of the TTC’s workforce. The other 95% makes less than $100,000 per year.  This essentially renders the statistics on the page pointless. What is the point in saying that the average salary of the top 5% paid TTC employees is $113,000? We could go in to further detail by spending some time researching to find out the actual average salary, but I’ll let it at that. Perhaps I can dive in to that in another article.

As for the health care comparisons, they too are bogus. As the saying goes, it’s apples and oranges. It compares the average income of all health care workers across the country with the highest paid TTC workers. Not to mention that the health care professional income statistics are from 8 years prior. I think its reasonable to assume that health care salaries have risen since 2000 to account for inflation and the rising cost of living.

As you can see, information can be misrepresented to create false implications. This may be done intentionally, but it may also be done unintentionally. I am not trying to accuse the author of that page (whoever it may be) of falsifying information. It is entirely possible that he or she feels strongly about transit spending and jumped to conclusions when they were presented with this information, and created this page without proper analysis.

One could argue that my article in itself is propaganda. Indeed, I wrote it with the intention of influencing you, the reader. I will be the first to admit to this accusation. I will also clearly state my intention, which is to influence you to believe that careful analysis of information is vital if we want our decisions and opinions on matters such as transit spending to be based on facts and not hearsay, anecdotes or misrepresented information. It took me only 5 minutes to read the source of the information and find that it is indeed inaccurate.

¹ http://www3.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Operating_Statistics/2008.jsp under “Key Facts”

On the writing front, I haven’t accomplshed anything. I have way too many things going on, so much so that I need to limit them.

In any case, I’m currently putting together some musings that I promise I will post in the next week. I have a few ideas, but essentially its a matter of choosing one and exploring it.

(more…)

Oh, right, its February. I forgot. So, I’ve put together this cool feature on my site where I can email in my blog entry from my Blackberry (which I’m doing right now) and it automagically posts to my blog. Spiffy, huh?

A lot has happened in the last few months. Unfortunately, my interest in writing has fallen off of the face of my brain. Its still lingering around somewhere, but its definitely not as prominent. In its place is probably a strange candidate: cars.

I finally got around to getting my license, and signed up for an Auto Mechanics class in night school. Its just a short course, more for hobbyists (like myself) than people looking to become professional mechanics. This is just a hobby for me, though who knows what could happen down the road (pun intended). Computers started out as a hobby, didn’t it? And look where I am (software developer in the film industry for those who didn’t know).

So, yes, I am venturing in to the realm of the automobile. I have a number of small repairs to do on the car (Angie’s) and have already done a bit of exploring. I’m hoping that at some point the car becomes mine, so that I may pursue some interesting projects, such as a car PC. More on that later.

I haven’t been very active on my blog. Well, not active at all actually. But, with this new found interest. I think I will blog more regularly about my venture. As I discover and learn new things, I shall share it with you, my few (if any) readers, for no reason other than I feel inspired to document my progress.

Stay tuned!

In other news, keep an eye out for Episode 2 of Blind Utopia in the coming weeks. There’s also a few new ideas bubbling to the surface, though its too early to comment on those.

Living among the ruins of their ancient forefathers, the J’Raen tribe lives a peaceful existence. The teachings describe a place of unknowable evils, forbidding tribe members from going beyond the Great Wall. When a group of masked men invade the tribe’s boundaries, their small world is shattered. Women and children, who bear the miracles of life, are savagely murdered.

Going against the teachings, the chief orders an expedition to discover the origins of the attack. As the tribe prepares for a ruthless counterattack, a young woman who refuses to believe the attack was random searches frantically for answers. The survival of the tribe rests on her shoulders, as she must discover the truth behind the attack before countless boys and men risk their lives against an unknown danger that lies beyond the Great Wall.

By the end of the year, I will have written the rough drafts for a novella and a novel (the former resulting from the 3 Day Novel Contest; the latter from NaNoWriMo) and released a minimum of four episodes of Blind Utopia (one per month).

For Blind Utopia, I hope to release a new episode on the 20th of every month, and maintain that schedule consistently.

That, my friends, is a shit ton of writing.

I’m already at work on the rough draft of Episode 2, which should go by much faster than the first, now that I’ve made those first leaps.

Comments, criticisms, suggestions and any other feedback are welcome and appreciated. I hope you enjoy it.